Oregon Ag Department developing new strategic plan
BOARDMAN, Ore. — The Oregon Department of Agriculture is drawing up a new strategic plan to guide the agency’s activities in the future.
The goal is to develop a document that’s actually useful to ODA officials rather than gathering dust on a shelf, said Ron Sarazin, a consultant who’s assisting ODA with the process.
“It’s got to be something that’s used on a day-to-day basis,” Sarazin said at the recent Oregon Board of Agriculture meeting in Boardman.
The department decided to update its strategic plan because the most recent version was completed before ODA Director Katy Coba was appointed in 2003, said Bruce Pokarney, the agency’s communications director.
“We really want to find out what we do well and what we need to improve upon,” he said.
To that end, members of the Oregon Board of Agriculture weighed in on the challenges facing the agency, including:
• Coexistence: The farming industry, and by extension the ODA, is struggling with coexistence among different types of agriculture, said Coba.
The battle over cross-pollination between biotech, conventional and organic crops is a prominent example, but the issue isn’t limited to genetic engineering, she said.
A similar dispute involves hemp and marijuana, as well as canola and the specialty seeds that are related to that crop, Coba said.
• Water: ODA is rolling out a program to increase its oversight of water quality in “strategic implementation areas” throughout the state, which involves identifying problems and persuading landowners to correct them. The agency aims for voluntary compliance but can issue civil penalties if landowners refuse.
While the agency has made significant progress in its water quality program, the objectives yet to be accomplished are “daunting and the resources are limited,” said board member Steve Van Mouwerik, vice president of operations for the Pacific Ag forage and residue harvesting company.
Even when the ODA does ensure that a landowner corrects water quality problems, the same property can easily slip back into non-compliance when it changes hands, said board member Doug Krahmer, a blueberry farmer in the Willamette Valley.
• Outreach: Some non-traditional farmers, such as those in urban areas, don’t know how to access services provided by the ODA or don’t feel like the agency speaks for them, said Laura Masterson, the board’s chair and a Portland-area farmer.
Such growers often aren’t involved in commodity commissions and other traditional channels that ODA is used to working through, she said.
Other farmers in remote rural areas are also reluctant to seek help from ODA because they’re intimidated by government agencies, said Tracey Liskey, a farmer in the Klamath basin.
• Retirements: With a large number of ODA employees expected to retire in coming years, the agency should build a “bench” of people who will be able to replace them, said member Barbara Boyer, chair of Oregon’s Water and Soil Conservation Commission.
The subject of developing future leaders to head key agency programs is definitely on ODA’s radar, Coba said.