County News

from Enterprise Magazine Spring 2020

The Future of Ag

COUNTY NEWS A Retrospective View of Agriculture and the Economic Impact of Yamhill County

By Yamhill County Commissioner Rick Olson

While growing up in McMinnville and living in Yamhill County for over 60 years, I have been surrounded by local agriculture and the impacts it had and continue to have on the County’s Economic Development.

Over those years the face of agriculture has dramatically changed. Growing up, the primary agricultural crops consisted of grains and grass crops such as wheat, clover, oats, barley, and other field crops. The economic development and viability of the small towns in Yamhill County was centered around agricultural activity. Every small town had grain elevators and seed cleaning facilities such as Meeker Seed in Amity, Madsen Grain in Carlton, Buchanan Cellars and Albers Milling in McMinnville. The businesses and services in the small towns mainly existed to service agriculture. Today some small towns continue to exist with a different focus, but many of the towns and waysides such as Whiteson, McCoy, Perrydale, Broadmead, Cove Orchard, Wapato, and St Joseph no longer exist with the grain elevators being torn down and other commerce being abandoned.

Farmers and grain growers normally had one Massey Ferguson, International Harvester, or John Deer combine with manual controls and, if fortunate enough, an umbrella to keep the sun off the driver and provide a minimal amount of shade. All fields were planted and harvested using the knowledge of the land, planting patterns, family history, and his fellow farmers. Now many of the larger fields are harvested by multiple combines with GPS, air-conditioned cabs, and fully automatic controls which provide a higher yield per acre.

Those combines travel from field to field harvesting multiple fields in a short period of time and many of the smaller farms now form the backbone for organic farming, farm to fork, niche

crops, etc. They rely on Agri-Tourism to fill the void, including on-site retail operations, organic fruits and vegetables, and cooperative membership.

In the past, towns such as Whiteson had two service station stations, a grocery store, and two cafes. Many of those now nonexistent towns were serviced by the railroad with towns such as McCoy having a hotel in addition to the standard services. As transportation for much of agricultural crop moved to over road transportation, highways such as 99W and Hwy 47 were rerouted around those communities eliminating much of the vehicular traffic that passed by.

Today, many of the still existing granaries in Yamhill County have been converted to new usages such as wineries, public meeting and gathering spaces, and even bed and breakfast and short-term vacation rentals breathing new life into the communities based on agricultural tourism and not on agricultural production itself. Today many of the grain and grass fields and farms have been converted to vineyards, hazelnut orchards, blueberries, and even olive orchards.

Although the changing of agriculture in Yamhill County and in Oregon will bring new opportunities for farms and towns related to agriculture and economic development, those opportunities will also create many challenges that will need to be addressed such as Oregon’s current land use laws, local county zoning ordinances, compatibility of crops on adjacent parcels, transportation, water resources, and environmental concerns.

The inability to address and solve those issues will have a major impact on the local economy.

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I started my working career on my family’s grass seed and grain operation in Polk County more than 55 years ago. I was just a small boy and “working farm” wasn’t necessarily a term of endearment back then. Everyone in our household had a responsibility to play a role in the day-to-day needs of that farm. My siblings and I were instructed to carry out tasks that were age and size appropriate and those chores taught us the value of hard work and showed us clearly how we got fed. Of course, the chores were always evolved as the we grew in size and changed our interests; we never lacked something to do while living on the farm.

A working family farm today in the Willamette Valley may be as small as two acres, or as large as 5000 acres. These farms are business entities that provide enough revenue from the production to enhance a family’s income or provide full family incomes and benefits for several members of the operation. In many cases, though, off-farm incomes by a family member are still required to sustain the family or add benefits that might not be afforded by the operation alone.

Yet more and more ag operations are finding the market they

need in order to fulfill a sustainable revenue stream that supports one or more households. Children still play a working role in most family farms, but the “chores” can be much more technological in nature than those their parents may have done.

Farm equipment has evolved to emulate spaceship control platforms with guidance systems that can often be monitored or controlled by hand-held smartphones or tablets. Irrigation systems that used to be completely “hands on” are now more commonly “hands off.” Harvest practices that not long ago required many field hands are now accomplished almost completely by machine. These technological advancements have been a catalyst for many farm related manufacturers in our region that employ a significant number of skilled people.

Though we may employ fewer individuals in our diverse farm culture today, they are typically much higher wage jobs with skills that are transferable across an array of sectors.