Central Oregon farmers face increasing costs
As production expenses have continually risen over the
past decade, average crop sales have gradually declined
BY LILY RAFF
THE (BEND) BULLETIN
BEND — Richard Macy is one of
the lucky ones. That’s because
he continues to make a comfort
able living off crops from his
Culver farm.
And these days, farmers say, that
sets Macy apart from an increasing
number of his peers.
Scott Samsel, a farmer in Madras,
said farming in Central Oregon is
simply “not good. Not good at all.”
According to the U.S. Department
of Agriculture’s 2002 agriculture
census, there are fewer farms in
Central Oregon now than there were
just five years ago. Meanwhile, the
average local farmer continues
to age.
Samsel, who is a member of the
North Unit Irrigation District, said a
bushel of bluegrass — one of his
main crops — has cost about the
same since the mid-1980s. But the
costs of operating his farm have
risen steadily.
According to the latest agricultur
al census figures, Samsel is part of a
larger trend. Production expenses
for the average farm in Jefferson
County were $75,067 in 1997 and
$88,979 in 2002. That’s an increase
in expenditures of almost 19 percent
in five years.
But the average crop sales per
farm in Jefferson County went
down during that time, from
$97,088 in 1997 to $95,292 in 2002.
That’s about a 2 percent decrease in
sales in five years.
That’s why farmers say it’s be
coming harder to afford even the
basic costs of business. For exam
ple, a brand new combine — a piece
of machinery that farmers drive
through their fields to cut and sepa
rate grains from their stalks — could
cost about $225,000 these days.
“What people like Richard
(Macy) have done is, they have a lot
of acres that they can spread the
cost out over,” Samsel said of Macy,
who farms 1,450 acres. “I’m farm
ing about 250 acres right now. And
if I had to buy a combine, I’d have
to rent it out to someone else or ...
do something, because I couldn’t
spread out that whole cost over just
250 acres.”
Samsel said he is looking for
ways to expand his farm, but
the area’s recent growth has
driven most land prices way pasthis
budget.
“There’s about 70 acres that I’m
thinking about (buying) right now,
that probably could be sold on the
open market for about a quarter of
a million dollars,” Samsel said. “I
can’t afford to compete with that.”
The flip side of the rising realty
market is that farmers suddenly see
an easy alternative to farming —
they can sell their land.
And even if they’re not ready to
give up their land, farmers have
something else that, in Central Ore
gon, is quickly turning to gold —
water.
The North Unit Irrigation District
“by far manages its water better
than any other district in the basin,”
said Jeremy Giffin, watermaster for
the Deschutes Basin. “But they’re
kind of required to.”
All of the surface water rights
from the Deschutes River were
doled out by 1914. That’s also the
year the North Unit Irrigation Dis
trict received its Deschutes River
water rights.
In Oregon, water rights are ful
filled on a first-come, first-served
basis. That means in low-water
years, North Unit is the last irriga
tion district to receive water.
“They rely on stored water from
Wickiup (Reservoir) every year,”
Giffin said of the district. “They get
a good percentage from natural
flow, but they still dip into the
stored water every year.”
The key to managing water dur
ing the low-water summer months,
Giffin said, is taking careful meas
urements and paying special atten
tion to factors that might affect
farmers’ demands for water.
When a rainstorm passes
through, for example, or haying sea
son requires farmers to dry out their
fields, water use goes down.
Savvy irrigation district managers
work hard to anticipate their farm
ers’ water needs, and accommodate
them with as little water to spare as
possible.
That’s harder than it sounds, Gif
fin said.
It takes 36 hours for water to get
from Wickiup Reservoir to the start
of the North Unit canal, in Bend. It
then takes even longer for the water
to navigate the canals and actually
get to the farms in the North Unit
district. Once water is released from
the reservoir and enters the canals,
it will either be used on crops or re
turned to the river.
So especially in low-water years,
district managers want to make sure
that water released from the reser
voir ends up on their farmers’ fields.
Kenya: Thiong'o jailed after play success
Continued from page 1
Stephen Wooten said. “He brings a
critical perspective to campus.”
Thiong’o has been called East
Africa’s foremost novelist, writing
many acclaimed novels including
“Weep Not, Child,” “A Grain of
Wheat,” “The River Between” and
“Devil on the Cross.” Thiong’o has
also written nonfiction works and
children’s books. He has taught at
universities in Africa, Europe and
the United States and is currently
the director of the International
Center for Writing and Translation
at the University of California,
Irvine, where he is a distinguished
professor of English and Compara
tive Literature.
Thiong’o studied at universities in
Uganda and England, writing his
first novels while still a student. Af
ter studying, he became a professor
at the University of Nairobi. In addi
tion to teaching at the university,
Thiong’o and his colleagues taught
in the local villages, where he first
began to notice the connection be
tween language and memory.
“My books were written in Eng
lish, and teaching in the village,
there was the issue of which lan
guage will we use,” Thiong’o said.
In 1977, Thiong’o co-wrote a
play entitled “Ngaahika Ndeenda,”
meaning “I will marry when I
want” in English. It was written in
Kikuyu, the local language of
the community.
“I chose the language because
there was no other way to reach the
community,” Thiong’o said.
The play became so popular
among the Kikuyu farmers and
workers that the government
banned the play, fearing political dis
sent. Thiong’o was arrested and tak
en to a maximum-security prison.
“I was taken without a name, a
title, nothing, no trial even,”
Thiong’o said. “I was thinking
about the issue of language and
why I was put in a maximum-secu
rity prison for writing a play when
it raised the same issues as books I
had written in English.”
The time in prison led Thiong’o to
decide he would no longer write in
English but in an African language in
order to find a way of connecting
with himself, he said.
During the lecture, Thiong’o ex
plained how changing the language
of a community alienates the com
munity economically, socially and
politically.
“If you get at the language of a
people, you are getting at the cement
of their political structure,” Thiong’o
said. “You control the memory of
that community. Naming is the way
you identify things, and it establishes
relationships.”
Thiong’o used the example of
“Robinson Crusoe,” in which the
man Crusoe met is called Friday.
“He says, ‘Your name is Friday,’
not, ‘What is your name,’” Thiong’o
said. “Then he called himself master,
so wherever they went, when people
asked, ‘Who is that man?’ Friday
said, ‘That is master.’”
Thiong’o also applied the concept
to New England, in which the mem
ory we have of states such as New
York and New Jersey is in reference
to England.
“1 was writing about African his
tory that can only be seen in an
English frame of reference,”
Thiong’o said.
Thiong’o said part of the solu
tion is sensitizing people to re
membering that there are other
languages and often the language
used is not native or local.
“It is still colonialization in Africa
the way we have turned away from
our primary languages,” Thiong’o
said. “Our language is connecting
us to that memory as our starting
point for our engagement with the
rest of the world.”
abolsinger@ daily emerald, com
001782
1
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Draft Senate bill
seeks to modify
recent Measure 37
The new law requires landowners be compensated for
decreased property value government-caused regulations
BY CHARLES E. BEGGS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALEM — A draft Senate bill to
make changes in the new voter
passed property compensation law
includes one to let landowners build
homes they could have built when
they bought their property but were
later blocked by government rules.
Sen. Charlie Ringo, chairman of
the Senate Environment & Land Use
Committee, said he hopes the panel
will begin hearings on the new
measure Wednesday.
The draft bill combines features
of a number of bills that would re
vise Measure 37, which voters
strongly approved in November.
The new law created by Measure
37 says landowners must be com
pensated or the land-use rules
waived if government regulations
imposed after the property is
bought reduce its value.
Ringo says city and county offi
cials who are grappling with the
new law are looking to legislators to
adopt uniform statewide standards
for handling claims.
The land use watchdog group
1000 Friends of Oregon estimates
more than 500 claims have been
filed under the law since it took ef
fect Dec. 2.
Ringo said Thursday the pro
posed Measure 37 revision bill is in
tended only as a starting point and
is based on informal discussions
with a variety of interests.
“No deals have been made and
no agreements reached,” said the
Beaverton Democrat. “We feel we
need to bring the discussion to more
of a public arena.”
The revision bill already is draw
ing criticism from both backers
and critics of the property compen
sation law.
The provision giving property
owners rights to build a single-fami
ly home on their land could reduce
claims filed under Measure 37 but
is contentious.
A bill to grant those rights already
has passed the Republican-run
House, where it had strong Democ
ratic opposition, and has gone to
Ringo’s committee.
Democrats control the Senate, but
Ringo backs the right-to-build lan
guage and that could attract support
from fellow Democrats.
Ringo said he believes that re
strictions that have prevented peo
ple from building homes on their
own land “is one of the sources of
discontent that caused people to
vote for Measure 37.”
But Elon Hasson, lobbyist for
1000 Friends, said the right-to-build
provisions would further weaken
land use planning safeguards for the
state’s best agricultural land.
“People voted for a fair land use
system. They didn’t vote to waive
protections on the highest value
farm land,” he said.
Dave Hunnicutt, director of Ore
gonians in Action, which led the
campaign to pass Measure 37, fa
vors the right-to-build provision
and said many backers of the
ballot measure don’t seek compen
sation but want the right to build on
their land.
Hasson said voters intended that
people be paid when government
actions reduced property value,
though, and that the main thing
missing in the revision bill is a com
pensation system.
“We can’t look at any Measure 37
legislation in isolation,” he sad.
Ringo said he is working on ideas
for how to pay claims but wasn’t yet
ready to disclose details.