Urge Legislators to Protect Farm and Forest land

Farmland should be preserved for farming.

All across Oregon, high-end residential and hospitality projects have driven land prices up, making it harder for family farmers, ranchers, and timberland managers to access land.

This legislative session, thanks to collective pressure from many farmland protection groups, including Central Oregon LandWatch, the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire will introduce a package of four bills to strengthen protections for Oregon’s agricultural and forest lands by closing the loopholes that have allowed luxury development on them. 

This package — SB 73, SB 77, SB 78, and SB 79 — aims to safeguard resource lands from the rural sprawl that threatens water supplies, wildlife habitat, and the viability of working lands.