CapitalPress.com
August 18, 2017
Oregon nursery industry reclaims No. 1
By ALIYA HALL
Capital Press
N17-3/#7
6
WILSONVILLE, Ore. —
During the recession that be-
gan in 2008, one-third of the
Oregon’s nursery business
was lost, but now in 2017,
the industry has come back
strong, reclaiming first place
among agricultural commod-
ities in the state.
“It was almost a perfect
storm of calamity economi-
cally,” Jeff Stone, director of
Oregon Association of Nurs-
eries, said of the recession. “It
hit farm-wide.”
The recession that hit the
housing and construction in-
dustries by proxy also hurt
nurseries, because both are
major customers. Homeown-
ers also shied away from
making improvements to their
yards and gardens.
“I equate it to families who
don’t go on vacation, but do
a staycation, and say, ‘Man,
my yard looks like garbage; I
should go to the garden cen-
ter.’ Well, they were so timid
about their future they didn’t
do any home improvement,”
Stone said.
There had been downturns
in the nursery industry before,
but none lasted as long or cut
as deeply, said Stone.
“The 2008 cycle was par-
ticularly dark and damaging,”
he said.
The market difficulty com-
bined with the lack of labor at
the time made nurseries more
cautious.
After 2008, nurseries had
to change and adjust their
growing time. Before, they
could simply plant products
and sell them, but during the
recession, they “came to a
rude awakening,” Stone said.
“When it got past a certain
age of a plant that isn’t going
to market, what do you with
it? You destroy it,” he said.
“You have all those years of
trying to get a plant to market
and then there was no mar-
ket.”
Nurseries knew the reces-
sion wasn’t going to last for-
ever, but the concern was if
Photos by Aliya Hall/Capital Press
Jeff Stone, executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurser-
ies, said he is fortunate to be part of the nursery community, and
that it is still a “handshake industry” where friendship and trust has
been built over a long period of time.
Construction on Riverfront Park
in Salem, Ore., signals more
business for nurseries. The
housing and construction indus-
tries are major customers.
the companies could handle
how long it would last.
“The ones that survived
continued planting. Big-
ger nurseries weathered it
out, medium (nurseries) had
tougher times, but the small-
er ones had true difficulty,”
Stone said.
Recovery was initially
slow, but the industry has
since grown significantly. In
terms of sales, nurseries have
generated $950 million to
$975 million; the peak in past
years was over $1 billion.
However, fewer nurseries
have generated that revenue,
Stone said.
Nurseries
have
also
changed how they manage
production to look for more
efficiencies. During the reces-
sion, they focused on making
production more lean. Stone
said that the biggest step to
save labor cost was to switch
to automation.
“Automation is an alter-
native for folks, but that still
costs money and significant
investment,” Stone said.
The ordering process has
changed as well, said Stone.
Customers are putting orders
in to ship sooner than they had
previously.
“The degree of depen-
dence on planting a long time
ago for sale next year has prob-
ably shortened,” Stone said.
Stone enjoys an informal
competition with Oregon’s
beef industry, which has traded
the top sales spot with the nurs-
ery industry over the years.
“It’s the greatest arms
race between aggies that you
can have. I’d rather have us
trade off by a growing mar-
ket share,” he said. “We have
great collaboration and rela-
tionship with cattle, wine and
crop farms.”
After sitting at the No. 2
position, the nursery industry
reclaimed its first-place posi-
tion this month.
“The sales figures reflect
how the nursery and green-
house industry recovered from
the great recession,” Stone
said in an email. “The quality
of plant material grown and
sold by Oregon growers is
well known and (I) hope that
this signals continued success
of our traded sector industry.”
As for the competition
with the beef business, Stone
called the cattle industry “vi-
brant and a force in Oregon
agriculture.”
“I hope that we continue to
grow together for the benefit
of all of Oregon agriculture,”
Stone said.