Senate Natural Resources committee hears DLCD data on farm and forest land loss; flags solar, dwellings and nonfarm uses

Sen. Jeff Golden, chair of the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire, opened an informational meeting on farm and forest land loss in Oregon on Jan. 21, 2025, and the committee adopted its session rules before hearing presentations from state and stakeholder experts.

The Department of Land Conservation and Development (DLCD) presented the agency's 2022–23 Farm and Forest Land Use Report, which documents how the state’s working-lands policies perform at keeping land available for agriculture and timber. Hillary Foote, DLCD’s Farm and Forest Land Use Specialist, told the committee "there are about 15,600,000 acres that are currently under exclusive farm use zoning," and described three data lenses DLCD uses: zoning changes and urban growth boundary adjustments, land-cover mapping, and Census of Agriculture figures.

The report shows the bulk of Oregon remains zoned for resource uses (DLCD: ~15.6 million acres EFU; ~8.5 million acres forest; ~2.2 million mixed farm/forest). By one DLCD metric, 99% of land zoned for farm or forest use since 1987 remains in that zoning; DLCD also reported roughly 1,000 acres of farm/forest land are added to urban growth boundaries each year and about 1,400 acres are rezoned annually. Foote cautioned that conversion can also occur while land remains zoned for resource use because counties may permit many nonfarm uses by statute and rule.

Solar siting and other permitted nonfarm uses were a major focus. DLCD told the committee that approximately 33,000 acres of farmland had been approved for solar at the time the report was prepared (about 8,600 acres approved under DLCD rules, about 5,000 acres via county exceptions, and about 19,000 acres through the Energy Facility Site Council). Foote said DLCD’s rules are designed to encourage siting on nonarable lands but noted a majority of EFSC-approved projects were on arable ground; she cautioned that recent approvals (including a 10,000-acre project and several larger projects under EFSC review) could raise the cumulative total substantially.

DLCD described permitting trends in farm zones: common nonfarm approvals include home occupations, commercial activities in conjunction with farm use (a category that includes many wineries and food-processing operations), power-generating facilities (mostly solar), cell towers and mining/aggregate operations. The agency highlighted that dozens of specific nonfarm use categories exist in statute and counties have differing discretion about which subcategories to allow and how to regulate them.

Jim Johnson, working lands policy director for 1,000 Friends of Oregon and a longtime agriculture official, reviewed additional data from the Census of Agriculture and the Department of Forestry. Johnson said the 2017–2022 census interval showed a loss of roughly 660,000 acres of land in farms (a 4.2% decline over that five-year period) and that some eastern Oregon counties (Wasco, Jefferson, Sherman, Harney, Morrow) registered larger proportional losses. He emphasized cumulative impacts — a mix of permitted nonfarm dwellings, home-occupation conversions, and energy siting — can erode the land base and the infrastructure that agriculture depends on (processors, irrigation systems, labor, markets).

Johnson outlined three categories of concern reflected in bills under consideration: replacement-dwelling reform (to prevent large new residences being approved as simple "replacement" structures), home-occupation limits (to prevent residential conversions into primarily commercial lodging/events without adequate review), and nonresource-dwelling reform (to limit new nonfarm houses in EFU/forest zones). He said the committee's proposed bills include Senate Bill 78 (replacement-dwelling reform), Senate Bill 77 (home-occupation reform) and Senate Bill 79 (nonresource dwellings reform), which would change how those approvals are reviewed and when they are allowed.

Ryan Kraybill of the Oregon Farm Bureau said the organization represents more than 6,000 farms and ranches — "96% of which are family owned and operated" — and stressed the Farm Bureau’s view that protecting farmland must be balanced with farmers’ need to diversify income. Kraybill said agritourism and value-added farm activities help keep farms viable while educating the public.

Committee members asked DLCD and the witnesses about: whether water rights transfer with solar or other conversions; the share of solar on prime soils versus marginal ground; the loss of small farms versus large operations; and whether counties should use the 2009 "big look" process to remap mismapped parcels at landscape scale rather than handling rezones case-by-case. DLCD and presenters said some data exists on farmland classification for solar projects and that DLCD's current rulemaking aims to steer projects toward lower-conflict lands, but they acknowledged open questions about water-right transfers and cumulative effects.

Votes at a glance: the committee first held an organizational motion to adopt its committee rules for the 2025 session. Vice Chair Todd Nash moved to adopt the proposed committee rules dated 1/21/2025; the committee called the roll and the motion passed.

The hearing was informational; no committee action was taken on the substantive reform bills during this meeting. Chair Golden said the committee will schedule future bill hearings and invited stakeholders to return when the committee takes up the proposed legislation.

Ending: The committee adjourned after roughly an hour and a half of presentations and questions; committee staff posted DLCD's slide deck and the full Farm and Forest Land Use Report online for the record.