By DANA TIMS/YachatsNews
No one is confusing the economic and social importance of Lincoln County’s farms with the sprawling tracts of land dominating Oregon agriculture in the Willamette Valley and east of the Cascades.
Total sales from Lincoln County’s farms, after all, rank dead last among Oregon’s 36 counties.
Still, that figure doesn’t begin to tell the story of the nearly 300 small farms in the county that account for nearly $7 million in annual sales.
These operations, which almost always require their owners to hold down second jobs, employ hundreds of county residents and produce crops such as nursery and greenhouse plants, woodland crops such as Christmas trees and a variety of fruits, vegetables and flowers, among other things.
Taken together, the county’s farms are important enough that Oregon State University’s Extension Service is once again offering a five-session seminar specifically crafted for landowners new to managing small-acreage farms or properties.
The sessions, which are free and held at Eddyville Charter School, kick off Tuesday, Jan. 14 with a two-hour class on management of land and pastures.
“We have folks here who are fourth-generation farmers in Lincoln County,” said Evelyn Smith, OSU’s small farms and community horticulture extension agent. “But we also have quite a bit of interest from newcomers who want to know more about what it takes to get established, and that’s who we are really focusing on with this seminar.”
Lay of the land
The seminar’s topics get to the heart of what it takes to farm and productively manage land in Lincoln County which, despite its low ranking among all Oregon counties in agricultural output, nonetheless saw an increase in both its average farm size and its net farm income in 2022 over 2017, according to new U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics.
The second session Jan. 21, for instance, provides an overview of how healthy trees grow and how to manage them through the years. In addition to providing guidance of how to produce an “overstory” that will provide critical shade for farmland, the session also includes lessons about managing common weed problems.
The three remaining gatherings cover topics just as critical to small-farm success.
On Jan. 28, attendees will learn about riparian spaces, watersheds and caring for streamside areas. That’s vitally important since so many of the county’s farms dot the upper Siletz, Yaquina, Alsea and Yachats river watersheds.
Next up is a Feb. 4 session on rural water maintenance. Topics will focus on protecting home drinking water resources by maintaining home wells and septic systems. A local watermaster will be on hand to talk about irrigation water rights, which remains perennially important to small farms.
This particular topic is of special concern to area farmers because of the contrarian aspects of water availability on the coast or in the Coast Range.
Abundant winter rainfall comes at a time when farms generally aren’t producing crops that need water, Smith points out. And when that water is really needed during late-summer harvest times, local water storage capacity is usually tapped out by the tourism and hospitality sectors that really drive the coastal economy.
“But we are really excited to see area farmers now looking more and more into storage tanks to extend their irrigation season,” Smith said. “It’s a cool thing I’m seeing from people, who are wanting to see if that fits into their farming system, and it’s the kind of information we’ll be providing at the seminar.”
The final session Feb. 11 is all about soils and how they factor into any farmer’s plans for land management and crop selection.
“It’s so isolated here in the county, and it can be very hard to get access to information and services,” Smith said. “That’s one aspect we hope to use these sessions to address.”
Access to markets
Catherine Lucido of Yachats knows as much as anyone about what it takes to run a successful small farm in Lincoln County. She bought the 26 acres of what is now Forks Farm Flowers in 1989 and, with her husband’s help, has been selling fresh-cut flowers and providing bouquets, planters and large flower arrangements since.
She started small, with blueberries, and progressed from there. Like most county farms, Lucido’s operation isn’t big enough to constitute a full-time business. But she regularly sells her flowers to area florists, operates her own farm stand and even gets three calls a year from a customer in Germany who wants flowers delivered to his mother in Florence.
“Almost all of us who do this need a second job because our farms just can’t produce enough income,” she said. “If you grow enough blueberries, for instance, you could get your own label made and sell to restaurants. But without some value-added step like that, it’s very difficult to gain access to markets that would make any particular farm more profitable.”
Yet the help Fork Farms – named for its location at the confluence of the Yachats River’s north and south forks eight miles east of Yachats – gets from OSU extension has proved invaluable to Lucido and others.
“We had problems with voles not too long ago and OSU extension held a workshop that provided a lot of answers,” Lucido said. “At least 15 people from all over the county showed up. What they are doing is fabulous.”
Other challenges
In the best of times, farming in Oregon can be difficult, said Austin McClister, the Oregon Farm Bureau’s communications director. Factor in Lincoln County’s relatively remote location and things get even tougher, especially for fledgling operations.
Regulations pertaining to overtime pay has helped create labor costs that are, on average, 70 above the national average, he said. And revised new rules pertaining to farmworker housing in Oregon could drive those costs further skyward, he said.
“Are there niches you can get into? Yes,” McClister said. “But, as the saying goes, don’t get into farming here because you want to make money.”
Still, McClister holds a soft spot for Lincoln County’s farming scene. As a state Farm Bureau member, he gets his choice of any county farm bureau to join. He chose Lincoln County’s.
“Their county farm bureau only has about 50 voting members,” he said. “That compares to something like 600 members in Marion County. But they are fun and interesting folks. That’s my farm bureau.”
The sheer lack of farmable land along the coast presents another hurdle to farming in the county, said Shaun Barrick, an Oregon Employment Department economist. There is also the fact that the Coast Range runs right through the middle of the area, leaving sandy soils on one side and extremely wet forestlands on the other.
Looking ahead, Barrick said, food manufacturing is expected to grow, as are the number of fish processors. And the county currently ranks fourth in the state in aquaculture sales, which are considered an agricultural commodity.
“Lincoln County may not be a huge farm county,” he said, “but it has some really interesting small farms. The public loves those kinds of operations and they are going to be around for a long, long time.”
- Dana Tims is an Oregon freelance writer who contributes regularly to YachatsNews. He can be reached at DanaTims24@gmail.com
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