A cooperative of Oregon hazelnut farmers is accused of violating a pricing contract with a deceased aviation and agricultural entrepreneur.

The estate of Delford Smith, founder of the bankrupt Evergreen Aviation and Evergreen Agricultural Enterprises, filed a lawsuit against the Hazelnut Growers of Oregon cooperative seeking $150,000 in additional payments for hazelnuts delivered in 2013.

The complaint alleges that Smith, who died in 2014, agreed to sell 1 million pounds of hazelnuts to the cooperative at a per-pound price that was 35 cents above the rate established by the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association, which negotiates prices between farmers and major processors.

The initial field price was set at $1.15 per pound in 2013, resulting in a payment of $1.50 to Smith, the lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, said.

However, favorable market conditions led to the price increasing to $1.30 per pound in March 2014, which means Smith should have received $1.65 per pound, according to the complaint.

The cooperative’s CEO, Jeff Fox, said he could not discuss the matter and referred questions to attorney Brandy Sargent, who told Capital Press she expects the dispute to be resolved soon.

“This matter is pending settlement right now,” Sargent said, declining to provide specifics about possible terms.

Even if the controversy between the cooperative and Smith is straightened out, the lawsuit has nonetheless raised questions about the cooperative’s pricing deal with the entrepreneur.

Processors who enter into deals with the Hazelnut Growers Bargaining Association are prohibited from paying certain farmers a more favorable rate than the established price, said Bruce Chapin, chairman of the Oregon Hazelnut Commission.

“They don’t make special deals, so everybody is paid the same,” he said.

Not every processor is bound by the agreement, but most of the major ones agree to the contract, Chapin said.

If a processor who contracts with the bargaining association is later found to provide a certain grower with special terms, the company would be required to compensate other farmers, said Doug Olsen, the group’s president.

“If they end up paying more than what we agreed on, then they owe growers in the association the same amount,” he said.

Given the contract dispute, however, it’s unclear what HGO’s actual payment to Smith’s estate will ultimately be.

There’s also uncertainty about HGO’s obligations to growers who belong to the association, since only the cooperative’s Westnut division is a signatory to the contract.

Terry Humfield sent me this article about some new research in cranberries and hearth health. Awesome news!

http://mobile.nutraingredients-usa.com/Research/Study-supports-cranberry-s-heart-health-benefits

Terry Humfield sent me this article about some new research in cranberries and hearth health. Awesome news!

http://mobile.nutraingredients-usa.com/Research/Study-supports-cranberry-s-heart-health-benefits

Certainly the WI crop has disappointed many growers. We’ve heard that many growers are off last years crop which was a 4.9million barrel crop inWI. How low will it go? About a week from now we will know more but it certainly won’t be higher and maybe a 200,000 bbls lower?  

One grower in Qubebec told me they were expecting a big crop but isn’t materializing. He said expect them to be down from last year due to many acres converting to organic and the overall growing season. Will they be down 200,000 bbls as well? Again too early to tell but that “big crops get bigger and small crops get smaller” adage seems to be working on the smaller side. 

Prices are already going up. One handler has increased their base $3/barrel to $15, with healthy incentives on top of that. 

I would guess that with a decreased amount of fruit for the dryers, that the amount of concentrate out there will tighten up as well. 

IF all the above plays out, the price for all of our products will increase. About damn time. 

Certainly the WI crop has disappointed many growers. We’ve heard that many growers are off last years crop which was a 4.9million barrel crop inWI. How low will it go? About a week from now we will know more but it certainly won’t be higher and maybe a 200,000 bbls lower?  

One grower in Qubebec told me they were expecting a big crop but isn’t materializing. He said expect them to be down from last year due to many acres converting to organic and the overall growing season. Will they be down 200,000 bbls as well? Again too early to tell but that “big crops get bigger and small crops get smaller” adage seems to be working on the smaller side. 

Prices are already going up. One handler has increased their base $3/barrel to $15, with healthy incentives on top of that. 

I would guess that with a decreased amount of fruit for the dryers, that the amount of concentrate out there will tighten up as well. 

IF all the above plays out, the price for all of our products will increase. About damn time. 

SUNRIVER, Ore. — U.S. Rep. Greg Walden spoke of frustration with the U.S. Senate’s unwillingness to address forest policy, and fielded questions on the uncertainty surrounding the House speakership during a presentation at the Oregon Forest Industries Council’s annual meeting here Oct. 12.

Asked who is going to be the next Speaker of the House, Walden, R-Ore., said: “I hope it is Paul Ryan, but I don’t know if he’ll do it.”

Walden said he talked to Ryan, R-Wis., on Oct. 9 about replacing Speaker John Boehner, who has announced he plans to leave his seat Oct. 29.

“There is a lot of pressure being put on Paul Ryan to step into this vacuum or void, and it is the last thing he wants to do. He is a policy guy,” Walden said.

“He’s always wanted to chair Ways and Means and rewrite the country’s tax code and deal with trade issues. He doesn’t want to do management, especially big ego management. And there is a lot of that in (Washington) D.C. right now,” Walden said.

“I don’t know if he’ll do it,” Walden said. “If he doesn’t I don’t know who can bridge the gap.”

“Why don’t you do it?” a participant asked.

“You need 218 votes,” he said. “I’m supporting Paul Ryan.”

Outside the questions on the House speakership, Walden focused on forest policy during his luncheon presentation, specifically on the unwillingness of the Senate to revise federal forest management.

“Three years in a row, in the U.S. House, bipartisan legislation has been passed to try and give us active management of federal forests to improve their health, to protect their watersheds,” Walden said.

“It provides larger categorical exclusions to move quickly on projects that reduce fuel loads,” he said. “And when there is a fire, there is really no funding stream to replant after these fires on federal lands.

“This legislation, through expediting recovery operations, would require 75 percent of burn lands to be reforested and paid for with salvage,” he said.

“Also, just like you are affected in our rural communities, every time a forest project is halted, the outside groups that sue on forest projects should have to have a little skin in the game,” he said. “So under this bill, they would be required to post a bond before litigating on collaborative, or community, wildfire protection plans.”

The bill also includes language pertaining to Oregon and California Railroad lands, directing the Bureau of Land Management, which manages O&C lands, to revise management plans in consideration of Walden described as “the clear, statutory mandate to manage these lands for sustainable timber production and revenue for the counties.”

“All of those provisions were in the bill that we passed in July,” Walden said.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., chair of Senate Agriculture Committee, has agreed to hold a hearing on the bill, Walden said.

“I don’t know how far we will get them to go, but we have to ramp up the pressure on the Senate, Republican and Democrat, so we can move forward to at least get a bill out of the Senate side and into conference,” he said.

“If you are concerned about the environment. If you are concerned about global warming and reducing carbon emissions and greenhouse gases, then there is nothing better than healthy forests to help with that goal,” Walden said.

“Oregon forests sequester 34 million tons of carbon equivalents per year,” he said. “That is 50 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in our state. And yet one-third of the federal forest lands in Oregon are subject to not only hazardous fire, but catastrophic fire.

“We all witnessed that this summer. And in case you were asleep for the last 20 years, we’ve witnessed it almost every summer. And yet very little gets done,” Walden said.

“We need to fix the forest management piece,” Walden said. “We have to change this.”

SUNRIVER, Ore. — Oregon has a public perception problem when it comes to water quality, said Richard Whitman, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown’s natural resources policy director.

Addressing foresters at the Oregon Forest Industries Council’s annual meeting here Oct. 12, Whitman said: “The public perception out there is that water quality is bad and it is getting worse.

“That is not true,” Whitman said.

“In actuality, since the passage of the (Estuaries and) Clean Water Act in 2000 … we’ve been pretty much stable. We haven’t gotten worse. In some places, it is getting a bit better. In some places it’s not. But there is this perception out there in the public that we have an enormous water quality problem in the state, and it is simply not the case,” Whitman said.

“The Northwest is also a breeding ground for litigators, unfortunately,” he said, “and that litigation also feeds this perception that we are not in good shape in terms of water quality.”

Whitman said the state also has a perception problem when it comes to water quantity.

“The problem in the land of water quantity is that we have plenty of water in Oregon and that we are not California,” Whitman said. “That is not really the reality, either.

“These public perceptions about where we are at as a state are in and of themselves a problem,” he said. “They make it difficult to build collaborative lasting solutions to real problems and, in order to work through that, we need to be thinking not just how to work through the substantive issues, but also how to bring the public along, so the public understands where we are truly at in terms of resource issues and can be part of the solution, rather than creating additional problems in terms of solutions.”

Whitman said that while water quality in Oregon is good, it could be better.

“It is not necessarily good enough for all the things that we want water to do,” he said. “It is not good enough in some places for our fisheries. In some places, we have issues with our drinking water.

“So there is still some progress to be made on water quality, even though we have made an enormous amount of progress already,” he said.

“Also, with warming temperature and less snowpack, we are facing water-quality challenges,” he said. “We saw that this year with a need for fish advisories on many of our streams in Oregon because of low flow and unusually high temperature.

“On the water quantity side, Oregon is blessed with abundant water, but with less snow and warmer temperatures, we have several problems. We have a storage problem,” he said. “Without the snowpack, we are losing that storage.”

Whitman said Brown was instrumental in advocating for passage of the $54 million package that lawmakers passed in the 2015 Legislature to fund water storage projects.

“The governor has followed that up with an executive order on drought, making sure that our Oregon agencies lead by example in terms of reducing their water use, and also putting in place a new Oregon drought plan so we are better prepared in the future for the type of summer we saw this past year,” Whitman said.

In an interview after his presentation, Whitman said he hopes to have some water-storage-project news in the near future.

Oregon’s hazelnut crop isn’t living up to expectations in terms of quantity, but high quality and strong demand are providing farmers with an upside.

The state was initially forecast to produce about 39,000 tons of hazelnuts in 2015, but with the harvest winding down, it looks as if the crop may come in below 37,000 tons, said Mike Klein, executive director of the Oregon Hazelnut Marketing Board.

“It looks to be short,” he said.

Multiple factors contribute to hazelnut yields, such as weather during the winter pollination season, Klein said.

This past winter was mild, which may have caused flowers to bloom either too early or too late for optimum pollination, he said.

When new orchards are planted, farmers now use more than one “pollenizer” variety to hedge against such an outcome, but older orchards often depend on a single variety for pollination, Klein said.

Eastern filbert blight, a fungal pathogen that affects hazelnuts, has also taken a toll on older orchards that aren’t resistant to the disease, said Tim Newkirk, CEO of Willamette Hazelnut Growers.

Increased prevalence of the disease also causes farmers to prune trees more aggressively, which decreases their capacity to produce nuts, he said. “I think it’s a combination of a lot of things.”

Newkirk said it was unlikely that this summer’s dry conditions contributed much to the reduced crop, since there isn’t a large amount of nut shrinkage that’s usually associated with drought stress.

“Hazelnuts are a pretty hardy tree,” he said. “The quality looks really, really good.”

The dry weather has sped up the maturation of hazelnuts, with the harvest occurring several weeks ahead of the normal schedule.

While the harvest typically ends in November, this year it’s expected to be done by mid-October, said Newkirk. “Usually, that’s the heart of the battle there.”

Due to the lack of rain, hazelnuts are also coming in drier than average, which saves growers from paying as much for drying services when they bring their crop to receiving stations, said Klein.

Hazelnuts that have been rained upon generally consist of 20 percent moisture at harvest, but this year they’re in the low teens, or even the 10-11 percent moisture range, said Newkirk.

Drier nuts provide a food safety benefit, as bacteria and mold are likely to fester in moist conditions, said Jonathan Thompson, CEO of the Northwest Hazelnut Co.

“They’re harvested off the ground, so the drier, the better,” he said.

The initial field price that processors are paying farmers for hazelnuts is set at $1.22 per pound, which is the second-highest on record, said Klein.

Last year’s initial field price of $1.81 per pound was an anomaly caused by significantly lower yields in Turkey, the foremost hazelnut producer, he said. “That was the result of the extreme shortage of hazelnuts on the world market.”

Hazelnuts are a good long-term investment due to the strong, stable market for the crop, said Larry George, who owns George Packing Co. and the Northwest Hazelnut Co.

Oregon is the largest hazelnut-growing state in the U.S., but produces roughly 5 percent of the global crop, he said.

Meanwhile, global consumption of hazelnuts is rising six percent annually, George said. “The consumption is going up by the size of an Oregon crop every year.”

A U.S. Bureau of Land Management computer was apparently used to impersonate a former agency employee and disparage two Oregon ranchers recently sentenced to prison for arson.

The incident occurred after the Capital Press posted an online article about the five-year prison terms received by Dwight Lincoln Hammond, 73, and his son, Steven Dwight Hammond, 46, for fires set on BLM property near Diamond, Ore., in 2001 and 2006.

A person who identified as Greg Allum posted three comments on the article, calling the ranchers “clowns” who endangered firefighters and other people in the area while burning valuable rangeland.

Greg Allum, a retired BLM heavy equipment operator, soon called Capital Press to complain that he had not made those comments and request that they be taken down from the website. Capital Press has since removed the comments.

A search of the Internet Protocol address associated with the comments revealed it is owned by the BLM’s office in Denver, Colo.

Allum, who continues to build livestock watering systems in Eastern Oregon, said he is friends with the Hammonds and was alerted to the comments by neighbors who know he wouldn’t have written them.

“I feel bad for them. They lost a lot and they’re going to lose more,” Allum said of the ranchers.

He said employees of the BLM in the area have long had a contentious relationship with the Hammonds.

One of those employees likely chose to use Allum’s name to post the comments because he is known to disagree with the characterization of the Hammonds as villains, he said.

“They’re not terrorists. There’s this hatred in the BLM for them, and I don’t get it,” Allum said.

Allum said he wants any BLM employees involved in the incident punished not because they impersonated him, but because they wasted government resources during work hours.

“It was done by a federal employee getting paid,” he said.

The BLM’s computer servers are maintained in Denver but the comments could have been posted from anywhere, said Jody Weil, deputy state director for communications at BLM’s Oregon office.

The BLM is investigating the incident, and if the comments were posted by an agency employee, any disciplinary action could not be disclosed due to privacy protections, said Weil.

“We don’t give out any personnel or disciplinary action publicly,” she said.

The lead Oregon State Police investigator said the agency does not have probable cause to believe humans caused the deaths of the Sled Springs wolf pair in August.

Senior Trooper Kreg Coggins also said it’s unclear how the wolves died. State police use a standard of 51 percent certainty in determining probable cause, he said, and evidence in the case did not reach that level.

“At this point it’s somewhat of a mystery,” he said.

It’s not always easy to tell if an animal has been shot or poisoned, Coggins said. Decomposition complicates investigations, and the wolves were found dead during hot August weather, he said.

Coggins declined to speculate on what happened.

The environmental group Oregon Wild has called the deaths “suspicious” because wolves have been killed illegally in Oregon previously and “there is a very vocal minority that enthusiastically encourages it.”

ODFW confirmed the Sled Springs Pair killed a calf in June. Coggins, who works out of OSP’s Enterprise outpost, downplayed the possibility that the wolves were killed by ranchers or others in retaliation. Cattle have been attacked by wolves many times in Wallowa County, and no one has shot wolves in response, he said.

Oregon law defines probable cause as a “substantial objective basis” for believing a crime has been committed and a person to be arrested is responsible for it.

Northeast Oregon Wolves are protected under the state Endangered Species Act and killing them is a crime. But their presence is controversial, especially among cattle and sheep producers who bear the cost and stress of livestock losses and of non-lethal defensive measures.

The investigation began the week of Aug. 24 after a tracking collar worn by the female of the pair, OR-21, emitted a mortality signal. State police and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife searched the area, north of the town of Wallowa, and found the female dead. Coggins said he went to the area the following day and found the male wolf dead as well. Police have said the wolves’ bodies were within 50 yards of each other.

State police and ODFW did not announce the deaths until Sept. 16. OSP spokesman Lt. Bill Fugate said at the time that investigators delayed disclosing the information because they did not want to tip their hand.

The pair had pups that would have been about five months old when the adult wolves died. A ODFW spokeswoman said the pups have not been seen, but they should be weaned at this point and are most likely “free-ranging” and able to fend for themselves.

IRRIGON, Ore. — Wayne Schnell was 11 years old when he drove his first tractor, a 1941 John Deere Model A that his father bought for the family farm near Vancouver, Washington.

Seventy-four years later, Schnell still has that same Model A — along with about 60 other tractors and 20 or so hay balers spanning decades of American farm history.

Now 82, Schnell has since retired and sold his farm south of Irrigon, but couldn’t bear to see all the old equipment hauled off to the junkyard. He and his wife, Wanda, opened the Skinny Bull Ag Museum in March to preserve and share Wayne’s collection with the community.

Most of the tractors, balers, combines and backhoes Schnell actually used in the field. Others, he admits, he bought just to have.

“It’s like other people who collect stuff,” he said with a smile. “You always need one more.”

The oldest tractors in Schnell’s gallery date back to 1929, including a John Deere GP and Caterpillar 15. He has a 1945 World War II-era John Deere that’s likely one of the few left in existence with its original tires, made of recycled material.

But it was the Model A that Schnell said started it all. He has fond memories of plowing his family’s hayfields as a boy, stopping just long enough to split a peanut butter sandwich with their collie, Bowser.

Schnell personally repainted the Model A, which shines the signature John Deere green and yellow. He insists the old machine faithfully runs to this day.

“How do you throw something like this away?” he said. “I just hated to see it destroyed.”

The vintage tractors might not look so practical compared to today’s technology, with GPS steering and touch screens. Heck, Schnell said they didn’t even have air conditioning in the old days. They were just happy to sit down.

Schnell came to appreciate tractors while working as a machinist for 16 years. He later moved to Irrigon in 1972 and got back into farming, growing 340 acres of alfalfa hay near town.

He always found room for more tractors, which he grew to love like old cars.

“You appreciate all the engineering and work that went into building them, and how well they’ve worked for so many years,” he said. “You grow attached to them.”

It was actually at a classic car show where Wayne met Wanda, and they married in 2003. As a collector herself — Wanda can never have too many hurricane lamps or cast iron pans, she says — she was completely behind the idea of opening a museum for Wayne’s collection.

“Once Wayne decides he wants to do something, there’s no doubt he’s going to accomplish it,” Wanda said.

When the Schnells sold the farm in 2013, they reached a special agreement; the buyer purchased the old 10,000-square-foot Keglers supermarket behind Bank of Eastern Oregon in Irrigon, and used it as a down payment on the farm. This is where Wayne and Wanda have set up Skinny Bull.

The Schnells continue to make little improvements and swap stories with visitors who come to check out the museum. Admission is free, though donations are suggested.

“It’s mostly people who grew up with (agriculture), and have an interest in the past,” Wayne said. “They have memories of growing up with this kind of machinery.”

The name “Skinny Bull” comes from Wayne’s friendship with the late Ray Fox, who used to run a feedlot near the Schnells’ farm. They would gently tease each other, with Schnell asking about Fox’s “skinny bulls” and Fox countering with Schnell’s “weedy hay.”

Schnell would tell Fox he planned to name his tractor museum “Skinny Bull.”

“I thought I saw him grin,” Schnell said.

The Skinny Bull Ag Museum is open five days a week, closed on Wednesday and Thursdays.

Schnell said he is happy to have the chance for a little show-and-tell with his neighbors.

“If you treat it right and it treats you right, you come to appreciate it,” he said. “You like to have some place to put it where you can walk past, kick the tires and have those memories, good or bad.”

FLORENCE, Ore. — State wildlife agents would kill up to 95 cougars annually in four target areas under a proposal presented as an information item to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife commission.

The target areas would be activated beginning Jan. 1, 2016. Under the ODFW plan, cougars would be killed in three target areas — Interstate, Steens Mountain and Warner — to improve mule deer and big horn sheep populations and in the Umpqua region to reduce conflict with livestock, pets and humans.

Public testimony at the commission’s meeting on Friday was primarily critical of the plan. Multiple speakers described the methods by which cougars would be killed — neck snares and pursuit by hounds — as cruel or “barbaric.”

Others noted livestock losses and increased presence of cougars in or near residential areas. Kelly Forney, of Roseburg, who contracts with landowners to legally hunt cougars with hounds, said the increasing cougar population has resulted in juveniles dispersing away from territory claimed by adult cougars.

“We have livestock kills occurring on a near daily basis in Douglas County,” Forney said.

Taking wolves off Oregon’s endangered species list won’t significantly affect their management because the state wolf plan would remain in place, according to a biological status review that will be presented to the state wildlife commission on Friday.

Taking no action on the delisting question, however, might undermine support for the 10-year-old wolf plan and “thereby reducing public tolerance for wolves,” the report concludes.

The report compiled by Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists says the state’s wolf population continues to increase in “abundance and distribution” and has met the required criteria for delisting in every instance.

Discussion of the report at Friday’s commission meeting in Florence, Ore., is billed as an informational biological status review, with no action scheduled. But it could provide a preview of the commission’s ultimate decision when it meets again Nov. 9 in Salem.

It also coincides with controversy over ODFW’s refusal to authorize killing Mount Emily Pack wolves that repeatedly attacked a sheep herd this summer, and with the unsolved deaths of two wolves known as the Sled Springs Pair.

To take wolves off the state endangered species, the commission must make five findings. They are: Wolves aren’t in danger of extinction in any portion of their range; their natural reproductive potential is not in danger of failing; there’s no imminent or active deterioration of their range or primary habitat; the species or its habitat won’t be “over-utilized” for scientific, recreational, commercial or educational reasons; and existing state or federal regulations are adequate to protect them.

Each of the criteria is examined in depth in the report. “The probability of population failure is very low,” the biologists concluded.

Wolves in Northeast Oregon have been taken off the federal endangered species list but remain on the state list. The federal listing still applies in the rest of the state, including where the famous traveling wolf, OR-7, resides with his pack in the Southwest Oregon Cascades.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service introduced 66 gray wolves into Idaho and Wyoming in 1995-96. As expected, a few Idaho wolves migrated to Northeast Oregon beginning in 1999. Oregon’s first pack, the Wenaha, was documented in 2008.

Other highlights of the report:

• Oregon’s wolf population as of July is a minimum of 85 individuals in 16 packs or groups, up from 81 wolves at the end of 2014. Biologists believe more wolves live in the state but only 85 are documented. The number does not include pups born this year.

• The population will surpass 100 to 150 wolves in the next one to three years, “regardless of listed status.”

• Wolves now use 12.4 percent of their potential range statewide, 31.6 percent in Eastern Oregon.

• From 2009 through June 2015, confirmed losses to wolves stood at 79 sheep, 37 cattle, two goats and two herd protection dogs. Ranchers believe wolves are responsible for much more damage, saying livestock often disappear in wolf country.

• No wolves have been killed while attacking or chasing livestock. Since 2009, ODFW has killed four for “chronic” livestock attacks, but none since 2011. At least five wolves have been illegally shot since 2000; one died in an ODFW capture attempt in 2011; one was hit and killed by a vehicle in 2000.

On an Oregon farm, a collective vision creates a different agricultural model

By Eric Mortenson

Capital Press

SHERWOOD, Ore. — Is this the changing face of Oregon agriculture?

Our Table Cooperative, a 58-acre farm 20 miles southwest of Portland, functions as a collective, with workers, regional producers and consumers buying memberships and sharing risks and rewards.

The farm grows blueberries, apples and an ocean of greens, plus chickens for eggs and meat. It has a small grocery store where it sells its own products and those of producer members. Adjacent to the store is a commercial kitchen, used when hosting farm dinners at $90 a pop. Solar panels provide most of the electricity needed for irrigation and refrigeration. The farm’s delivery vehicle is a commercial-sized Mercedes van.

Its co-founder is Narendra Varma, 47, an Indian-born, American-educated and citizen “visionary,” as a friend calls him, who left Microsoft in 1998 with what he describes as a “stock-option fueled financial windfall” and set out to do some good with it.

After an “obligatory globe-trotting walkabout” and some years involved in property development, he settled on agriculture and its ecological and economic connection to nearly everything, from climate change and social justice to nutrition.

Drawn by Oregon’s land-use laws that protect farmland, he and his wife, Machelle, also a Microsoft refugee, moved from Seattle in 2010 intending to create a farm based on a model of “permaculture.” That is, an agricultural and even social system that mimics natural ecosystems.

Varma believes Our Table Cooperative is an alternative to a food system that she says is broken, unhealthy and mired in “hidden cultural stuff.”

“The problem’s not one of how to grow a better carrot,” Varma said. “It’s much more pervasive and deeper than that.

“People talk about the subsidies in the Farm Bill,” he said. “The real subsidy is not in the Farm Bill, it’s that a soda machine (was) considered normal in a high school. That’s the subsidy to corn.”

He isn’t alone in his thinking.

“We have a generation of people in their 20s and 30s who are interested in going into farming as a business and as a statement of how they see the world,” said Garry Stephenson, director of Oregon State University’s Center for Small Farms and Community Food Systems.

While the number of small farms counted in the 2012 Census of Agriculture actually declined compared to the 2007 census, their impact in urban areas is considerable.

In Portland, self-described homesteaders converted abandoned city lots into specialty herb gardens and sell to high-end restaurants. Others invent tools scaled for small farms, such as battery-powered tillers and adjustable handcarts equipped with bicycle tires. Some carve out a living by hosting farm dinners, selling at farmers’ markets and delivering to community supported agriculture customers.

Increasingly, small farms are gaining institutional recognition and help. OSU’s small farms center and extension programs help beginning and small farmers, while the USDA provides grants and expertise through agencies such as the Natural Resources Conservation Service and National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

In many cases, the agencies are interacting with people who were drawn to farming by a sense that the food system doesn’t work and that regionally, at least, they can fix it.

Josh Volk of Portland, a mechanical engineer who turned his skills to designing and building farm tools, said farming is attracting people who have worked in other industries or businesses.

“They’re not necessarily looking for an easier way to make a living, but they’re looking for a better way to make a living,” he said.

Volk, a consultant who helped design Our Table and who has written a manuscript profiling four farms of less than five acres, said environmental concern is a common entry point for new young farmers, and agriculture is an outlet.

“If you’re going to be growing things, you have to be nurturing in some sense,” he said. “It’s not a coincidence.”

It’s a movement that shows no sign of fading. In September, more than 200 people attended a one-day small-farm school put on by OSU. Also this fall, Clackamas Community College southeast of Portland became the first school in Oregon to offer a certificate in urban agriculture.

The program attracted students such as Andrew Watson, a former statistical engineer for Netflix who, with his wife, is looking to buy a small farm in Oregon. He grew up on a conventional dairy farm in the United Kingdom and now hopes to grow vegetables and have dairy goats and chickens.

“I devoted myself to high-tech, now I’m devoting myself to producing food,” Watson said with a smile. “It’s quite a content switch, but you’re still producing something people enjoy.”

Fellow Clackamas student Chad Bennett was a recruiter for high-tech companies in the Portland area such as Intel before getting laid off. He decided to pursue his real interest, growing food, and established a farm on the one-fifth acre he owns in East Portland. His wife continues to work in high-tech while Bennett grows leafy greens, root crops and salad mixes.

He said Portland is a food-conscious city that supports such ventures.

“It will be more sustainable if people are growing food right around them,” he said. “Otherwise you’re using a truck and driving it across the country.”

Community college instructor Chris Konieczka said some in the urban agriculture program are simply looking to have the “sweetest” home garden, indulge a hobby or make a little money on the side. He said others pursue it as an issue of “food justice” — the concern that the poorest people can’t afford or don’t have access to nutritious food.

Urban agriculture can change the food system, support local economies and spread economic benefit to more people, Konieczka said.

“We’re kicking in a little bit of difference to the world,” he said, “and that feels good.”

Our Table Cooperative, the Sherwood farm, incorporated in 2013 and was founded on that notion of change.

Varma and his wife chose the site carefully, buying land that was close to Portland’s supportive foodies and access to the urban amenities that would be attractive to workers.

They looked for land with good soil and existing water rights, the lack of which hampers many beginning farmers. They purposefully sought property whose previous owners had been through Oregon’s Measure 37 and Measure 49 land-use process, and won the transferable right to eventually add two more residences. Most development is not allowed on Oregon farmland.

When built, those houses will be rented to workers. Varma hopes workers will be attracted by a trade-off of reduced income in exchange for subsidized rent and subsidized food from the farm.

Rather than focus on one crop — by expanding the blueberry acreage that was already in place, for example — the farm grows multiple types of vegetables, berries, flowers and fruit.

“What we lose in efficiency, we gain in resiliency” through diversification, Varma said.

Varma said the farm produces a lot of food but is not yet making a profit and so hasn’t yet paid dividends to co-op members. The farm hopes to make a profit by 2017.

Farm membership shares cost $5,000 for workers; $1,500 for producers and $150 for consumers. Workers can pay the fee up front or with a down payment and payroll deductions. The farm pays a minimum wage of $10.40 an hour for farmer members and no more than two times that for managers. The wage rates are based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator for the Portland metro area. Varma said MIT recently increased its Portland calculation to $11.25 an hour but the farm can’t catch up to that until 2016. The farm’s three owner groups are represented by a board of directors.

Gianna Banducci, Our Table’s marketing director and a cooperative member, said the farm has had a mixed reception from conventional farmers. Some are apprehensive or merely curious, others identify with the challenges of starting a small, diversified farm.

“For myself, personally, I’ve never worked harder, I’ve never put myself into a job like this,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s mine. If it doesn’t get done, it’s because I didn’t do it.”

Varma’s overriding concern is maintaining the land for farm use over generations. The average age of American farmers is 57, near retirement, and developers may be the only ones with enough money to buy farmland outright.

The shared ownership model, or holding land in a public trust and leasing to new farmers, may be alternatives, he said.

“We knew we wanted to manage the land with an eye to long-term health,” Varma said.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The Wickiup Reservoir south of Bend and the Prineville Reservoir are both at their lowest points in more than 20 years.

The Bulletin reports that Wickiup, which serves as a major water source for farmland in Jefferson County, was only 9 percent full as of Wednesday. Typically, the Wickiup is about 32 percent full.

The last time the Wickiup was this low was in 1994.

Elsewhere in Central Oregon, the Prineville Reservoir is only 30 percent full, its lowest point since 1992.

Officials say low snowpack and the ongoing drought has seriously depleted reservoirs. The Prineville Reservoir is expected to recover before next growing season, but the Wickiup may not.