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.”
These concerns led to the most recent feedback from the rulemaking advisory committee, which toned down the farm stand rules the Oregon Property Owners Association was pushing for. Notably, the feedback recommended an impact assessment on neighboring properties of any farm stand wanting to pursue agritourism activities.
DLCD was expected to release a draft rule to follow this feedback on Sept. 1. But in late July, several farms around Oregon rang alarm bells on social media about the potential rules, spurring more than 2,300 emails and phone calls from the public.
Two of the most vocal farmers against the rulemaking were Jim Abeles and Kat Topaz, owners of Topaz Farm on Sauvie Island. They were worried that the potential rules would harm people trying to start an agritourism business.
“It would be stricter and more expensive and more difficult for anybody who wants to get into agritourism,” Abeles said.
Topaz Farm, founded in 2020, serves as one of the main farm destinations for Portlanders. Beyond selling produce, it has a petting zoo, offers farm-to-table dinners and hosts a live music series in the summer.
The farm’s owners posted their concerns on social media about what the rules might do to farms like theirs, with one video surpassing a million views on Instagram.
They pointed to a decrease in the number of farms nationwide as one reason the rulemaking could further harm small and mid-size farm operations.
“We want more farms, we want more competition because we think that it’s good for agriculture, it’s good for the public, and it’s important while farms are being lost everywhere,” Abeles said.
Shortly after the public backlash about the rules, Gov. Tina Kotek ordered a temporary pause on the rulemaking process.
“I want to reassure farmers who have been anxious and frustrated about how proposed changes to existing rules regarding farm stand operations may affect their businesses that I hear you and am paying attention,” Kotek said in a public statement. “I have directed DLCD to pause the rulemaking process to allow for more conversations with all interested parties and the public on this really important agri-tourism issue.”
1000 Friends of Oregon is fine if the rulemaking process ends completely.
“I think if it just went away, we would be fine as far as farm stands are concerned,” said Jim Johnson, the organization’s working lands policy director. He’s more interested in working on other agritourism issues prioritized by the Land Conservation and Development Commission, like urban growth planning and the rezoning of agricultural land.
“We can get to work on more important issues that relate to protecting Oregon’s valuable farmland,” he said.