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THE ASTORIAN • TuESdAy, dEcEmbER 21, 2021
Who’s buying Oregon’s farmland?
Researchers have
identified several sources
By SIERRA DAWN MCCLAIN
capital Press
Madeleine Fairbairn, a University of Cal-
ifornia, Santa Cruz professor and author of
the 2020 book, “Fields of Gold: Financing
the Global Land Rush,” recalls attending
a conference in a stately hotel with men in
suits at tables shrouded in white tablecloths
under a crystal chandelier discussing invest-
ment opportunities.
“The subject being discussed among all
this finery was not the future of international
banking or the latest in high-frequency trad-
ing,” writes Fairbairn. “It was farming. These
well-heeled men were in the market for dirt.”
In recent years, more and more domestic
investors have set their sights on farmland.
Some have been high-net-worth individu-
als like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. Cor-
porations, as well as institutional investors
— including university endowments, private
foundations and pension funds — are also
increasingly adding farmland to their invest-
ment portfolios.
Oregon, known for its high-value crop-
land, has been a hot commodity.
Some farmers have benefited, but crit-
ics say the financialization of farmland is
moving high-value soil out of agriculture,
raising land prices and delocalizing rural
communities.
So, who is buying farmland in Oregon?
Researchers have identified several
actors: family-based farm operations scaling
up, wealthy individuals, institutions, corpo-
rations and real estate developers and amen-
ity owners who buy farmland to live in the
country and perhaps run a hobby farm but
not a commercial operation.
Urban growth
Historically, experts say, the majority of
outside investment in farmland came from
developers.
According to the American Farmland
Trust, between 1992 and 2012, 62% of
development occurred on farmland. Nation-
wide, almost 31 million acres of agricultural
land was lost.
This is the story for Lyle Spiesschaert, 74,
a fourth-generation Forest Grove farmer.
On a recent December morning,
Spiesschaert climbed out of his UTV on a
hillside and looked down on the valley.
Straight ahead lay cropland that had been
farmed by his family for more than 100 years.
To the southeast, bordering his property,
stands Forest Grove High School and scores
of homes surrounding it.
“When I was a kid in FFA, I used to grow
wheat right there,” Spiesschaert said.
Spiesschaert’s family lost 20 acres under
eminent domain to a school construction
project. It was too difficult to farm next to the
school, so the family sold the surrounding 47
acres to a developer and retained about 300
farm acres.
In 2014, a new state law, dubbed a land
use “grand bargain,” expanded urban growth
boundaries in Washington County, pulling
Spiesschaert’s property into Forest Grove.
The developable label raised his land value
about 20 times higher per acre: unaffordable
for beginning farmers, and a disappointment
to Spiesschaert since he had hoped to pass
on the land.
Locals say the region is now crawling
with developers and speculators.
Spiesschaert, whose farm is under intense
development pressure, said he’s searching for
a way to preserve as much land as possible,
such as through a conservation easement.
“Urban growth isn’t bad. Change will
happen,” Spiesschaert said. “The question is:
Where’s the balance? Oregon has generally
good laws that protect farmland, but at what
point do we say: ‘Stop. We have our carrying
capacity of people in an area and shouldn’t
grab more farmland’?”
Conversion of farmland into hous-
ing development isn’t the only kind of
investment.
Investment comes of age
According to Fairbairn, the researcher,
farmland investment has slowly been build-
ing since the 1980s, but the sector really
came of age in 2008.
According to U.S. Department of Agri-
culture economists, between 2006 to 2008,
crop prices were high, foreign demand for
U.S. agricultural products was on the rise and
food security was a growing concern, factors
making farmland attractive.
Then the Great Recession hit.
As stock prices plummeted and financial
institutions teetered toward collapse, Fair-
bairn said, “farmland, along with other ‘real
assets,’ took on a new luster in the eyes of
ABOVE: Lyle Spiesschaert looks at a
development — a neighborhood and school
— where he used to farm wheat. RIGHT: A
road in Forest Grove that used to be part of
the Spiesschaert farm.
Photos by Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
A hill overlooking Lyle Spiesschaert’s farm, which has been in his family for more than a century.
investors.”
The financial sector’s appetite for farm-
land took off and hasn’t slowed since. Land
use experts say other factors, including con-
cerns about climate change and dwindling
water supplies, have intensified the land rush.
Uncovering who’s investing isn’t easy.
That’s because, according to Andrew Gun-
noe, a professor of rural sociology at
Maryville College in Tennessee, in the U.S.,
“no comprehensive database of landowner-
ship exists at the federal level.”
USDA tracks purchases by foreign inves-
tors but not domestic buyers.
States, too, rarely track farmland owner-
ship, so tax parcel data are scattered across
counties.
Jim Johnson, the land use and water plan-
ning coordinator at the Oregon Department
of Agriculture, said capturing a true pic-
ture of investment would demand data from
every county in the West. Experts say no one
has undertaken that mammoth project in its
entirety, but individual organizations and
researchers have compiled pieces.
Megan Horst, a Portland State Univer-
sity professor who studies food systems, is
a leader in this field. Stringing together data
from Oregon’s 36 counties, she recently ana-
lyzed farmland sales from 2010 to 2015 in an
effort to uncover investment patterns.
“I think it’s important for people to know
who owns our land,” she said.
Building on Horst’s work, the Capital
Press requested data from county assessors’
offices on farmland sales from 2015 through
2021, focusing on three major regions: the
Columbia Gorge, central Oregon and the
Willamette Valley.
Big picture
The datasets reveal that while the major-
ity of farmland sales are still associated with
family farming, more properties are being
sold to investors and corporations.
Between 2010 and 2015, there were, on
average, 1,656 sales of Oregon farmland
each year.
Seventy-nine percent of these properties
were sold to individuals or similar entities,
accounting for 54% of the acreage.
properties representing 9,760 acres were
sold.
The database, cross-referenced with busi-
ness filings, reveals that top areas of invest-
ment were in tourism, real estate and high-
value perennial crops.
“The biggest threat to farming in the
Hood River area is mostly tourism-related,”
said Mike McCarthy, whose family grows
pears in the area.
McCarthy is a board member of Thrive
Hood River, a land use organization. He
became interested in protecting farmland
after, in the 1970s, a resort developer offered
to convert his parents’ land into a golf course.
According to an agricultural lender who
spoke on condition of anonymity, there’s
also “huge institutional interest” in land near
the Columbia River because of the valuable
water rights.
In some pockets along the Gorge, grow-
ers have banded together to hold out against
corporate investment pressure, leasing prop-
erties to one another or forming partnerships.
Central Oregon
From 2015 to 2021, the number of farm-
land transfers in Deschutes County was 568,
representing 35,196 acres.
In central Oregon as a whole, one-quar-
ter of investors from 2010 to 2015 were cor-
porations that bought a whopping 59% of the
total acreage sold.
Horst, of Portland State, said the big
trend in central Oregon has been conver-
sion of farmland into development, in part
because Bend is a fast-growing population
center.
“Things are changing rapidly in central
Oregon,” Horst said.
Experts say the population upswing has
put pressure on land and water supplies.
“We’re seeing inch-by-inch erosion of
farmland,” said Nellie McAdams, the execu-
tive director of the Oregon Agricultural Trust.
Deschutes County data from 2015 to
2021 show a few major themes. Top buyers
included real estate and land development
companies, investment firms and companies,
including water utilities, buying land for the
water rights.
OREGON, KNOWN FOR ITS HIGH-VALUE CROPLAND,
HAS BEEN A HOT COMMODITY.SOME FARMERS HAVE
BENEFITED, BUT CRITICS SAY THE FINANCIALIZATION
OF FARMLAND IS MOVING HIGH-VALUE SOIL OUT
OF AGRICULTURE, RAISING LAND PRICES AND
DELOCALIZING RURAL COMMUNITIES.
In contrast, 12% of farms were bought by
corporations, but they accounted for more
than 40% of the acreage purchased. In other
words, corporations bought larger properties.
Of the 1,853 corporate buyers, less than
half had clear connections to agriculture and
instead were involved with real estate and
property development, investing, manufac-
turing, renewable energy and other industries.
Only 10% of the farms were purchased by
out-of-state buyers, but they bought 26% of
the total acreage.
Who is buying farmland is only half the
story — some would say the less important half.
“Who owns the property is not really rel-
evant,” said Greg Holmes, food systems pro-
gram director and southern Oregon advocate
at 1000 Friends of Oregon, a land use watch-
dog nonprofit. “What’s relevant is: What are
they going to do with it?”
Columbia Gorge
From 2010 to 2015, the Columbia Gorge
region had the highest percentage of prop-
erties purchased by out-of-state buyers, at
14%, and one-quarter of all buyers were
corporations.
The region has continued to be a popular
investment location. From January 2015 to
November, in Hood River County, 413 farm
Farther east, in Grant County, invest-
ments have taken on a different flavor. Here,
said Shaun Robertson, the president of
Grant County Farm Bureau, two big themes
have emerged: wealthy individuals or fami-
lies moving to the country for its amenities,
and people or companies buying land for
hunting purposes.
Willamette Valley
According to Horst, the Willamette Val-
ley remains popular for investments due to
its high-quality soil, beautiful vistas, water
rights and proximity to urban centers and
transportation corridors.
Parcels across the valley tend to be
smaller than those in other parts of the state.
In Washington County, near Portland,
many farmland sales have been to amenity
owners who want to live in the country.
In the mid-Willamette Valley, increasing
numbers of investors are buying farmland
and either leasing it to locals or managing it
in a semiabsentee manner.
From 2015 to 2021, Polk County — in
the heart of the Willamette Valley — had
616 farmland sales representing 34,776
acres. Major investors included family
farms scaling up, investment firms, out-of-
state grass seed companies buying cropland,
real estate groups and California wine com-
panies buying vineyards.
From January 2015 through October,
2,726 farm properties were sold in adjacent
Marion County, many to outside investors.
According to USDA, Marion County is the
largest agricultural-producing county in the
state.
Barb Iverson, the owner of Wooden
Shoe Tulip Farm in Woodburn, said it’s
unfortunate there are now so many absen-
tee landowners in her area with little local
connection.
“It keeps the land in agriculture, but then
again, it takes that local aspect out,” she
said.
McAdams, of the Oregon Agricultural
Trust, agreed that absentee landowner-
ship can be problematic. She said an out-
side investor is less likely to buy from the
local feed store or be an involved commu-
nity member.
Searching for solutions
Experts say there isn’t one easy solution
to solving investment-related challenges.
Horst said a good place to start would be
with better tracking of farmland sales.
“More transparent reporting would be
good,” she said.
McAdams said farmers who don’t want
to see their land turn into subdivisions or
other types of development can consider
donating or selling it for working land ease-
ments — voluntary agreements between
a land trust and landowner that removes
development rights.
Addie Candib, the Pacific Northwest
director of the American Farmland Trust,
said that although Oregon ranks among the
top 12 states with the best farmland protec-
tion laws, the state could do better.
Holmes, of 1000 Friends of Oregon,
agreed.
In 1973, Oregon lawmakers passed a
law to protect exclusive farm use land. But
over the past 48 years, Holmes said, legis-
lators have incrementally refined the law to
allow more than 60 uses on the land, rang-
ing from destination resorts to renewable
energy facilities.
“People are driving through bigger and
bigger loopholes,” Holmes said.
Experts say the industry also needs better
generational land transfer tax laws.
Beyond policy, there are also personal
solutions.
Rusty Inglis, the president of Harney
County Farm Bureau and longtime cattle
rancher, paints a picture of what it means to
preserve farmland for the next generation.
Inglis, 65, has no familial heirs, but he is
determined to keep his land in farming. He
could sell to developers or lease to neigh-
bors, but his dream is to pass the land on to
young farmers.
“With today’s land prices, a young cou-
ple’s never going to get into the ranching
business,” he said. “It’s my intention to help
them get something that’s normally hard to
get.”
The past few years, Inglis has been work-
ing with a young family passionate about
cattle ranching. The couple couldn’t afford
to buy Inglis’ property or herd outright, so
he is starting by leasing land to them and
selling off a portion of his breeding stock
annually. Working with an attorney, he has
set up a tentative succession plan.
“I can’t write into a will that the fam-
ily will have to continue ranching. Maybe
they’ll sell to a developer someday, and
when I’m dead, I might look down from the
afterlife and say, ‘You knuckleheads,’” he
said, and laughed. “But I don’t think I’ll care
at that point. The point is just that I tried to
keep this land in farming, and to give them a
chance to farm it.”
The global land rush continues, with
investors talking over white tablecloths
under glittering chandeliers.
But for Inglis and the young family he’s
helping, the land rush stops here.