Getting Ready for a Big Birthday Bash!

Getting Ready For a Big Birthday Bash. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Oregon's sesquicentennial celebration is now underway and will include the life and times of the agriculture industry. Statehood was attained 150 years ago, but agriculture in Oregon predates the year 1859. A major attraction for settlers coming west was the lure of agriculture and all that Oregon could produce. That heritage continues today and can be part of the sesquicentennial celebration.

MAC GREGOR:  Take a drive five minutes outside any city in the state, and what do you see? It's hazelnut and cherry orchards, wide open fields of wheat and fescue, 100 year old farms, hundreds and hundreds of acres of land that are in production and well cared for.

Madeline MacGregor is the Oregon Department of Agriculture's representative to the Century Farm and Ranch Program. She says farmers and ranchers are part of Oregon's past, present, and future.

MAC GREGOR:  Oregon's ability to survive another 150 years of statehood will be based on the contributions of its agricultural producers.

As part of Oregon's birthday party, there will be a recognition of 19 family farms in the state that have been in continuous operation for 150 years. More than a thousand other operations are officially recognized as century farms and ranches in Oregon. As Oregonians celebrate the sesquicentennial, it's important to remember that at the root of it all is agriculture. MacGregor says every time an Oregonian consumes food, they can celebrate agriculture by thanking a farmer.

MAC GREGOR: Oregon can really celebrate agriculture every single day with the most basic activities. There are so many ways to create a celebration of awareness within your own household. Talk to your children about where there food might come from.

MacGregor says Oregon's sesquicentennial celebration can and should include the experience of agriculture.

MAC GREGOR: Our state's park systems own and operate several living heritage programs, and your children can experience what it was like to farm a hundred years ago. It's easy to come up with an activity that connects you in a more personal way to agriculture.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.