Oregon ditches farm stand regulations after public outcry

By CLAIRE CARLSON
Of the Oregon Capital Chronicle

Oregon’s countryside comes alive during farm season. Tulips in the spring, berry-picking in the summer and pumpkin patches in the fall attract visitors to the bucolic farm stands that dot the Willamette Valley and beyond.

But as crowds have gotten denser, with reports of hours-long traffic on single-lane roads at the most popular farms, some legislators are seeking solutions to mitigate the effect of agritourism in agricultural zones.

A recent rulemaking process from the Department of Land and Conservation Development could have limited what can be sold at farm stands, but an outsized public response to the potential rules put the process on an indefinite pause.

Legislators are still deliberating over how to move forward with the rulemaking — or if they should at all, considering the controversy it caused.

One of the groups at the center of the debate was 1000 Friends of Oregon, a nonprofit organization that advocates for land use planning. They participated in the rulemaking advisory committee that was meant to inform legislators on a number of agritourism issues, not just farm stand policies.

The group said the pause was the result of a misunderstanding about what the rulemaking was intended to do.

“It’s not about saying no to things like agritourism,” said Anna Kemper, membership experience manager of 1000 Friends of Oregon. “It’s about managing impact, making sure that one farm’s business model doesn’t negatively impact others.”

From March to July, the rulemaking advisory committee convened monthly to discuss one or two agritourism issues and then make a recommendation to the Land Conservation and Development Commission, which implements state land use rules.

But in recent months, the discussion focused primarily on farm stand regulations after one of the members of the committee — the Oregon Property Owners Association — sponsored a bill that would have expanded what’s sold at farm stands.

The group’s goal was to address “longstanding confusion” over farm stand policies, like a rule that says three-quarters of a farm stand’s products must be sourced from the farm, but is unclear on what exactly counts under that rule.

But one Yamhill County farmer said the group’s goal to expand farm stand allowances would have “blown out the sideboards on farm stands.”

That’s according to Sid Friedman, a hay farmer and board member of the land use planning and policy organization Friends of Yamhill County. He served on a legislative working group that eventually led to the rulemaking process on farm stands.

Friedman was worried about the cumulative impact of using farm stands to sell not just farm products but other activities like weddings, concerts and farm-to-table dinners in Oregon’s farmland.

“The cumulative impacts of all these commercial uses, which aren’t farming in the exclusive farm-use zone, is driving up the price of farmland here in Yamhill County and around the state,” Friedman said. “Somebody who just wants to farm can’t compete with what people who want to put in a commercial venue can pay for the land.”

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