Hemp smells. It's OK.

"Can't we get some balance between the hemp farmers and the neighbors who don't like the smell of it?"

Yes. We already struck that balance 36 years ago. Farmers can farm.

Besides, it is better than a dairy.

I have sympathy for the people who don't like the smell of hemp. It does smell.. People who farm hemp can assert that the smell is pleasant or that is faint, and I happen to agree. But I also acknowledge the obvious: it has an odor. 

Built next to farms. The farms are still there.

There will be ongoing public debate about balancing the wishes of neighbors and the wishes of farmers. We already had that debate in 1981-82. I happened to have been in the middle of it as the Chair of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners. We enacted the omnibus land use ordinance that described that balance.

Here is the ordinance: Click Here. The Exclusive Farm Use part starts on page 124.

Under state land use laws the county nearly stopped all divisions and development on farm lands in Jackson Country to protect the agricultural resource. It wasn't popular. It dramatically reduced the value of rural land and it reduced landowner flexibility. The landowner could no longer divide land between heirs. A landowner could no longer sell off some land to pay bills or retire. A landowner would likely not be able to build a house on it. All they could do is farm.

The ordinance described why we did this: "This district is intended to preserve, enhance, and stabilize agricultural areas within Jackson County which are being used for, or offer the greatest potential for, food and fiber production."

Rural landowners paid a gigantic price. Now, 38 years later, we see the results. There is green space all over the Valley floor. We have farms, vineyards, orchards. The area between Medford and Jacksonville is largely open. That area had been on track to be cut up into 5-acre "ranchettes" and suburban sprawl. Instead, the growth was directed toward the cities and the agricultural land is still agricultural. 

Many vocal rural landowners felt robbed. Their land itself wasn't taken, but much of its value had been. They were given two small consolation prizes: farm taxation, and protection of their right to try to farm their land.

The county required deeds to be placed on dwellings built near farms warning of pesticide and herbicide spraying, application of manure, smoke, odor, noise and much more. (full text below).

Southern Oregon, October 2018

The Oak Grove School was built amid farms. Formerly the land was planted in other crops, some of which created pollen which may have created allergies for staff and students; orchards which may have created smoke, sprays, and noise; farm animals which created manure smells; dust when plowed or harrowed. Now it is planted in hemp, which smells.

What is the balance between the farmer and neighbor? The farmer comes first. 

Ideally the farmer is a considerate neighbor and doesn't intentionally make things miserable for neighbors, and that is my near-universal observation about farmers. But hemp's odor is not an error or a failure of good farming practices. It is a feature of hemp. 

Milk comes from dairies. Cow manure is not an error on dairy farms. It's a feature there, too.

There was a dairy farm next to Princeton University, when I visited there in the late 1960s. It smelled when wind came from that direction. Students told me they lived with it, that it was the price of living in the glorious countryside.

What can Oak Grove School do? They can learn to live with it and ignore it and maybe even decide they like it. People here celebrate pears, but pear orchards have multiple nuisances we live with. Wisconsin calls itself America's Dairyland, and also America's Cow Manure Land, but they accentuate the positive. 

The school can try to wall themselves off from it with indoor air filters, which the local newspaper suggested, an imperfect solution. It codifies the premise that the smell is bad or dangerous--like forest fire smoke--and kids don't really avoid it because they play outside, then go home in that neighborhood. This is a dangerous precedent.

Shortly hemp may get replaced with something else that makes more money, e.g. almonds, hazelnuts, grapes, grain, or pumpkins. (There is no money in melons. I have determined that already.) Those crops will have their own nuisances. Almonds need bees. Some kid might get stung. Pear blossoms have pollen. We deal with it with a parade.

Bottom line: The hemp smell in late summer is new. People may simply get used to it and decide it is part of the natural environment. What the public, policymakers, and government officials should not do is think it is an intolerable nuisance to wall themselves off from, nor that they must make rules to strike a new balance between farmers and city folk living near farms. That balance has been struck and rural landowners lost. All they had left was the ability to farm.

Let them farm. Let the school be next to the glorious countryside.

Below: the full text of the deed declaration required by the ordinance:                 

"Declarant and declarant's heirs, legal representatives, assigns,and lessees hereby acknowledge and agree to accept by theplacement of this covenant or the acceptance and recording of this instrument that the property herein described is situated near orupon land zoned Exclusive Farm Use, and as such may be subjected to common, customary, and accepted farming practices such as the operation of an orchard, feedlot, or dairy farm, any of which may engage in pesticide and herbicide spraying, weed cutting,irrigation, application of manure, fertilizer, orchard heating,and any other accepted and customary farm practices. Said practices listed above ordinarily and necessarily produce noise, dust, spray residue, smudge smoke, vapor, and other types of visual, odor, or noise pollution which declarant accepts as a normal and necessary farming practice and as part of the risk of purchasing a structure and living in a farm area. Jackson County shall be a party to this declaration, which cannot be removed or modified without written consent of the County."