Legislator’s Letter

 I recently spent an afternoon listening to fruit growers in the Columbia Gorge. I didn’t go there to give a speech; I went to listen. Something I heard has stayed with me ever since. “Can we even stay in business?” No Oregon business owner should have to ask that question. Oregon has always been a place of opportunity, yet in recent years, that narrative has been changing. It’s tempting to search for one cause. Weak markets, rising labor costs, pest pressure, transportation issues, interest rates, and excess regulations have all been given as reasons for Oregon’s demise. After listening to growers, it became clear there isn’t one cause. There is a cumulative effect.

Agriculture is one of the few industries purchasing nearly everything at retail prices while selling its product at wholesale prices. Growers pay retail for fuel, fertilizer, equipment, insurance, packaging, labor, repairs, and regulatory compliance. Yet, when it’s time to sell their crop, they don’t determine the price. Large buyers and commodity markets do. This means every increase in operating costs comes directly out of already thin margins. The difference between what growers receive and what consumers ultimately pay in the grocery store is shocking. Everyone in that supply chain has costs, but growers have very little ability to recover their own. A grower said something perfectly summarizing the challenges they face: “I can survive one regulation. I can’t survive all of them together.” Government generally evaluates policies individually. One rule here, a reporting requirement there. One more labor standard, and another compliance deadline. Businesses don’t experience government that way. They experience every policy at once.

Good policy requires us to periodically step back and ask a simple question: Have we unintentionally made it harder for people to succeed? That isn’t an argument against worker protections, environmental stewardship, or responsible regulation. Those goals matter. It is an argument for evaluating whether the cumulative impact of well-intended policies still allows Oregon’s family farms to remain economically viable. For this reason, I recently proposed a Save the Family Farm plan focused on immediate relief and long-term reform. It begins by asking the governor and state agencies to evaluate every executive action available under existing law that could provide temporary relief while this crisis is addressed. It calls for growers, processors, lenders, researchers, legislators, and state agencies to work together on practical recommendations instead of operating independently. Most importantly, it asks the Legislature to examine the combined impact of agricultural policies.

I believe government works best when it starts with the people closest to the problem. We should listen first to understand the facts. We should protect what is working, and remove what isn’t. Our results should be the measure of our success. Those aren’t partisan principles. They’re principles of good governance. Government should never become another obstacle that family farmers are forced to overcome. The Columbia Gorge was built by generations of families willing to take risks, work hard, and invest in the future. Those families deserve a government that approaches problems with the same practical mindset. Once we lose a family farm, it usually never comes back, and that’s a loss every Oregonian should care about.