mariTime CroPPiNG sysTems

The Pacific Northwest maritime agroecological zone stretches from the Pacific Ocean to the Cascade Mountains and is characterized by a Mediterranean cli-mate that includes mild winters, relatively cool summers, and high winter rainfall.

Historically, the area has been known for dairy, vegetable, fruit, and flower and veg-etable seed production. Dairy cows in western Washington have had one of the high-est rates of productivity (gallons of milk production per cow) in the country due in part to the low-stress environment that results from the moderate temperatures. River valleys with their loamy clay soils, ample irrigation water, and moderate tempera-tures have been the production and processing home for an assortment of vegetable crops, including green peas, sweet corn, carrots, green beans, cauliflower, and broc-coli (Oregon Department of Agriculture, 2005; Washington Agricultural Statistics Service, 2002). Valleys and hill slopes were planted with orchards of filberts, prunes, plums, cherries, and pears, as well as strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.

Apples do well in this climate, although most commercial production has shifted to the east of the Cascades. The old Fort Vancouver, located in present-day Vancouver, Washington, is home to the oldest apple tree in the Pacific Northwest—the tree was planted in 1826 by the Hudson Bay Company (Luce, 1975). Wine grapes with associ-ated wineries, nursery production, and Christmas trees have also become important in the region. In addition, the climate is ideally suited to seed production of over-wintering perennial and biennial crops as well as many annuals. Seed crops were first produced in the region in 1885 in the Skagit Valley (Rackham, 2002), and today the entire maritime region is known for its high seed quality, including high vigor and purity. Weather-related crop failures are rare. While winter rains cause periodic flooding and may be accompanied by occasional high winds, the region almost never receives violent summer thunderstorms with the hail, high winds, torrential rains, and tornados that can devastate crops in the interior United States.

5.2.1 p^rimary F^aCtors l^imiting sustainability

Many issues have directly impacted the crops that have been historically produced in the region. Filbert blight has been a major disease problem; consumers have turned away from dried prunes; California has taken over the strawberry market; some processed vegetable production has moved to the Columbia Basin; and tree fruit production has moved to the central Pacific Northwest due to lower disease pressure.

Although the maritime region receives copious precipitation in the winter, summers are dry, and irrigation is required to grow most crops throughout the summer months.

Away from the major rivers, water for irrigation can be difficult to extract; wells are deep and water-bearing sediments are fine-grained, which limits the pumping rates. Another limiting factor has been distance to markets that are predominantly in the central and eastern United States. Although the maritime Pacific Northwest is

known to produce high-quality vegetables, businesses that ship their products east cannot easily compete on price because Midwestern vegetable processors have lower transportation costs. Other agricultural commodities have similar constraints due to distance to markets, most notably nursery crops, Christmas trees, and fruit crops. A problem that may be shared with other regions is that of foreign competition. U.S.-based vegetable processors increasingly contract with overseas producers who have access to cheap labor (Oregon and Washington have some of the highest minimum wages in the United States). Overseas producers can sell into U.S. markets at lower prices than U.S. growers, despite the distance foreign produce must be shipped.

Currently, perhaps the single greatest factor limiting sustainability in the mari-time region is urbanization pressure. Just as agriculture was attracted to the marimari-time Pacific Northwest in the early 1900s, there was a large influx of people in the late twentieth century. As the primary cities and towns in the region expanded, they engulfed much of the prime agricultural land surrounding them. This urban expan-sion is continuing.

In his book The End of Agriculture in the American Portfolio, Blank (1998) espouses the idea that in a free market, land use will change to whatever activity creates the highest value for the land. As populations increase, increased demand for land for residences and businesses drives up land prices. Individuals who bought the land when it was relatively cheap rural farmland have tremendous incentive to sell to developers, or to develop their land directly. In Blank’s view, there will be a

“natural” progression of rural land converted to urban residences and businesses so that eventually, the only agriculture that is left in a region is that involved in directly servicing urban communities. The agricultural operations that remain are primarily turf farms, golf courses, and nurseries. Food production moves to where there is less pressure to urbanize land and land prices and labor costs are lower. This ultimately means that food production for the United States will move to the developing coun-tries that have the lowest labor costs. Even within the developing world, there has been an evolution in that as infrastructure and wages improve, food production shifts to other developing countries that are less developed and pay lower wages. This has been the case with fresh-market winter vegetable production, which has moved from the United States to Mexico and more recently to Central America.

It is instructive to compare the very different approaches to land use that have been employed by Washington and Oregon. Washington has put minimal restric-tions on land use, whereas the Oregon approach has been to implement zoning laws that preserve some areas as public space, as well as preventing the conversion of forest and agricultural land to residential uses. As an example of preserving land as a public good, the Pacific Ocean shores of Oregon are public land with development restricted within 100 yards of the shoreline. Cities have developed zoning plans that set urban growth boundaries in an attempt to control land development. Within rural areas, some land has been set aside for residential development, mainly land that is not considered of good quality for agriculture or forestry. Prime agricultural and for-est land cannot be developed for housing, with the exception of building a residence on the land if one can show that it is necessary for the management of that land.

While public land use policy has protected farmland from development in Oregon, there is a downside to Oregon’s approach. Because of unmet demand, land prices are

high. Some individuals chafe at being unable to sell their land to the highest bidder because doing so would require an impossible-to-get zoning variance. As a conse-quence, Oregon voters in 2004 passed Measure 37, which requires that individuals be compensated if a zoning law enacted after the purchase of their land impacts its value.

If the landowner cannot be compensated monetarily, the zoning restriction must be waived. The intent of Measure 37 was to allow the landholder who had invested as a retirement security strategy to develop his or her land for retirement income, or to build additional dwellings for heirs. However, in some cases, land developers used the law to develop large housing subdivisions. In 2007, Measure 49 was passed, which closed the loophole allowing large-scale development. This legislative seesaw reveals the strong polarization within Oregon society regarding private ownership rights ver-sus attempts to manage the landscape in a way that benefits the general public.

In Washington, as even the smaller towns have grown, little has been done to preserve the farms in the area. This scenario is typified in the Kent Valley outside of Seattle, where once highly productive vegetable fields are now covered with ware-houses and box stores. It is a great challenge for farmers to remain in agriculture when they are being offered a price for their land for development purposes that is greater than they could hope to earn in a lifetime of backbreaking work. Faced with this situation, it is hard for many farmers to justify staying in the farming busi-ness. Many farmers are selling their land in western Washington and relocating to the eastern region. This has been the case for many dairies and the vegetable pro-cessing industries that were once based here. Lower costs of water and land in the eastern region enable farmers to be more profitable, and they escape the nuisance complaints that arise from new developments that surround farmlands in the mari-time region. Due to expanding population settlements and the resulting relocation of farmers, farm numbers and acreage have decreased dramatically throughout western Washington. For example, the number of milk cows declined 30% in 2005 compared to 1993, while the number of acres in sweet corn in 2003 declined 15% compared to 1989 and the number of acres in green peas declined 70% compared to 1970 (USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, 2005; Washington Agricultural Statistics Service, 1994, 2002).

5.2.2 C^onversion e^xperienCes

Although urbanization has tended to push farmers out of the maritime zone, it has also been a force promoting conversion to more sustainable practices. This somewhat paradoxical situation arises out of the proximity between agricultural land and large human populations that results from urbanization of formerly rural landscapes.

One of the trends toward sustainability that has been promoted by the proxim-ity of agricultural land and urban centers in the maritime zone is the shortening and localization of the food production–food consumption chain. As the pressure to urbanize increases, the costs of land and services increase substantially and farmers find they need to earn more per acre in order to remain economically viable. Due to the low economic return of traditional commodity crops and markets, farmers look for ways to capture more profit from their crops. Some farmers have been turning to direct marketing, niche market crops, and value added as a means to accomplish

this. Direct marketing enables farmers to capture retail prices for their products, while communities are supportive because direct marketing tends to be family ori-ented and provides direct access to fresh, high-quality products at reasonable prices.

Direct marketing contributes to sustainability in that goods are usually sold locally, or at least regionally, which reduces the use of fossil fuels needed for transportation, promotes agricultural bioregionalism, and forges a closer, more democratic connec-tion between producer and consumer. One type of direct marketing that has gained in popularity in the region is farmers’ markets.

Farmers’ markets have been very successful in the Pacific Northwest and have increased in number and annual sales, especially in the maritime region. Farmers’

markets appear to be most popular in urban communities where consumers have limited access to farm-fresh foods. In Oregon there were 77 state-registered farmers’

markets in 2005, while in Washington there were 89 (Washington State Farmers’

Market Association, 2006). The Oregon Farmers’ Markets Association is relatively new and was established in 1987 by a small group of market managers from around the state. Today it is estimated that more than 1,000 farmers participate in Oregon farmers’ markets each year, and that more than 90,000 people visit the markets each week during the peak summer months (Oregon Farmers’ Market Association, 2002). The Washington State Farmers Market Association was formed in 1979 with five member markets. In 1997 (the year of the earliest recorded sales figures) 56 farmers’ markets earned $5 million; by 2005, sales from 89 farmers’ markets had increased to more than $25 million (Lyons, personal communication, 2006).

The maritime region has a long history with farmers’ markets. The first public market was established in Portland in 1870, and the Seattle public market was estab-lished in 1907. Although the Portland Public Market (2006) has not existed for the last 50 years, an effort is being made today to reestablish the market in downtown Portland. In contrast, the Seattle public market, the Pike Place Market, is currently recognized worldwide as America’s premier farmers’ market. The Pike Place Market was formed in response to complaints of citizens/consumers who were outraged that the cost of onions had increased tenfold in a two-year period. The market was estab-lished so that consumers could connect directly with farmers and avoid “price-goug-ing middlemen” (Pike Place Market PDA, 2006). Today, 10 million visitors visit the Pike Place Market each year, where in addition to year-round businesses, 120 farm-ers rent table space by the day. The Pike Place Market is one of the most frequently visited destinations in Washington State, and this is a testament to the desire of urban consumers to connect with agricultural producers and marketers, perhaps especially when this connection is made in the heart of an urban area.

Urbanization has encouraged conversion to sustainable practices in a rather dif-ferent way by forcing many farmers to find alternatives to practices that generate conflict with urban residents and municipalities. These conflicts generally arise over three issues—noise from agricultural equipment (especially at odd hours), odor from poorly managed manure, and the application of agricultural pesticides. While com-plaints about noise, odor, and toxics have caused some farmers to sell their land and relocate their farms to more rural areas in other parts of the region, other farmers have responded by changing the practices that cause the complaints. Most commonly they have reduced pesticide use—taking advantage of new spray technologies that

improve the distribution of active ingredients—and many have moved to eliminate synthetic chemical pesticide use altogether, choosing to become organic grow-ers. Although there can be many long-term environmental advantages attributed to organic production, there are also two important short-term advantages. First, farmers are able to avoid complaints by neighbors who otherwise object to synthetic chemical pesticide applications. And second, farmers are able to capture a premium price for organic products. For those farmers who are able to solve their primary pest issues without the use of synthetic chemical pesticides, organic farming can be a profitable choice that enables them to be successful in an urban environment.

In general, urbanization and economic pressures have had mixed effects with regard to sustainability. On the negative side, economic necessity has driven farmers to intensify production and shorten rotations. This has led to increases in some insect pests and diseases that are normally kept in check by long rotations. For example, root rot pathogens are increasingly limiting yields of green beans and sweet corn.

Farmers who grow processed vegetables in the Willamette Valley, however, are find-ing that rotatfind-ing to grass seed for two or more years can reduce the pathogen load while increasing soil organic matter and improving soil structure for subsequent veg-etable crops. Canola for biodiesel may become a significant crop in the Willamette Valley in the near future, and its introduction could help further diversify rotations.

Although economic factors drive farmers toward greater efficiency sometimes at the expense of sustainability, sustainable practices that also lead to economic ben-efits can be incorporated. Nearly all farmland in western Oregon is now covered with perennial or winter cover crops. This has had two benefits: reduction in soil erosion during the winter and fewer chemical fertilizer inputs because of the increased fer-tility and organic matter from incorporating the cover crop before the main crop is planted. A second sustainable practice has been the recent introduction of strip till, which maintains more soil cover during the cropping season. Farmers have had to adjust to these practices. For example, soils under cover crops do not dry out and warm up as quickly as bare soils. If a farmer plans to plant an early crop, he or she may need to resort to traditional soil preparation practices. Symphylan populations may increase in systems with continuous cover or higher organic matter and may cause root damage in a subsequent vegetable crop. In addition, it has been difficult with strip till systems to achieve well-worked and uniform seedbeds that allow uni-form germination and emergence of green beans and small-seeded vegetable crops.

5.2.3 l^essons l^earned

Blank’s (1998) vision of an America without traditional agriculture represents one extreme view of what will happen to agriculture in the United States in the future.

We believe that while many changes are afoot and that the gradual erosion of farm-land is inevitable, there will be bright spots for agriculture in our region. When con-trasting changes to the landscape in western Washington and Oregon, it is apparent that land use policy plays a major role in the sustainability of agriculture through-out the region. To prevent the wholesale conversion of agricultural lands to housing and businesses, local governments must become involved in land use policy that creates and maintains urban growth boundaries. In addition, public officials and

community leaders should uphold right-to-farm laws when nuisance complaints are made against farmers.

Small-scale farms that produce high-value products are proliferating in the region, whether these are U-pick blueberry operations or organic vegetable farms that sell in farmers’ markets. The number of wineries and vineyards in the region also con-tinues to grow. Many of the farm operations that are successful are able to provide products that attract and appeal to urban customers. In many cases, a large amount of the appeal is due to the fact that the product was produced locally. Farmers’ markets provide consumers access to fresh, high-quality produce at affordable prices, while farmers are able to gain retail prices for their products. City and community lead-ers view a vibrant downtown farmlead-ers’ market as a means to revitalize neighboring downtown businesses.

Much can be learned from the approach of various European countries to the pres-ervation of their agricultural landscapes. Farmers receive subsidies to stay in busi-ness and maintain their farms because the majority of citizens want to keep farms as managed open spaces that provide some level of food security, wildlife habitat, water management areas (i.e., in periods of flooding), and pleasing views. However, there are enough differences between Europe and the United States to wonder whether such a system could work in the United States. Europe has a centuries-old tradition of people living closely together in cities surrounded by much less densely populated farmland. European culture has evolved in such a way that essentially urban growth boundaries are self-imposed. In addition, government policies throughout Europe tend to consider the public good above the rights of the individual. In contrast, U.S.

culture encourages individual settlement in rural areas and individual property rights dominate in public policy. In the United States we are uncertain that with contempo-rary capitalistic attitudes, citizens would be receptive to the idea of paying farmers to farm in order to provide environmental and aesthetic benefits.

5.2.4 i^ndiCatorsoF sustainability

As urbanization pressure continues to grow, local and state governments must decide

As urbanization pressure continues to grow, local and state governments must decide