Marijuana and the Right to Farm

Marijuana is a Farm Crop.    Farmers have a right to farm.

Marijuana is bringing money into southern Oregon. It is putting thousands of people to work.   It is making farming profitable.  

It fulfills a promise I made 35 years ago and had not been able to keep, until now.

Elected in 1980, notwithstanding the Reagan landslide.  I said I would protect farm land.

Some people are fighting the new crop.  Some disapprove of marijuana per se.  Some people with rural homesites prefer a vista of fallow ground or a marginal crop like grass or alfalfa to the sight of an intensive, high value marijuana grow site.   It is an old battle, between the farmer who wants to farm profitably, and the rural neighbor who wants to look at serene open space.

By coincidence, I was on the front lines of that battle, 35 years ago, when I was a County Commissioner.  I am here again today.

For decades local governments and the Chamber of Commerce have sought high margin businesses that would stimulate the local economy, put people to work, protect the rural landscape, allow independent entrepreneurs to flourish, and use the natural assets of the region.   We stumbled into it.  Marijuana.  

Lots of people are unhappy.

I have an up close view of farming in southern Oregon.   My family has had a small farm since 1883, which I now own.  I have grown melons for decades, moving the crop to new ground on a 7 year rotation.  I was also Jackson County Commissioner in 1981-85 when we adopted a Comprehensive Land Use Plan that changed the zoning of most land that could support agriculture from a rural residential zone into an Exclusive Farm Use zone. 

Hard work.  Great melons.  Little money.

EFU zoning generally meant the land could not be divided into small parcels, and homes could only rarely be built within those zones.  The result was a dramatic loss of value.  (An 100 acre parcel that could be divided into twenty mini-farms of 5-acres each might have been worth $1,000,000 back in 1980.  And the farm could easily have been part of an inheritance for several children, each one getting a share of the whole.   But after re-zoning into an indivisible parcel that needed to be farmed, not divided, that 100 acre parcel would have been worth perhaps $100,000, not a million, and it created an unsolvable problem for an estate with several heirs.

Rural residents were furious. They recalled--removed from office early--a predecessor and threatened it of me.  

There were two consolations for farmers, but they were not enough.   One is that EFU zoning meant that actual farm land was taxed at a very low rate.  The other was that farmers were allowed actually to farm.   I helped draft the language that required all rural deeds give notice that EFU land was exclusive farm use, not a rural park or county club, and that farming involved crop smells, dust, machinery, noise from wind machines and mowing equipment, pesticides, herbicides, animal sounds and smells, insects, early and late hours.  Neighbors were on notice.   The farmer could pursue farm profits.  Cattle make manure, wind machines make noise.  No problem for the farmer because the farmer's rights came first.  It was EFU land.

Valley View Vineyard.  More than a pretty view.  It is a place of work.

Forty years ago grape production and a winery was controversial in southern Oregon.  It was new and alcohol is a psycho-active substance that creates problems.  Now, of course,  wine tourism is big business.  From a farmland owner's perspective, grapes and wine production has been a huge boon.  Land that was marginal grass or alfalfa for many farmers, and useless for vegetables, was ideal for grapes. (Note that some farmers and some situations do very well with grass hay and alfalfa and actually make money.  Every farm is different.)  Prosperous people buy hillside farms and put a vineyard and winery on it.   It was a revolution in farm marketability.  Farmland became valuable, at long last.

A similar thing is happening with farms that have land suitable for marijuana.   A grow site of one acre can be leased for $20,000 to $30,000 for the season.  Farms that have been unprofitable for decades finally, at long last, can show income, now thanks to a crop that has high margin: marijuana.

Some people dislike this.  Farmers are "selling out for money."  But another way to look at this is that farmland will never sustain itself as a playground of hobbyists who made money elsewhere and then own a farm for its scenic value.  If we want farms in Oregon then they need to be able to make money somehow.   That was the deal the county made with farmers back in 1983 when I signed the Comprehensive Land Use Ordinance.  Between wine and marijuana the promise that the state and county made to farmers, that we were locking in farmland as farmland, and that it was for their own good, has finally been made a reality.

Back, in the distance, temporary worker housing.  Neighbors object to seeing it.

But there are problems:  some people who live in rural areas hate marijuana per se.  Others dislike the sight of a productive marijuana grow, with bags of soil amendments and drip irrigation systems, because it looks like a worksite, not a serene green field.  Others dislike the reality that the crop must be protected from thieves.  Others protest the smell of the crop, likening it to a neighbor with a dairy farm..  Stories are emerging of neighborhood conflicts, with farmers intimidated by threats of nuisance lawsuits by prosperous neighbors, and neighbors protesting that their views have been changed.  I have heard other stores of farmers being told that farm workers appear to be "not our kind of people."   Farmers have been scared off growing marijuana for those reasons.

Oregon Right To Farm Law

Who is right?  Whose interests should come first?  That question was answered by the state and local governments thirty five years ago.  The farmer comes first.  The farmer has a right to seek a profitable crop.  The person who hates smells and dust and noise and the sight of farm workers should live elsewhere.  EFU land is for farming.   And marijuana is profitable, for now and farmers have a right to seek farm profits.

The economics of marijuana growing are in transition.   This may just be a crazy boom and the price of marijuana will plummet, and the price of leased land will fall along with that.  We know that story.  Jacksonville and Gold Hill, two towns in southern Oregon, were boom towns.  They flourished, then the gold ran out and the towns became near-ghost towns.   But for now, people who want to hire farm workers cannot find enough of them.   Wages for farm workers have gone up to $15 an hour.  Farm workers are in demand.  People who put in irrigation systems are working overtime.   People who sell fertilizers and soil amendments are rushing to fill orders.   There are help wanted signs everywhere.

Owners of EFU land once again have something of value in their farm land--if state and local law protects them and their ability to do what their land is zoned to do--farm.   

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