Governor Kitzhaber Talks Agriculture

Halfway through his second term, Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber took a few minutes to reflect on the past, present, and future of the state's agriculture industry as part of an interview with ODA Director of Communications Bruce Pokarney.

Oregon is increasingly an urban state. That trend has continued under your watch. How would you assess the overall importance and relevance of agriculture in Oregon given that urbanization?

I think it has been and will continue to be a cornerstone of our overall state economy. It's over a $5 billion contribution annually to our economy, which is very significant. But I think agriculture has a number of other values that go beyond just the economic importance of the industry. One of the purposes of our land use planning program is to protect open space for ag and forest operations. So to some extent, the existence of the agricultural industry is one of the things that has allowed us to have some of these sweeping landscapes, open spaces and rich fertile lands in Oregon that have not been developed largely because of their importance to the agricultural industry.

I also think that the folks who live close to the land and work close to the land are really part of the culture of this state. It's very, very important that we have that culture as part of who Oregon is as we move into the 21st Century. And they are going to continue to be a mainstay of rural Oregon. While we need to diversify that base out there, our natural resource industries will continue to be important.

Many commodities grown in Oregon have suffered greatly the past couple of years due to market conditions, higher producer costs, and several other factors. Net farm income is at its lowest since 1983. Processors are folding, many farmers are going broke. What is your reaction to that reality and what role do you see the state playing in helping to turn that around?

Prices on the international market, there is not much that the state can do to influence those issues. But I do think that the real challenge facing agriculture is a recognition that the world in which agriculture operates has really changed fundamentally. For instance, the wheat industry is an industry that is struggling because of world prices and global competition. The paradigm that we've operated in for decades has been to see how much of an unprocessed bulk commodity can be produced per acre of land and then we'll compete with the international market. The fact is, places like China, with fewer labor laws or environmental laws, can produce more wheat at a cheaper cost. What they can't do is add the value to that product. So I think if you look at the ag industry—and in particular those areas that are prospering—they are the ones that have done niche marketing, they've done something to distinguish their product from others. I think the whole Oregon image as a place of quality and of strong environmental standards is something we can market and use. But we've got to kind of change that mindset. If people are willing to do that, I think there's a lot the state can do in terms of investing in infrastructure and providing access to new markets with those kinds of products.

Oregon ag continues to be export dependent. You have traveled out of the country, in part, on behalf of our industry. What have been your impressions about Oregon products overseas and whether they can compete in the global marketplace?

We are an export state and actually agriculture has been one of the top three objectives of every trade mission I've taken outside of Oregon. It was very high in the recent trip we took to Mexico. We had a lot of Oregon cattlemen down there. There are huge opportunities out there. This one item I had in my budget, the tourism-marketing item which was summarily taken out by the co-chairs, was the result of a meeting we had with some prominent agricultural importers and exporters in Japan who basically said that what we've got going in Oregon is a very powerful niche market. There's a sense from our tourism efforts—from that TV series "From Oregon With Love" which was done by Fuji Films—there's this image of Oregon as a beautiful place, a pristine place. The objective is to have the same message coming from the Tourism Division and Department of Agriculture, and really leverage on that. This budget item would conduct a test market in Japan and one on the East Coast. I think we're missing the boat here if it isn't funded.

How would you rate ODA's Senate Bill 1010 Program? Is it still an important strategy for assuring water quality in agriculture?

I think the Senate Bill 1010 program is the kind of creative mechanism where we can help them comply with those laws without putting them at a competitive disadvantage. But let me give you a medical analogy of the problem. There are a number of types of situations physicians deal with. One of them is if you come to me and have, let's say, pneumonia and I give you penicillin. There's not much responsibility on your end. The problem was the pneumonia and I provided the solution. A different type of situation would be if you have heart problems and you come to me and I can give you some medication to help you control your blood pressure. But if you don't change your diet and exercise, you are not going to get better. So there's responsibility in terms of the physician and the patient. The third is if you have terminal cancer. That's not the problem, that's the condition. You can't change it and the problem is how you cope with it. I think what we've got to do with agriculture is turn the mindset into the type-2, type-3 situation.

With environmental issues, which is really what we're trying to deal with SB 1010, the condition is the existence of the Clean Water Act. That's not the problem. The ag industry has to stop viewing it as the problem because it's not going to change. That's just a reality we have to live with. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is how you comply with it in a way that allows you to continue to make a living. Senate Bill 1010 is an effort to do that. We put the Oregon Department of Agriculture in charge instead of DEQ. It's not a confrontational approach. But it does require cooperation on the part of the agriculture industry.

Predictions of drought conditions persist in Oregon. Water shortages would impact fish, municipalities, recreation, and of course, irrigation. Is there anything that can be done to help those in need of water?

I think the problem for irrigated agriculture is compounded by the energy crisis. In fact, there has been some discussion of the Bonneville Power Administration buying out some of the farmers this summer—paying them probably more than they are going to get for a crop given the depressed market—not to use the water and not to pump. So there are some creative things we can do in the short term.

In the long term, I think we've got to do two things. One is we've got to look at increased supply, particularly off-channel impoundments which I've been trying to jump start in the legislature for about four years. We've got to be much more serious about creating incentives for conservation. This isn't just a part of the agriculture community. We waste water flagrantly in the cities and municipalities. So this needs to be sort of an across-the-board approach.

One of the things we've toyed with, if you could create additional water supply, is to allow access to and only for people who are using best practices so that if you want more water, you are going to have to figure out how to use it more wisely. An example would be going to drip irrigation. There's a cost involved with that and same is true with municipalities. But I think those are the kinds of things we need to be thinking about long term.

Some people want to simplify things as fish vs. agriculture or fish vs. timber. Is that an oversimplification?

We can do both. But it requires that you get out of that either-or mindset. There are really three things that are necessary for a high quality of life. One is a good environment. One is a good economy. One is a strong community. We tend to cast the natural resource debate as though those were separate unrelated entities where there always has to be a winner and a loser. It's not stable because whoever loses goes to court and pretty soon the pendulum swings back.

An agriculture example of a win-win situation is the former Boeing tract near Boardman which Offutt (Threemile Canyon Farms) has done out there. I mean here you've got a big cattle herd, he's growing potatoes. He's selling those to processors. The waste feeds the cattle. Cattle waste goes to produce electricity through a co-generation plant, which goes down and supplements the dairy operation and they've created a huge wildlife preserve.

So if you get reasonable people to sit around a table and ask where do we want to go, you can find ways to do it. But it requires communication. I guess if there is one message I have for the agriculture community it is that they cannot isolate themselves. The demographics of this state are people moving from urban and suburban places to urban and suburban places. They've got to build bridges with Oregon and vice-versa. It's a two-way street. But isolating themselves from these realities, I think, is the worst thing ag can do.

In the remaining two years of your term, what would you hope to accomplish that would be most meaningful to Oregon agriculture?

Again, further opening up markets, trying to continue to pound on this theme of we've got to change how we view ourselves, both from the standpoint of our role in the natural environment and our role in the kinds of products that we market. I think part of that is a generational thing too. If I had grown wheat one way for 50 years and my father had done it that way, it's not as simple as just making the crop work. It's how you live, it's a way of life. I value that and respect that. I think it will be the younger generation that actually begins to make this shift.

What is your young son Logan's favorite Oregon ag product?

Yogurt. He eats a lot of Oregon made yogurt, and it has Oregon blueberries in it too.