You want family farms & small business, but do you want to pay the tax?

A couple of weeks ago I read on a website about how Oregon’s Death Tax has obviously not affected my family because I was a 5th generation farmer.  (Since then they have taken then claim down.)

However this group, Tax Fairness for Oregon, knows nothing about my family.

Here’s the thing, my great-grandma, the 2nd generation of our farm, is still alive at 97.  The land we currently farm, that her father farmed before her, is her retirement.  What happens when she passes away?  The land is clearly worth more than state and federal exemption.  Who pays that tax? My grandparents, who happen to be retired as well, then it eventually will be my parents and then one day me.  I wonder what will be left?

Farmers and especially retired farmers don’t have piles of cash lying around.  They have it invested in the land, along with their blood, sweat and tears.  Yet they are still expected to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars whenever a farm is expected to be carried on.  As a result family farms become smaller and smaller as the ones hoping to continue are forced to sell land to pay for the previous generations’ passing.

We as Oregonians claim we want family farms and small business in this state.   If you truly do and don’t want to see parts of century farms sold off then I hope you have signed the petition to End Oregon’s Death Tax.  It is vital small business and families just like mine as well as Oregon’s economy.

End Oregon Death Tax Quick Facts:

• Create nearly 44,000 jobs
• 1 in 8 jobs in Oregon are tied to Agriculture
• Generate $94.1 million in tax revenue
• Jobs & tax revenue will offset “loss” to Oregon’s general fund

Related articles

• Ending Oregon’s Death Tax (5440fight.com)

“Green” vs “Green”

There was an article recently in the Oregonian, “Lawsuit against wind energy project near Steens Mountain pits green groups against green project“.   After reading the article it became clear that there is just no pleasing some people.

I am skeptical of “green” energy particularly wind farms, especially in Oregon where we have an abundance of hydroelectricity.  I am unsure of its cost vs. production, the necessity of them, subsidies they receive, particularly when they get paid not to produce, and overall efficiency.

However the groups opposing the Echanis project weren’t objecting because of the concerns I shared.   In fact, I was really unsure what or why they were upset.  My first thought is apparently they’ve never been to Harney County or Southeastern Oregon because, well, there’s nothing really there in terms of people or jobs.  Also they apparently failed to notice that the wind farm would be on PRIVATE land.

Harney County is Oregon’s lowest populated county with little over 7,400 residents and the unemployment  is 12.5 percent. According to the article, “…the Echanis project to provide 100 construction jobs and up to 12 full-time maintenance jobs…equal to about 1,500 jobs in Portland…” 

The United States government has approved the project and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has published an Environmental Impact Statement on the project.  If this project was not environmentally friendly our current administration would have shut it down.  The Oregonian reports that the project would be on a 10,000 acre private ranch and have 44 miles of transmission lines. In Harney county those numbers are miniscule, particularly when comparing it to the 170,000 acre Steens Mountain Wilderness area.

The real issue here is not about the potential effect to the environment.  It is about a group of people out of urban Oregon, Portland, Bend and Eugene, trying to dictate how to rural Oregonians how to live.  They have no idea what it takes to be sustainable in Southeastern Oregon, an area that is not mild in climate nor the type of work it takes to survive.  If the residents of Harney County thought it was not good for them nor the environment they would oppose it themselves, they don’t need a weekend warrior telling them so.  They’ve been there a lot longer than you have.

“Green” groups if you truly care about a “green” economy, jobs and others overall well-being, then move your Prius out-of-the-way and let rural Oregonians go to work.

Proposed Wind Project

Related articles

• Lawsuit against wind energy project near Steens Mountain pits green groups against green project (oregonlive.com)

Ending Oregon’s Death Tax

Imagine this, you work your whole entire life to leave your children a better life than you began with. You hope on leaving a legacy for multiple generations to come, for them to build upon and bring economic viability to the surrounding community. However, when you die in order for your estate to be inherited by your heirs they must first pay a tax.  A death tax.

As ridiculous as the above scenario sounds it is incredibly realistic. Every time the last member of a given generation passes away the heirs are forced to pay a TAX on the entire estate. In a sense this is a double tax because in the case of real property, like farmland, property taxes have been paid year after year on the land. If you have been making a living off the land then you’ve been subject to pay income taxes on it as well. This misguided tax affects property owners, small business owners, family farmers and anyone who has had a job or one day will hold a job.

For example, I am 5th generation farmer who is just beginning. The 2nd generation of farmer is still alive, my great-grandma, she still owns quite a bit of the land we farm today. When she passes away the land will be passed down to the next generation and when my grandparents die it’ll be passed down again. Each time the land, that is my family’s livelihood and legacy, is passed down the inheritor is forced to pay a tax.

There’s a saying that farmers are land rich and cash poor. The money we have “lying around” to pay this erroneous fee is tied up in other land, equipment and next year’s crop. To generate cash immediately we must either sell land or equipment or get out of the business of farming all together. Potentially one less family farmer to continue on for the next generation because the government taxed them out.

The way it is right now in Oregon any estate over a million dollars is subject to this estate tax. With value of farmland a million dollars is easily reached in land alone. However, when you start adding in the equipment and buildings used on the farm the amount you owe to the state & federal government starts increasing exponentially. Yes, I said state & federal, the state of Oregon has its own death tax separate from the federal death tax.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Right now, in Oregon, there are petitions circulating to put this issue on the November 2012 ballot and end Oregon’s Death Tax. Twenty-nine states have already repealed it and only 3 states west of the Mississippi still have this “double” tax Oregon, Washington & Hawaii.

Here’s what this measure will do if passed:

• It will phaseout the Oregon estate tax by reducing the existing tax by 25% in 2013, 50% in 2014, and 75% in 2015. As of January 1, 2016, the tax is zero.
• It phases out the capital gains tax on property sales within a family on the same schedule as the phase out of the death tax.

The revenue generated by the death tax is less than 1.5% of the general fund or roughly $90 million dollars a year. However, the good news is the “lost” revenue will be made up in five years! Professors Eric Fruits and Randall Pozdena issued a report in February of this year in which they predict that elimination of the death tax will lead to the creation of between 31,000 and 44,500 new jobs in Oregon over the next 5 years. This is because of increased in-migration of family owned business and reduced out-migration of such businesses. The tax revenues generated by these new jobs will gradually offset the loss of estate tax revenues.

Jobs & tax revenue? Sounds like a win-win to me.

I urge anyone registered to vote in the state of Oregon to go endoregondeathtax.com and print off an individual petition to sign and mail in. This is issue vital to the economic sustainability of our family owned & run businesses!

In full disclosure, I am one of the chief petitioner’s on the campaign because at 26 years old I am looking at my future as a farmer. I wonder if they’re will be anything left for me and my future generations if my family is continued to be subject to this death penalty.

The Bowers Family! Great-grandma Charity down to my 6 year old cousin Charity! 90 years apart!

Ultimate Minority: A Farmer

I am a minority, not because I am women or a proud card-carrying member of the Cherokee nation.

I am a farmer.  Less than 2% of the US population have my livelihood.

That’s less than the population of Native Americans, African-Americans, Asian Americans and Caucasian Americans

If I remember correctly from my history classes many laws were passed to give equal rights to at least 3 out of the 4 groups mentioned above.

What is so wrong with laws passing to protect people of a minority group who’s end product eventually feeds the world?

In 1993, the Oregon legislature understood that there was a rural & urban divide.  Oregon’s agriculturally rich Willamette Valley is in the midst of metropolitan Oregon. Tthey needed to do something to protect farmers, ranchers & foresters rights that are “a generally accepted, reasonable and prudent methods,” because more urban folks were moving into the countryside and they  wouldn’t necessarily understand the natural practices of the area.  This is why they passed Oregon’s Right to Farm and Forest Act.

This law protects me from radical groups who see my natural & generally accepted practices as a nuisance and wish to end it.   Many of these same groups claim to love farmers & farming, however they typically advocate for one way of farming only. Which usually  limits others’ choices.  What is fair about that? At least Oregon’s law protects them too. I believe that’s equality.

Our economy is struggling enough and our world population is growing. To limit any modern or progressive agriculture is a shame and should be frowned upon. Agriculture as a whole, not just limited to production ag, is vital to the United States economy, independent in food & fuel production. In Oregon, agriculture accounts for 15% of all economic activity, and in 2009 is credited with adding more than $22 billion to Oregon’s net state product.

My ultimate question in life is “Why can’t we farm & let farm?”  Why can’t some of us continue to ethically progress in agriculture as the environment and economics see fit, while others prefer to stay in 1915? There’s room for all of us.  As a whole we are already a minority.

Using North Dakota Honey in Portlandia

I just returned from a very exhausting but very fulfilling, blessed week.  I started off the week in Nashville hanging out with people I aspire to be like and finished of the week with a best friend’s wedding! Life does not get much more awesome than that!

I was in Nashville to attend the AgVocacy 2.0 conference put on by the Agchat Foundation. The general purpose of the foundation and conference was to help the attendees communicate our farming, ranching or forestry story more effectively through social media.  A continual theme and conversation topic was how to do we go beyond the choir.  All the attendees do an amazing job interacting with each other, in fact I know I left with a couple more best friends.  But how do we truly breach our comfort zone get to the audience that we don’t have a lot in common with?

My friend Katie Pinke (Blog, Twitter) was a presenter on Basic Blogging and she absolutely rocks at going beyond the choir. Well she just plain rocks in general too!  After her presentation she rewarded people with North Dakota honey for asking questions and then told us to blog about the honey.  I could easily write about all the crops in Oregon that require bees for pollination and hence there are many crop/flavors/varieties of honey in Oregon, but I thought I would take the honey to a deeper meaning.

I believe Ben Franklin once said, “Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.”  If we want to effectively reach our targeted audience we must make friends or acquaintances and then the conversation will come easier.

I by no means am an expert at this, however lately I have been thinking about scenarios in my head and how I would address a subject if it came up.  I also knew I would most likely have a few engaging conversation opportunities come up at the end of the week since my friend was getting married in Portlandia. (Watch this clip if you have not seen it, very accurate portrayal.)

While I had a few great conversations about farming, ag, natural resources and social media at the end of the week one moment stuck out in particular.

While I was getting my hair done Friday morning the hairdresser and I through normal conversations started talking about life. We talked about jobs and that I worked in agriculture; she thought that was neat.  She told me was reading up on the wolf controversy in NE Oregon and she understood both sides and thought there could be a solution in the middle.  I didn’t say much, she seemed to be open-minded.  I ask her why she moved from the East Coast to Portland and she explains it’s because they fell in love with how progressive it is. I bite my tongue because well that could be a can of worms.  She needed a pen to write something down so I grab one out of my purse.  It’s a Monsanto pen. I strategically hand it to her. She comes back 5 mins later and asks if I work for Monsanto in a kind of fearful expression.  I say, “No but I know people who do and I toured their facility in St. Louis last year.” She says, “That just kind of scares me all the weird stuff they do that’s not natural.” I say, “Oh I think it’s neat. They are just helping plants along to where they would get to eventually.  It’s just basic genetics and breeding.”  She says, “Oh, ok interesting.” End of conversation.

While I have no idea if I changed her mind I can at least hope that I unlocked something in her that makes her think differently on GMOs now.  Maybe that’s the first step to going beyond the choir by planting simple seeds of truth.

A somewhat Wordless Wednesday: Hybrid Carrot Seed

The area known as Central Oregon has the highest concentration of Hybrid Carrot Seed growing in one area in the world which from here goes on to produce most of the United States’ fresh carrots.  It grosses approximately $18 million dollars a year.  Carrot seed has a 14 month crop cycle if planted seed to seed, planted in August and harvested in October of the next year.  Or carrot stecklings can be planted in the spring and harvested in the fall.  Hybrid carrot seed requires isolation; most varieties require one mile while others can require up to five miles.  Carrot fields cannot be planted back to back in the same field. So the placement of fields every year requires precision by the contracting company and collaboration from growers.

A field of carrot seed below Mt. Jefferson in Culver, Oregon. Carrot seed has been produced in Central Oregon since 1974.

Hybrid Carrots, Males & Females: Two rows of males and four rows of females. Dad & Mom plants. The females are harvested for the seed and males are rolled down prior to harvest.

Honey Bees are vital for pollination of the carrot seeds

Many of the carrots are irrigated by drip irrigation

Full of seed now just time to get ripe!

This year all crop production in the area is two to three weeks behind.  Farmers are hurrying to get the 2011 crop harvested so they can plant 2012′s crop in the next few weeks. Other crops grown in Central Oregon include bluegrass seed, wheat, mint, onion seed, garlic seed, alfalfa, native grasses, wildflower seed, seed potatoes and some sugar beet seed.

Thank you to the farmers who have helped educate me on carrot seed and let me take pictures of their crops!

Fun Fact: Since the introduction of baby-cut carrots in 1989 the United States’ consumption has quadrupled to almost 11 pounds per person annually

Economies of Common Interest: the key to Oregon’s redistricting

Every 10 years, after the US Census, legislative  and congressional districts are revisited and redrawn.  In Oregon there is a statute that outlines the criteria  that is to be considered when the districts are redrawn.  The law and the constitution outline the criteria as follows:

(1) Each district, as nearly as practicable, shall:

      (a) Be contiguous;

      (b) Be of equal population;

      (c) Utilize existing geographic or political boundaries;

      (d) Not divide communities of common interest; and

      (e) Be connected by transportation links.

      (2) No district shall be drawn for the purpose of favoring any political party, incumbent legislator or other person.

      (3) No district shall be drawn for the purpose of diluting the voting strength of any language or ethnic minority group.

      (4) Two state House of Representative districts shall be wholly included within a single state senatorial district.

Reading the above it would seem that redrawing legislative districts would be self-explanatory.  However in Oregon and many other states redistricting has been a quite tumultuous issue.  In fact for the last 5 decades the legislative districts have been drawn by Oregon’s Secretary of State because either an agreement wasn’t reached or it was challenged in court and overturned.  The issue of Gerrymandering  is at the root of the legislative districts controversy. Which I have no doubt happens and I honestly think that’s how a large part of rural Western Oregon ended up with urban South Eugene.

The urban/rural divide is something I want the legislators to be honest with themselves about. 

I attended a redistricting hearing two Saturdays ago. Now, I was unprepared and didn’t expect myself to testify thinking that this issue seemed like common sense particularly after I read the committee’s handout.  However, I found quite the opposite in the room.  There were people testifying that had no experience farming or making living on the land in Rural Oregon saying “It shouldn’t matter how the districts were drawn and they should have a say in how my farm was run.”

While I applaud the urban citizens for wanting to know what happens on the farm; we are not communities of common interest.  Like it or not there is an urban/rural divide.   Our paychecks don’t necessarily come every two weeks in rural areas and the paychecks can easily vary depending on weather, yield and price.  The majority of the rural population’s livelihood depends on the land and we do not have another job besides the land. To have a district that is split between urban and rural with a legislator who may or may not understand it, is a sure way for bad legislation to get passed that hinders rural economic efficiency.  

We need a legislator who is going to represent the best interest of our rural community’s economy.   An urban legislator is not going to fully understand the impacts of particular bills or laws on our jobs of managing the land, particularly when he or she has urban constituents to please also.   Just like rural constituents or a rural legislator may not fully understand an urban issue such as the value of public transit or a bike lane.

If the Oregon House & Senate Redistricting Committees really want to come up with a plan that works, look to keep economies of common interest together.  Economies create communities of common interest.