Oregon farm regulators are contemplating reducing the “exclusion zone” for growing canola in Oregon’s Willamette Valley by more than half from an earlier proposal.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture has floated the idea of establishing a new 889,000-acre exclusion zone for the crop, down from the 1.96 million acres proposed five years ago.
Canola is controversial in the region, as some farmers see it as a potentially valuable rotation crop while others fear it will cross-pollinate with other Brassica species grown for specialty seed.
After ODA proposed relaxing restrictions on canola in 2013, the resulting dispute that erupted wound up before Oregon lawmakers, who imposed a 500-acre cap on its production until 2019.
During an Oct. 25 meeting in Salem, Ore., agency officials proposed a map of the significantly reduced exclusion zone to representatives of specialty seed producers, canola growers and other interested parties.
Jim Johnson, ODA’s land use specialist, explained that he designed the map by studying where specialty seeds and canola have been grown and overlaying that data with information about soil quality and available irrigation water.
Specialty seeds are typically grown in higher-quality soils and require irrigation, while canola can be grown as a dryland crop that would compete with grass seed.
“Canola can go places specialty seed can’t,” Johnson said.
In some cases, topographical features like the Chehalem Mountains will serve as a natural barrier between canola and other Brassica species, he said.
The revised exclusion zone also doesn’t include the Portland metropolitan area and forestland, where neither canola nor specialty seeds are likely to be grown, Johnson said.
Shrinking the exclusion zone was also motivated by an Oregon State University study that concluded canola doesn’t pose a greater pest or disease risk than other Brassica crops, said Alexis Taylor, the agency’s director.
“It has gotten smaller based on the additional information we have now,” Taylor said.
At this point, the exclusion zone is just a concept that ODA is exploring and it may be paired with other tools, such as buffers and isolation distances, she said.
Though it’s called an exclusion zone, canola wouldn’t necessarily be entirely prohibited within its boundaries — ODA could allow the crop to be grown within the zone under more stringent rules.
Under its existing authority, ODA can regulate canola and other Brassicas to reduce pest and disease risk, but the agency may ask for additional legal authority when it presents a report to Oregon lawmakers that’s due in mid-November, Taylor said.
The agency’s goal is to allow a new industry — canola production — into the Willamette Valley while limiting and managing the associated risks, she said.
The Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association, which is concerned about the impacts of canola, would like to extend a “non-voting affiliate membership” to canola growers, said Greg Loberg, public relations chairman for the organization and manager of the West Coast Beet Seed Co.
That way, canola farmers could participate in WVSSA’s “pinning map,” which identifies where certain species are grown to prevent cross-pollination, he said.
Canola growers would be non-voting because they’d likely outnumber specialty seed growers and effectively take control of the association, he said.
The Willamette Valley Oilseed Producers Association, which supports easing canola restrictions, favors canola farmers using the WVSSA pinning map within ODA’s proposed exclusion zone, said Anna Scharf, the association’s president.
Outside the exclusion zone, however, the pinning map for canola and other Brassicas should be managed publicly by ODA and possibly OSU, with rules developed through an administrative process, Scharf said.
Oregonians for Food and Shelter, an agribusiness group, would be amendable to an exclusion zone based on pest and disease risk, but not one that would favor specialty seeds over other crops for market-based reasons, said Scott Dahlman, the group’s policy director.
“We don’t think the department should be in a position of picking winners and losers,” he said.