10-18 NWR NW Farm Implosions

10-18 NWR NW Farm Implosions

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
This is your Northwest Report for Tuesday, October 18th, I'm David Sparks and according to oregonlive.com., Oregon is in the midst of a land crisis that could affect the state's second-largest industry if it continues, according to a new report. Several factors are colliding to jeopardize two-thirds, or 10.5 million acres, of Oregon's family-owned farmland: Farmers are aging and beginning growers can't afford the skyrocketing land prices to replace the older generation. Left unchecked, those trends are opening the way for investment firms and out-of-state companies to scoop up tracts from retiring farmers.

Hazelnut farmer Nellie McAdams suggests that "For our state's long term environmental welfare, having owner-operators close to the land and able to steward it is an important value to Oregonians." She continues that state and federal agencies need to act now, because the turnover has already started and will only worsen in the next decade. It's not like the crisis is coming, we're in the middle of it. And we're just trying to report about that and incite action now."

Land use specialist Jim Johnson of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, noting that most farms are family operated, says that's concerning: "So change in ownerships, especially with issues of whether or not the younger generation wants to farm or not, is a real issue and what's going to happen to that land base." Farming and ranching families have been battling this trend for at least a decade now.

Elsewhere, and of particular relevance to NW tree fruit farmers, new measures to protect honey bees and fewer crop uses are included in the latest registration of sulfoxaflor, a Dow AgroSciences insecticide that was cancelled last year.

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