The Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Green Project
Dan Armstrong, Mud City Press
Project Background and Description
Introduction: The Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project is a step-by-step, ground-level endeavor aimed at the transformation of agriculture in Lane, Linn, Benton, and Lincoln counties at the south end of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, an area containing roughly 700,000 acres of farmland, approximately 400,000 acres of which is used for cropland. This region which once produced a wide variety of food crops is now dominated by farms growing fescue and rye grass for the global grass seed market. A historically hearty regional food system is now focused on ornamentals and utilizes less than twenty percent of its cropland acreage for food. In these changing times of rising food and fuel prices, it is imperative to bring more balance and diversity to Willamette Valley agriculture. The Bean and Grain Project seeks to do just that by converting good-sized parcels of grass seed acreage into plots for organic beans, grains, and edible seeds as a critical first step to reinvigorating the regional food system.
Harry MacCormack, co-founder of Oregon Tilth and owner of Sunbow Farm in Corvallis, Oregon, provides the vision and inspiration for the Southern Willamette Valley Bean and Grain Project. MacCormack has farmed in the south Willamette Valley for forty years, developing organic farming techniques, establishing the first organic farm certification program, and experimenting in the field with a wide variety of grains, legumes, and edible seed crops.
... Bioregional Setting: The bio-region defined by the Willamette River watershed has the capacity to be one of the most bountiful in the United States. The Willamette Valley is a hundred mile long, two-million acre stretch of prime farmland bordered by a dense, eco-rich coniferous forest. The climate is mild; wet in the winter, dry in the summer. It is excellent for raising livestock and farming, with soil particularly suited for a wide variety of grasses and legumes. There is tremendous flexibility in what can be grown and the way that the various field crops can be rotated for the health of the land. With the potential to grow more than two hundred different food crops and being home to a variety of fish and other wildlife, the Willamette River basin is essentially a garden valley.
Mud City Press
Historical Agricultural Picture: In the 1950s, 60s, and 70s, Willamette Valley agriculture produced a wide array of grains, fruits, and vegetables. At times wheat represented almost a third of what was harvested. Barley, oats, snap peas, and sweet corn were also significant crops. Tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, peaches, raspberries, strawberries, hazelnuts, and squash fill out the mix. Prior to 1980, Willamette Valley farmers were providing more than half of what the valley residents were eating. Though there were items which did not grow in the valley and the population was about half of what it is today, the region did have the agricultural capacity and food system infrastructure to feed itself.
Current Agricultural Picture: Beginning about 1983, as wheat prices eased off what were then record highs, Willamette Valley farmers began a steady trade-off of wheat acreage for ornamental grasses to produce grass seed which is then shipped all over the world for suburban lawns and golf courses. Grass seed is now the valley’s most important cash crop. Sixty percent of all the acreage that was harvested in the Willamette Valley in 2006 was for grass seed. That was over 500,000 acres. At the same time, less than 30,000 acres of wheat were harvested in the valley, down from a record high of 270,000 acres in 1982.
In other words, high-value Oregon cropland is being used primarily to grow a non-edible luxury item instead of food. Globalization has enabled specialized and long distant markets while at the same time diminishing food crop diversity at home. The net effect is that the Willamette Valley populace is now eating less than five percent locally grown food.
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