Oregon Story; Farming

Oh. Funding for production of the Oregon story was made possible through a generous grant from the United States Department of Agriculture rural development. You you. You. You. You. Wow thanks. It's almost a form of addiction I think. You know or we. You get a high out of taking bare ground and putting the input sanding and the growing is going to crop you

possibly can with a little help. God of Mother Nature. It's a very capital intensive lifestyle. Takes a lot of money to farm. And the returns are generally 3 percent in that neighborhood which is pretty slim. And it's a long long hours. But there are a lot of tangible rewards to any injury. It's nice out here. We really like it. So even though we have difficulties with the price and the yield and those kind of farming issues you know us kind of will even out for how much fun it is to live here.

I still enjoy the fact that I'm my own boss more or less. I get to pick my hours I'm fusion my hardest taskmaster. It's fun to get out early in the morning or late evening like this and look around. You know get this in Portland or Seattle. It's. Something that you make money at. But is that why you're doing it or are you doing it because you like it. It's something you want to do. I mean are you happy to go to work every day. You hope to pay your loan completely off but I think this year we're going to have. Some real problems. Sometimes it's fees and sometimes it's famine. And you hope that every year to make a little money. But this year I'm afraid

we'll lose. I can't at this point I can't put a number on it but it's going to be substantial. Just Cause men in labor all morning. But times you'll get a cat that's out of position. George Marsh is a farmer too. He runs a small dairy in the Willamette Valley just 25 miles from downtown Portland. It's tough to call a veterinarian. Two o'clock in the morning with a problem that you can take care of yourself. And it might be three four hours before he gets out there you know it was coming. No one of us can pull. It. Good luck to both of you. Let me check the head there.

George his wife Judy and his hired hands are Vendome struggle to help this heifer through a difficult first birth. It's just one of many struggles they undertake every day to keep their farm going. Naturally they have to have both front feet forward and the head forward. And there's been times when you go and inspect the calf you'll see that you know the head is turned back or you have a leg has turned back and then you have to go in and physically manipulate the calf in a position to be born naturally. And now times it's Thanks a lot of work to do. He had a large calf on a on a first calf after a lot of times it's a it's a hard pole. Sometimes you have to use a jack on it and I don't like to do that but sometimes you have to do that or you know you know. There we go.

Yeah. Another calf begins in life on the marsh homestead. A miracle has occurred a thousand times since George's great great grandfather John Marshall brought his family to the Willamette Valley in 1850 to. John Marsh. Like so many Midwest farmers had heard of Oregon's wide open land in stories passed down from fur trappers and early explorers of the Oregon territory. The earliest trapping parties that passed up the Willamette Valley when they saw open prairie lands and only scattered oak trees and so forth what they saw in their mind's eye in fact was a potential agricultural bonanza because they thought in terms of plows and fences and grazing cattle and animals that would be useful to white settlers who were coming into the valley.

Historian BILL ROBBINS studies human patterns that have shaped the landscape of Oregon. The. Lamb at Valley was championed and popularized in the public mind in the Mississippi River Valley because of its agricultural potential and there were glowing descriptions of the Willamette Valley that really defy imagination that anything could be grown here from pomegranates to oranges to wheat cotton and so forth. The farmers who came to the Willamette Valley in the 19th century were not disappointed. Northwest natives had control burn the land to improve hunting and gathering prospects. A thousand years of native burnings left the prairies right for the plows of settler farmers. They didn't have to go up clearing trees. They didn't have to go about clearing brush as they did on the eastern coast of North America because Indian burning practice had already liberated landscapes and they actually found open fields

cleared prairie lands and so forth. Farmers were content to feed their families and barter with their neighbors until the discovery of gold to the South changed everything. Do agricultural practices in the valley were largely subsistence until the California gold rush and California Gold Rush literally changes agriculture from subsistence to commercial practices overnight. There is an old saying that two thirds of the white males in Oregon left for the California Gold trails but most of them return but those farmers who began shifting moving into commercial agriculture did very well with eager miners flooding into northern California. The demand for food and other supplies multiply. And no one was better situated to provide than the Oregon farmer. Investors rushed to create a transportation infrastructure to take Oregon wheat

to the California market. Probably more important than anything else of course was the building of the Oregon and California railroad up the Willamette Valley which vastly improved the ability of farmers to transport goods. To Portland which is the great shipping point for all goods out of the state of Oregon. Once trains and shipping routes were in place not only San Francisco but the whole world became a potential customer for the Oregon farmer. You have the shipment of the first loads of wheat to Liverpool London in 1869 the shipment of wheat. After that really celebrates to different parts of the world. Bank on 27 day I get a copy. I will go to town and set it up on red weed and also do some LDP on a white guy harvested I think the markets are down today and it's the middle of harvest.

But Sherman Reese has left his crew in the feeding wheat market has dropped and Sherman must sell what he has before the price drops further price. Well it's down six today. These are hard times for wheat farmers. Sherman like most operates on a narrow margin getting the best possible price for his crop. This year could determine whether he gets a loan for next year whether or not he gets a loan could mean the difference between people. Who are losing the farm. When the price is low you're not making as much money as you thought he would make his way budgeted for. So we're kind of have to do some scrambling in reworking some things. I don't know what's going on. That's why I don't want to I don't I want to get rid of what I got and if I'm going to own and I think I would on paper if I can sell it what we budgeted for that would be the optimum.

And then you know you can turn around and pay the bank back their money that they loaned you. Well see you in a while. If you have to be able to do the physical labor you have to be able to. Handle the the head labor to it whether it's financial or or just plain planning and of course the U.S. farmer now is no longer a hayseed is probably as well-educated as most of the city cousins. Very few people I know of farming today they don't have a college education. And I know of at least two guys who hold Ph Ds. Okay so what's the price today price of wheat today. The basest levels 88 cents over the December futures market in the Minneapolis December is 330 to just survive as a farmer Sherman must understand more than seeds

soils and fertilizer. The complex business of puts calls forwards and futures is all part of Sherman's daily calculations on how to stay afloat in bushels 8000. There's several problems one is had in the last six. Two years and probably concluding this will be the next of the last three years everywhere in the world had a good crop so they have a good crop they're important needs are less and that hurts our export market. See the first was 14 too. Then it was 15 3 then I was 14 and we had the second problem is of course the Asian flu. A lot of our white wheat here in the Pacific Northwest has exported about 85 percent of the Far East everybody knows the financial problems are having so they're not buying neither as much nor as far out as they normally used to be. Total Mills eleven hundred and fifty dollars was the third problem is the U.S. has enjoyed a really strong dollar comparison to other currencies and of course when our dollar is strong their currency is worth less so they can't buy as

much foreign goods including our wheat lab the contract type debt and in the mail to you with a copy of the call option in your e-mail. OK see you later tonight. My grandad You see if you know when to see when to sell you can make money farming. And I thought that was an over simplistic statement but now the older I get the smarter he looks. I remember my dad asking me when I was 13 years old whether I wanted to. Keep the cows or sell the cows. And I thought it over and. I said. So the cows. Let's go fishing. That's what I want to do. Go fishing with my dad. So I'm the fifth generation here and hopefully my kids one of them might want to or maybe all of them might want to take over some day and. Be the sixth generation. Will you dress.

Rob. It's 4 am and Jordan Marsh's family is already awake. Today is show day at the Washington County Fair. All of the marsh kids will Anna Amy Robin and Brandy raise their own cows and show them in the 4H and FFA competitions. It takes a lot of preparation. This facilitates your interest in the dairy. Hope leave it to one of these days you'll have enough that you still want to take over the farm. When the jury. You know here in Washington County they used to be a lot of far. Too young people. Don't want to work as hard as mom and dad had to or don't maybe don't have the opportunity it's not a big profit margin and then the farm. Specially in a dairy cows. The prices have been down feed costs are up.

All expenses are out yet. The income not price hasn't changed so much. As Arnie Warner is the judge of the Future Farmers of America competition. Let. Me have her younger sister Amy Myers. She's a 16 year old. BLANKA. Do you know where shall I get your name and your name please. The dairy industry Morse County has been on the show but it is not the major the families of the left. Hand in the FFA program. I think our kids are about the only ones that are left. It's just the fun of competing against each other to see who has the better animal or who knows more than the other person. She's just a big baby to me I bought are almost nine years ago. This is Robin Marsh's night here showing cows here just a few

weeks she'll head off to college. Right now one for. My bachelor science in our sciences so just basically everything with animals the animals are clean condition good and the high point it is you know I wonder if you know who these people are. There are you through and through. They all deserve a nice crowd because they really are. Performing families like the marshes the county fair offers more than a good time. It's a chance to teach city folks about farm life. And a chance for farm kids to earn money for college. Amy Marsh is raised first year for the past 10 months and now she hopes to selling for a profit but in the 25 of them up to 25 20 not 25 and out of $30

31 to 31 of the 30 all even to 30 35 35 to 35 with a bit of 35 130 that was here for one purpose and one purpose only. It's. Just not for you to attack. I saw without a dollar forty a pound. All right. Lucky Number Thirteen Amy Marsh FSA member was out of her dollar goes over a dollar bill. It's just a way for kids to get some money to help pay for college. And is a good way to learn how to manage to get the right thing and everything. Or am I going to dollars and right here not everything out of it two days from now this year will be hamburger in someone's freezer. So without a dollar ten a pound and a nice college savings will have grown by twelve hundred dollars. Not too bad. The prices are low. So. I'm happy. I don't think it's a secret that you know not only part me. But most of the commodity

growers in general are hurting. To some extent. Sherman handles the farm work alone for 11 months of the year but during the critical harvest time he needs additional help. His father Leon his cousin Dirck going to retired gentleman from town complete his crew. Everything OK and I try to. Find out if that will give us enough Frank Church started working for us. When he was in high school and worked pretty steady up through college we go back a long ways. Works out well doesn't always work with family I don't think but in this case it has. We're more like brothers almost. And he has pretty good theater. He's my go to guy I mean he does he does it all in my body. Dad was was always very good about getting the chances to you know

spread my wings and try my own he said he was there to help. But he wasn't. You know what he'd give advice if asked but he wasn't offering. He's pretty well held true to that farming especially this kind is always chicken or feathers. And you never know what looks bad right now may be. Good tomorrow or next year. And. We've been through it I know several times and I guess most everybody else in farms. I've heard of some families who who farm east of us have been or are about to be foreclosed on or are having got operating lines of credit here. Financing is a. Huge part of farming anymore. Well the machines are so expensive in order to keep up or. Somebody has to pay the money and she. Has to take the chance. Sure Mike you back up there a little bit again and give it a

K. always say the best cure for low prices low prices. So it's going to take a while to work out well as machines are so complicated there are so many moving parts. Especially if the air conditioning breaks. Yeah that's a major breakdown just stops everything doesn't matter or they'll have to go to about 100 million or 20 degrees just like that. More if it's a hot day. Might be my last year to get what you promised me. Now heard it is well the government's going to save you know they're buying up wheat and I'll respect you in the morning and your checks in the mail. What you kind of think the long term at least I think the long term you know there's always a less and less land and more more people so they you know the obvious reasoning there is that there ought to be a demand for food that would cover your cost. Hopefully he'll farm another year it doesn't make us rich selling it. By the time Sherman's great grandfather Warren Reese came to Oregon homesteading

in the fertile Willamette Valley was not an option. Probably most of the good agricultural land in the Willamette Valley. That is to say the land that. Was had been cleared through Indian burning practices was mostly taken up by the late 1950s. Warren Reese chose to try his luck growing wheat where the railroad was recently built on the dry lands of eastern Oregon. The Northern Pacific Railroad the Oregon and California railroad begin publishing brochures promotional material trying to attract people to settle along their rail lines because they provided. A way to make the railroad's of going proposition. The Great Northern Railroad literally advertised far and wide in this includes not only the eastern United States but in. Paris and London in Berlin and in other places even in Eastern Europe to attract settlers to settle.

What we would call today dry land agriculture. Those statistics are awesome in terms of land. Turn to the production of wheat. Within a very short period of time 10 years. You have hundreds of thousands of acres put to the plough turned over to wheat production. War in recent is family succeeded at making a living dry land wheat farming in Umatilla County. But farmers who followed the promoters calls further south were not so lucky. Dry land farming succeeded and failed depending upon precipitation and it succeeded along the dish routes Umatilla plateau and succeeded around the rim of the Columbia Basin the pollutes country it failed in areas where precipitation was less adequate. The kind of embellishments that the railroad gave people really unrealistic expectations about the possibilities the potential of agriculture in very very arid environments. People

came in and tried to establish farms tried to grow wheat and so forth and they failed simply because rainfall wasn't adequate enough to conduct dry land agriculture. Promoters and investors were not to be deterred if dry land farming had failed to make all the land in Oregon productive reclamation wood Reclamation is reclaiming dry land and putting water on it through irrigation ditches canals and so forth and watering the land so that you can grow humid climate agricultural crops in an area where the annual rainfall is not sufficient to grow those kinds of crops. Speculators believed you were a Geisha would turn Eastern Oregon into an Eden for farming. That would be a settlement of small communities with picket fences and small

farmers making a great success as irrigation as well over a period of time that wasn't realized because the larger business organizations what we would call today agribusiness were actually the most successful. So the vision in the dream wasn't borne out by reality. If we don't have arrogation we just don't raise a crop. That means irrigation. Or just plain and simple. Even in the rainy Willamette Valley farmers need to irrigate during the dry summer months with irrigation. You know we can raise four to five cuttings of alfalfa. Without her again. You're lucky to get three. George Marshall draws his water from a reservoir eight miles away. He used to take water from dairy Creek which boarders is far but in dry years

he found his water shut off by the holder of an earlier water right. George would be forced to watch his crops dry up in the summer sun as the water in the creek flowed past. Now a lot of people still had their river rights show when somebody with an older right needs a water they put in a request to the water master and gives you a phone call. So your pump off regardless so you know here in the West you know without water I mean Water's water is precious and. Many people died over water. Let's. Go that way. OK. OK. Comes to know everything. Never mind. I hate this part. It's the law. Different water. We've been pretty proactive in trying to educate ourselves on managing our arm in order

to keep it out of the streams and rivers trying to eliminate all direct discharges into the public waters. George stores the waste produced by his cows in these manure pot. He hopes to pump the manure onto his corn fields as a natural fertilizer. If it works George will save money on both fertilizer and the labor for hauling. Fresher. Faster erode the more pressure we have to run it too fast before the sprinkler gets up puts too much pressure in here it'll blow the pipe apart. I'm still learning. You know the first three years we had our lagoon it was really tripping I really enjoyed it because we were in the process of filling it up you know. Matt you don't have to haul manure every four five days this is wonderful you know and now we're we're full.

And now we got to get rid of or use the stuff and it can be a hassle this time it's lots of water in it. It takes several tries but finally the technology works and the pumping process is successful. To be as efficient as possible you have to get as many equipment as possible one man can run. Whether that man is a one man unit or several men that are working for you. And in order to amortize that over a number of acres you have 10 more acres because equipment costs more. The very nature of that cost means that you know you have to be able to farm enough acres to discredit cost one off a Christmas Day and it's a simple piece of equipment. They're all that way. We can grow more food every acre cheaper so that lowers the cost of food which

lowers our net return which forces us to grow more food in order to have a higher gross. On your loan and immediately you were always on the treadmill trying to become ever more efficient but I sometimes think our efficiency is killing us. I've talked to big farmers and they're not feeling any better than we are so you know I think that when the commodity price gets to swallow it doesn't matter what size you are I guess you just go broke faster. The old saw about if you're making widgets and you lose five cents on each one you make more wages to make up the difference it. Doesn't work. Probably the biggest headache we have or I have was just trying to conform to government regulations as far as pesticides. There's a lot of people who would like to see is I think return to farming in the days of yore when. Farmer Brown wore the jobbers and had the straw in his mouth and the whites rotten pod with a

mule. But John Barleycorn is not around anymore. My dad is fond of saying if you don't want us to use chemicals then let's line up and count off one two three four and the two threes and fours don't get the today because US will be down to farming is that you know the world's first stewards of the land. And you like to think that what you're doing is helping the land not hurting it. We have to live here too. Our children have to be grown in this environment. But in putting a herbicides in the corn we wouldn't be having any corn. That's about what it means to. Be nice in a perfect world that you don't live in a perfect world. We tried different ways of controlling our leads are probably dangerous. And that helps to a certain extent. But if we eliminate all of our herbicides and our

crops we just when you think perhaps. There is a move. Towards organic milk. They have to have their hay shipped in from. Certified Organic hay ranch. So the costs are a lot higher. What it boils down to is what the consumers want if the consumers want. A product like that and are willing to pay it. I think us as farmers can produce it. When George isn't tending to cows and crops he too must tend to the financial side of farming. As a small dairy manager. He pays careful attention to expenses. You know if you look where we're at today with all our money is tied up and into the farm it's tied up and. Tractors and equipment. Our profit margin that we have is very very narrow. Right now the

price of feed is fairly low and the price of milk is purely high so I'm hoping that we'll be able to pay off some bills here while the price is relatively high. One bill George doesn't mind paying for regular visits from the dairies veterinarian. I feel that the money I spent on him doesn't cost me it pays me. We get a chance the once a month to go through all the cows and minor problem cows. Once you get a basis of nutrition and heart health there are fewer individual cow problems. So what you hope is your herd is healthy and then those few individuals that are sick you can treat. It. Was bred out in 16 days. She was open last time we checked her palpitating normal tones up as I massaged her in a heats it would seem ok not pregnant.

You t r c l l ass. We do just about all of it. Yes we have him here once a month to. Do freight checks and examine each collar Cavanaugh asked Mike and see if there's any problems with the LP. She's. Ready to breed we can breed her anytime tonight. She's been almost a year. It's important that George's cows become pregnant every year because cows give the most milk right after giving birth. They're not pets you know. There are means that are are living. And. They have to produce milk in order to stay around. I think she's starting a little pain cause. I don't see anything in there. I can just pick up some cloudiness. It's not going to hurt that much. Not like getting your ears pierced now I've never done that so I don't know but probably less painful than your tongue.

They're. Really love animals. And a year ago she showed the most interest in Squires working with the help of the animals. I know in the end of everything that my dad does the vet gives vaccinations ear tags and tattoos to each cat. Robin records the numbers. If we ever lose an ear tag or can't identify a cath we can read the number in the air. We can look that up and callus don't have upper teeth. For stomach cell just made different 10. So I don't think that ear hurts this much on. Us. It's coming from those who know what we're doing. OK. From a strictly business standpoint how come for.

Good nutrition pays for itself. Why because I'm not. That's what we're doing we're making a living. Thank you. The will. But making a living as a farmer at the turn of the 21st century is complicated especially for farmers who depend on international markets. You know I don't think my grandmother or grandfather should say worried about whether or not France was subsidizing flour exports to Yamen. German recent sales is weak where ever he finds a buyer. Sometimes that means trucking his wheat to the local flour mill. But more often it means shipping his wheat down the Columbia river and across oceans to buyers on all corners of the planet. Well the Asian crisis is also rattling U.S. commodity markets.

Traders say El Nino could lower yields for both corn and soybeans during the next planting season. The U.S. has imposed economic sanctions 61 times in the last four years. You never know what's going to come from. You never know. You have some ideas but sometimes it can be you know far out stuff as Pakistanis celebrate their new nuclear status looming U.S. trade sanctions that could rob thousands of North West wheat farmers you know international actions it may have nothing to do absolutely nothing to do with the wheat market except in a very tangential Sanson and suddenly it strikes. To keep up Sherman is had to enter the age of high technology on the cell phones fax machines the data transmission network information uplink to markets around the world and weather and and political news and so forth. That was unheard of 10 years ago. Six to 10 day temperatures above normal Carol. That's one thing that's really nice about the DTN even though it's it's an expensive service to have

it's nice to be able to catch that news really quickly. Everything's down across the board yesterday because they can they can drop the price of wheat 10 cents in an hour or less. The pressures for farmers as always as it was in the 19th century and will continue into the 21st century will depend on markets. Farmers begin looking into other kinds of crops in part because of shifting markets. At the end of the 19th century the success of dry land wheat farmers in Eastern Oregon shifted the market for Willamette Valley Farm. When the railroad was built through the Columbia River corridor. And you have the massive shipment of wheat down the river wheat production in the Willamette Valley goes in the tank because it couldn't compete with wheat farmers east of the

mountains. And so depending upon the market price of wheat agricultural sin the Lamma Valley ever since had diversified into all kinds of other production. There's a whole variety of crops that are introduced by the early 20th century. Everything from walnuts the filberts to apples to grow crops to some seed grass production and then you have the introduction of other kinds of products. You have the fairly thriving small dairy industry for a period of time and a thriving hops industry. Vegetable production in the lab and values of A on going thing but really gains momentum after World War 2. In the second half of the 20th century economic pressures on farmers continued to mount. Farmers started to look beyond traditional food crops to see what alternative more lucrative commodities might thrive in Oregon's climate.

Well as it turns out it's a wonderful climate a wonderful environment for growing seed grass. Organise a bounty for growing Christmas trees that are marketed all the way it went to Dallas Texas to Los Angeles to Miami. High value non-food crops like Christmas trees grass seed and nursery products are the most economically successful types of farming in the Willamette Valley today. But George still hopes to make a profit from his traditional dairy modern breeding technology helps. We use mostly artificial insemination because of the better genetics that are involved we can buy in some of the top bowls in the country. OK let me tell you you know right away you know when the specials over here another week. Bernie Warner makes his living selling whole semen to dairy farmers like George. H Cain has 10 units of salmon on and. Off the priceless is

probably over a hundred thousand dollars worth of. Semen and. Then. Selective artificial insemination allows George to breed cows that give more milk with higher protein and butter fat. And breeding cows this way has advantages over keeping balls. We don't have to feed and we don't have to put up with them. We want to go to breed a cow we just tossed semen out. And. To inseminate the cow. So. Now she has and he Last night was the pipette and I have to pass through the cervix and sometimes that's difficult to do and you have to feel it. And maneuvered around before you can get through there. And if I'm lucky I'll be able to get it the first time. How does it help we should read. I. Certainly learned a lot about birds or bees out far. You know sometimes a sex

education goes on right from your face. To a certain extent that's good I think. I think it's a great lifestyle to raise kids. They have so many things to do out here. It's not congested are crowded like big cities or anything like. The job center. I think it's a wise for kids to be raised on. What it teaches them responsibility. I get paid for working on the farm so put that in the bank to you know it can be run around down the street because they're here you know you don't in school and unwind a little bit and then five o'clock they're supposed to be up here for doing their chores. Done. You learn a lot more here than school. I've made all the kids work a shift and know I can with of not.

One of the things you have to do is wipe off the. Canary that gets kicked on front teeth. If they do that I pay them. Some money and that way they have their own money to handle and to control. Also having feeding cows then during the summer you know I have been training the older girls as they get old enough to handle put to to go out. Well I hate. Mail hate I hate no one hey. Six hours in a tractor turning circle isn't much fun. You know it teaches him something about life in general that there's a cycle to life. That you know those things are born things die. And they get to see that I think water magically on the farm would be what the city. Dark at night when it's supposed to be dark and. We can go out on your back porch and look at the stars and you can see just like the millions of you can't do that always in

town. You get to hear about a large in the morning and coyotes at night and maybe cows in between so it's a more idyllic life. I think. He has a chance to go at the end of the day sort of still you know looking for someplace to go party to try to blow off excess energy. It's a good life. I was raised on a farm. My four kids raised on a farm. I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't want to be raised in sidewalks and concrete in town had its advantages you know. You know what a lot of my life. The role the family played a more traditional farm it was as a production unit. A husband wife children. Everybody was involved. On family farms children have always worked right along with the adults and as farms have grown larger migrant farm workers have met the need for additional labor.

Migrant workers have been the workers in the labor force. A lot of successful agriculture. In the Pacific Northwest Japanese workers who come as contract laborers to the northwest to work in agricultural industry until eventually they become successful farmers in their own right. Migrant white laborers in the 30s 40s and 50s but they're supplanted by eventually Mexican American workers. World wars have always had a dramatic impact on agriculture. World War 2 drew young men off the farms and into uniforms just as Oregon farms were expected to produce unprecedented amounts to serve the war effort. Oregon farmers desperately needed laborers and turned to Mexico for help. The emergency farm labor supply program brought Mexican migrants illegally into the country to service temporary farm labor.

War ended. Many returning soldiers never went back to the farm. Many Mexican migrant workers continue to arrive. We come here because our money goes farther. There are more opportunities to live more comfortably and there is work. As migrants have come here to do farm work labor saving technology has allowed fewer and fewer families to far more and more land. If you look at the decade between one thousand forty one thousand nine hundred fifty. You see a decline in the agricultural population and that's directly related to the introduction of labor saving devices more sophisticated technology. The building of dams on the Columbia River. The development of the chain saw. So what you have between one thousand forty one thousand nine hundred seventy. The actual deep population of some agricultural areas where

at one time agricultural practices were labor intensive they become capital machinery intensive after that point in time. As rural populations decrease urban and suburban populations expanded pushing further and further into surrounding farmland urban and suburban. Population growth following the Second World War did bring increasing pressures all over the country and here in the Willamette Valley. Our agricultural land base. Let's see if you have some valuable agricultural land around Hillsboro where it might be very lucrative to sell it off to a developer. And you know you can reap a bonanza on the other hand that's land agricultural land that goes out of production is no longer agricultural land to protect open land. Governor Tom led Oregon to enact land use legislation requiring counties to create urban growth boundary.

And the issue of course is to protect a viable agricultural base from sprawling suburban subdivisions where you have one house on one acre two acres with three acres of land and you have literally these places going out of agricultural production. The idea is to preserve land for exclusive farm use. Still Oregon cities have continued to grow making farming more and more difficult. We're getting a little more encroachment on us and every time we pump manure sometimes we get complaints about the snow. We have a busy highway out. In front of her house. I really think we will probably be pushed out. I don't know maybe these farm want to be here. New housing development. All the small farmers are eaten up by the nurseries and the housing it comes a point in time when the lands are valuable you might as well. Take what you get and if you still want to farm. Find another place where you not regret.

It's kind of a double edged sword you know yes I want to stay away so I can make a living here and pass it on my kids but then if I go to retire no kids want to take it over I want to get the most money I can out of it. It's. More profitable to sell your land to a developer. That's a farm. That's good and that's. Sad. We always as Americans have idealized life on the farm and yet the. Droves and droves. Escaped the farm too. Urban areas are two different lines of activity. Rural people in some respects. Farmers in many respects are kind of left in the way. They're left outside of the. Modern order. And it becomes very difficult for them to survive. Have once.

They're. Gone. There is more money every night working a 9 to 5 job in town with fringe benefits with health insurance with regular vacations. After 28 years of dairy farmer. George is growing weary of the daily struggle that his farm one. Typical day I usually get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and go move where geishas going and then. Back at the dairy to find out if there's any cows or and he needs to read some cows. Go rake some hay kind of irrigation you know work and I'm a newer system and I go work pumping manner out of a fixer pipe broke here last week. In the evening is back time moving pipe again. So I put in you know 14 15 hour day during the summer. But that just comes with the territory you know. Working on dairy farm we have to operate 365 days a year holidays. Twice a day. You know. No shutting down.

You kind of grow old. Quick you know because you're always so busy doing things and time seems to fly so fast that you know you have. Here I am you know I just turned 40 years old and I think what she what have I done with my life you know I've been so busy. I'm not alone. And all the other dairy farmers are probably just about right. George is once clear hope that his children take over the dairy is now tempered by uncertainty about the cost. I don't know what makes up for losing most of your life but the kids can enjoy that kind of life and wish that my kids. Were far worse than I would. My hope would be that one of them would want to take over. Then run the operation.

Too much work. Once you get up there and yet to take over my dad's tours wait where. I just like the kids to make sure this is really what they want to do. I'm not quite sure I'm going to college this fall so I'll see what's out there and then I'll decide a lot of the future is right here in our kids. That's where you see a lot of the small there is or are leaving because of the next generation is not well and take over. You know there used to be everyone used to have a dairy farm factor creek out here is called Dairy creek you know because there is a dairy on every in every corner and now there's only a handful left. If George is uncertain about whether to pass his dairy to his children German Reese's dilemma is more of you know wheat prices have hurt him more than he expected. Now he needs an additional loan. Hold small job have told

us even the pleasure of watching his old high school team takes a back seat to Sherman's anxiety over financial concerns. Oh and talking to bankers who want to go see one to morrow to see if I get operating what I'm hearing all sorts of bad rumors but yes I heard swearing is up a penalty Got don't violate fair play guy don't bet on the gas. How much might I ask to get it. Backing it up by gummy worms and viruses. You can target but you get slow the presses. Yeah yeah let me know. When you look at guys are half your age and you know you got into computers and are multimillionaires or at least to the very place they can afford a car here.

The money for another part goes well that. You want the money Diane. For. Yeah. I don't know of anything in agates good right now except maybe. I don't know. I guess if you grew Coke Ayers marijuana maybe you don't look back as far and these are. Done in the bill. Here that wanted to have another one. Yeah they're handling you. The time has come for Sherman to convince the bank that his farm is still a worthy investment. That's. Stressful for him trying to. Lead. The way.

It's warning. That if there were a love of money you would be doing this I don't think so. There's got to be some other intangibles. I like the freedom of being able to do what I want to do. I still like you know say. And now it's a time to CDnow it's a time to harvest. And. I had to make those decisions some guy in a three piece suit doesn't own. Germans fears were realized. U.S. Bank will not refinance the far. Right. This is the family farm and it's been here most years so it's. Going to be hard to live. There ties to the farm run too deep to give it up. So Weezer the. German will keep looking for the loan he needs. There's a certain tie to the past generations you know knowing that I'm living in a house right through which a lot of people say. And not only that but it's also the house my. Dad grew up. And it's virtually.

The you know site where my grandparents lived and where my great grandparents homesteaded And so that tied not only to the land but to the generations. And was fond of saying that everybody is farming standing on the shoulders of the generation before him. I think we just live like everyone else and try to make ends meet. There's not a big difference. Right. We're taking care of the ground and we expect a fair return. I don't have any regrets. I love it here as long as I can continue to make it work I want to stay here where we are going to team up or down. George Marsh is still working 12 to 15 hours a day running the marsh nearing. His daughter Robin is now a pre-vet student at Portland Community College. His son will says he wants to run the farm after his dad.

Sherman Reeses had to put his truck and his small cattle herd up for sale. But he is likely to receive a loan from farm credit services that will carry him through for another year. He hopes that someday one of his daughters will farm this morning.