Oregon Farm Bureau

It’s a new group of ag organizations, with a goal of tackling drought concerns threatening both livelihoods and potentially the food supply.  The newly formed Oregon Agricultural Water Alliance include the Oregon Farm Bureau, the state Cattleman’s Association, Dairy Farmers Association, Water Resources Congress, as well as the Oregon Association of Nurseries.  The OAN’s Jeff Ston...

On Friday, the Oregon Department of Agriculture announced the appointment of Jonathan Sandau as Assistant Director. Most recently, Sandau served as a special assistant to the director focusing on the legislature, budget development, and strategic planning ...

House Bill 4002, which removes the overtime exemption for the farming community in Oregon, now waits for the expected signature of Governor Kate Brown. When signed into law, overtime will be required in the agriculture industry by 2027. Many in the farming community are not only frustrated with the legislation and the requirements it puts on producers, but the way the process was handled ... Rea

The Oregon Ag Community is calling on Governor Kate Brown to veto legislation that will do away with the state’s overtime exemption for the farming community. The coalition, which includes a dozen Ag organizations from across the state, is asking the Governor to reject the legislation which they call bad policy for both farm families and farm employees. The ...

The Oregon Farm Bureau is inviting FFA students to participate in its second-annual #GrowingOregon video contest, for a chance to win at least $400. “This year the winner will earn a generous cash prize for their FFA chapter,” said Anne Marie Moss, OFB communications director. To part ...

Last week, the Joint Committee on Farm Worker Overtime in Oregon voted to move House Bill 4002, which would remove the current overtime exemption for the Ag community, to the full House and Senate for a vote. The approval was solely along party lines ...

According to the Oregon Farm Bureau, removal of the current overtime exemption would be devastating to the farming community across the entire state. According to Dave Dillon, Executive Vice President at OFB, farm costs have increased significantly over the past ten years, but farm income has not kept pace ...

On Monday, the Oregon Legislature passed Senate Bill 892, directing the state Department of Agriculture to establish a disaster assistance program. Lawmakers allocated $40 million to a new, one-of-a-kind program to help mitigate economic losses farmers and ranchers suffered because of natural disasters in 2021, which included an ice storm, record heat, drought and wildfire smoke ...

Two weeks ago, November 30th, the Oregon Law Center filed a suit over agricultural overtime in the state. Mary Anne Cooper, Vice President of Public Policy at the Oregon Farm Bureau, said they were floored by the lawsuit. “Because we had come to a workgroup that legislators convened last month in good faith and had been working through that process, we had growers participating, sharing confident

The Ag, as well as the non-Ag communities in Oregon are being warned of a push to get an initiative on the ballot that could dramatically impact farming across the state. IP-13 would make it a crime to fish and hunt, but it would also remove a lot of the exemptions the Ag community currently enjoys ...