Farm Bureau goes to bat for Deschutes marijuana producers

The Oregon Farm Bureau is going to bat on behalf of Deschutes County’s rural marijuana producers, expressing “grave concerns” about the county’s proposal to toughen its 2-year-old regulations governing the new industry.

In a five-page Aug. 28 letter to county commissioners, Oregon Farm Bureau Federal Public Policy Counsel Mary Anne Cooper and Deschutes County Farm Bureau President Matt Cyrus urged commissioners to reject the proposed changes.

The group claims the proposals “exceed the scope of the ‘reasonable time, place and manner’ carve out to Oregon’s Right to Farm law granted by the (state) Legislature, violate Oregon’s Right to Farm and land use planning goals, and undermine the integrity of the exclusive farm use zone.”

“Our position is, a crop is a crop is a crop, be it corn, wheat, mint or cows,” Cyrus told NewsChannel 21 on Sunday. “If it’s an agricultural commodity, it should be treated equally. We don’t believe any other county has restrictions on agricultural crops in EFU zones.”

It’s not a new position for Cyrus — a hemp farmer and co-founder of Aspen Lakes — or the Oregon Farm Bureau, which also opposed the original county regulations two years ago.

In the 2017 legislative session, Cyrus said the Oregon Farm Bureau “floated a bill that would have eliminated the ‘Right to Farm’ carve-out — and eliminated all of Deschutes County’s marijuana rules.”

“A commissioner came over (to Salem) and met with lawmakers, and they promised to revisit their rules, which the legislative body considered unreasonable,” Cyrus said, claiming the county “promised to loosen the rules — and now they’re tightening the rules.”

Commissioners recently held a packed hearing on the proposed new marijuana production rules. The public record is open until next Friday. Learn more about the proposed new rules at https://www.deschutes.org/cd/page/marijuana-land-use.

In their letter, the Oregon and Deschutes County Farm Bureau officials said legislators had designated marijuana as a farm crop but also “created a very limited carve out to Oregon’s Right to Farm law, which otherwise strictly prohibits local governments from regulating farm uses in farm zones.”

“When it is grown in a farm zone, it should not be more heavily regulated than other farm crops,” the group stated.

Among its issues with the proposals:

-The county seeks to remove marijuana from a ban on nuisance and trespass lawsuits under the Right to Farm law, something lawmakers granted to exemptions to.

-The proposed buffer distances between marijuana grow operations “exceed the scope of reasonable regulation of marijuana and set a dangerous precedent for all of agriculture,” the Oregon Farm Bureau wrote.

“While we understand that some in Deschutes County dislike marijuana as a crop, it has been designated a legal crop nonetheless, and is not subject to unreasonable restrictions,” the organization said.

“Providing for a half-mile buffer distance between operations is unreasonable because it limits a farmer’s ability to engage in the full range of farm practices on their operation, which undermines the very purpose of (state land-use) Goal 3 and farmland protection,” the organizations added.

Similar concerns were raised about proposed light, noise and odor regulations, noting the proposal refers to all “inside building lighting, regardless of whether used for marijuana production, which would make that provision illegal — and if limited to marijuana through revisions “still unreasonable.”

“During peak seasons, lighting may be required in greenhouses overnight and a requirement to make the walls opaque could limit natural light during the day and significantly increase energy and production costs,” the Farm Bureau said.

The group also called it “patently unreasonable to require odor and noise abatement plans and extensive engineering to protect neighbors from a farm crop in a farm zone.”

The Farm Bureau said “the county may not independently require a water meter for permitted water uses” in farm zones, noting that the regulation and enforcement of water rights is “solely within the discretion” of the state Water Resources Department. They also voiced concern about the county requiring a statement of how water runoff is being addressed, saying that comes under the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s purview.

They also renewed their earlier concerns about the county assessing system development charges and requiring a site plan review solely for marijuana production facilities.

Cyrus said Sunday he understands some rural county residents, likely even Farm Bureau members, disagree with the group’s stance and want more stringent measures for marijuana production due to its impacts.

But he said the county’s marijuana opponents also include “a lot of well-heeled rural residents that live in farm areas that don’t like what they consider to be an offensive crop.”

“We would be defending a horse farm getting complaints,” he added. “The issue is the law.”

Cyrus said there’s still a “strong possibility the ‘carve out’ may go away this (2019 legislative) session, and Deschutes County will have no rules.” He said the county has indicated if that happens, or if the new rules are successfully challenged in land-use appeals, “they could put it to voters whether to allow legal cultivation of marijuana.”

Coincidentally, Cyrus said Congress is close to passing a Farm Bill that will fully legalize industrial hemp, something sought for years by many, including Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden.

And he cited the irony is that the county already has “fields and fields” of hemp crops — which comes from the same cannabis sativa plant, but contains only a tiny amount of THC, the psychoactive compound that makes people high. Despite that, federal regulators and lawmakers banned hemp crops in 1970 under the Controlled Substances Act.

“We do the same thing with hemp as we do with marijuana — process it for either buds or oil,” Cyrus said. He noted its current primary use is for CBD oil, the medicinal portion of marijuana without the high.

“We don’t have processing facilities to fully use the fiber” that can go into products from rope and paper to clothing, computer chips and biodegradable plastic, Cyrus said