Oregon Story; Farming

[Beeps] Funding for production of the Oregon story was made possible through a generous grant from the United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development. [Intro music] [Intro music contd] [Intro music contd] [Engine sound] "Meet me at those North corners, Leroy, and I'll give you what I have" [Engine sounds] "It's almost a form of addiction I think." [Engine sounds] "Speed up a little more. There." "You get a high out of taking bare ground and putting inputs in and growing as good a crop as you

possibly can with a little help from God and Mother Nature." [Music plays] "It's a very capital intensive lifestyle. It takes a lot of money to farm." "And the returns are generally 3 percent or in that neighborhood, which is pretty slim." "And it's a lot of long hours. But there are a lot of tangible rewards, too." Many tangible ones." "It's nice out here. We really like it." "So even though we have difficulties with the price and the yield and those kind of farming issues it does kind of all even out for how much fun it is to live here."

"I still enjoy the fact that I'm my own boss, more or less. I get to pick my hours. I'm usually my hardest taskmaster. It's fun to get out early in the morning or late in the evening like this and look around. You don't get this in Portland or Seattle." [Birds chirping] "It's not something that you're gonna make money at. But is that why you're doing it or are you doing it because you like it? And And it's something you want to do. I mean are you happy to go to work every day?" [Door opens] [Rooster crows] "You hope to pay your loan completely off but I think this year we're going to have some real problems. Sometimes it's feast and sometimes it's famine and you hope that every year to make a little money. But this year I'm afraid

I'm gonna lose some. I can't- at this point I can't put a number on it, but it's going to be substantial." [Metal clanging] [Cows mooing] "This cow's been in labor all morning. But sometimes you'll get a calf that's out of position." "George Marsh is a farmer too. He runs a small dairy in the Willamette Valley just 25 miles from downtown Portland." "It's tough to call a veterinarian at two o'clock in the morning with a problem that you can take care of yourself. [Cow moos] And it might be three, four hours before he gets out there. [Inaudible] knows its coming. [Coo moos] [Grunting] [Inaudible] you wanna come pull? Here, take- take both those. Let me check the head there."

"George, his wife Judy, and his hired hand ?Cervando? struggle to help this heifer through a difficult first birth. It's just one of many struggles they undertake every day to keep their farm going." [Marsh] "The calf naturally they have to have both front feet forward and the head forward, and there's been times when you go in to inspect the calf, you'll see that, ya know, the head is turned back or you have a leg that's turned back and then you have to go in and physically manipulate the calf in a position to be born naturally. And, uh, times it's- takes a lot of work to do. You get a large calf on a- on a first calf heifer, a lot of times it's a it's a hard pull." [Speaker 1, in background] "It's a big calf" [Speaker 2, in background] "Think it's a bull?" "Sometimes you have to use a jack on it and I don't like to do that but, uh, sometimes you have to do that. [Speaker 1] "Here it comes" [Speaker 2] "Here it is. There, we got it.[Cow moos] It's all okay, girl. [Cow moos] You're alright. It's not as big as I thought." [Cow moos] [Speaker 1] "There we go." [Speaker 2] "There you go. There you go."

"There you go. There you go." [Music plays] "Another calf begins life on the marsh homestead. The miracle has occurred a thousand times since George's great great grandfather, John Marsh, brought his family to the Willamette Valley in 1852. John Marsh, like so many Midwest farmers, had heard of Oregon's wide open land in stories passed down from fur trappers and early explorers of the Oregon territory." "The earliest trapping parties that passed up the Willamette Valley, when they saw open prairie lands and only scattered oak trees and so forth, what they saw in their mind's eye, in fact, was a potential agricultural bonanza because they thought in terms of plows and fences and grazing and cattle and animals that would be useful to white settlers who were coming into the valley." [music fades out]

"Historian Bill Robbins, studies human patterns that have shaped the landscape of Oregon." "The Willamette Valley was championed and popularized in the public mind in the Mississippi River Valley because of its agricultural potential and there were glowing descriptions of the Willamette Valley that really defy imagination - that anything could be grown here from pomegranates to oranges to wheat, cotton, and so forth." "The farmers who came to the Willamette Valley in the 19th century were not disappointed. Northwest natives had control burned the land to improve hunting and gathering prospects. [fire crackles] A thousand years of native burnings left prairies ripe for the plows of settler farmers." "They didn't have to go up clearing trees. They didn't have to go about clearing brush as they did on the eastern coast of North America because Indian burning practice had already liberated landscapes and they actually found open fields, uh,

cleared prairie lands, and so forth." "Farmers were content to feed their families and barter with their neighbors until the discovery of gold to the South changed everything." [Music plays] "The agricultural practices in the valley were largely subsistence until the California gold rush. The California gold rush literally changes agriculture from subsistence to commercial practices overnight. There is an old saying that two thirds of the white males in Oregon left for the California gold fields, but most of them returned. But those farmers who began shifting, moving into commercial agriculture did very well." [Host] "With eager miners flooding into northern California, the demand for food and other supplies multiply. And no one was better situated to provide than the Oregon farmer. [Horse drawn carriage rolls by] Investors rushed to create a transportation infrastructure to take Oregon wheat

to the California market." [Train whistle blows] "Probably more important than anything else, of course, was the building of the Oregon and California railroad up the Willamette Valley, which vastly improved the ability of farmers to transport goods to Portland, which is the great shipping point for all goods out of the state of Oregon." "Once trains and shipping routes were in place, not only San Francisco, but the whole world became a potential customer for the Oregon farmer." "You have the shipment of the first loads of wheat to Liverpool, London in 1869. The shipment of wheat after that really accelerates to different parts of the world." [Speaker 1] "Brake on 27 [inaudible], do ya have a copy?" [Speaker 2] "Barely." [Speaker 1] "I wanna go to town and settle up on this, uh, red wheat and also do some LDP's on the white wheat we've got harvested, I think the markets are down today, and..." [Host] "It's the middle of harvest,

but Sherman Reese has left his crew in the field. The wheat market has dropped and Sherman must sell what he has before the price drops further." [Speaker 1] "Great, what does that do for spring wheat price, that kill it?" [Reese] "Well it's down six today." "These are hard times for wheat farmers. Sherman, like most, operates on a narrow margin. Getting the best possible price for his crop this year could determine whether he gets a loan for next year. Whether or not he gets a loan could mean the difference between keeping- -or losing the farm. [Speaker 1] "When the price is low you're not making as much money as you thought you would make, it's what you budgeted for. So we're kind of having to do some scrambling and reworking some things." "I don't know what's going on. That's why I don't want to- I don't- I want to get rid of what I got and if I'm gonna own it I think I'll own it on paper." [Speaker 1] "If we can sell it what we budgeted for that would be the optimum.

And then, you know, you can turn around and- and pay the bank back their money that they loaned you." [Walkie talkie] "We'll see you in a while." "You have to be able to do the physical labor and you have to be able to handle the- the head labor too, whether it's financial or- or just plain planning. And of course the U.S. farmer now is no longer a hayseed. He's probably as well-educated as most of the city cousins. Very few people I know are farming today that don't have a college education. And I know of at least two guys who hold PhD's." [Gate opens] [Reese] "Okay, so what's the price today?" [Speaker 1] "The price of wheat today, the basis level's 88 cents over the December futures market and the Minneapolis December is 332." "To survive as a farmer, Sherman must understand more than seeds,

soils and fertilizer. The complex business of puts, calls, forwards, and futures is all part of Sherman's daily calculations on how to stay afloat." [Reese] "Total bushels 8000." [Speaker 1] "There's several problems, one is that in the last two years and probably concluding this one will be the next of the last three years, everywhere in the world's had a good crop so they have a good crop they're important needs are less and that hurts our export market. "See the first one was 14.2 then it was 15.3 then it was 14." [Fades out] "And we had the second problem is of course the Asian flu. A lot of our white wheat here in the Pacific Northwest has exported about 85 percent. Now the Far East, everybody knows the financial problems they're having so they're not buying neither as much nor as far out as they normally used to." [Speaker 1] "Total mills eleven hundred and fifty dollars." [Reese] "The third problem is the U.S. has enjoyed a really strong dollar comparison to other currencies and of course when our dollar is strong their currency is worth less, so they can't buy as

much foreign goods, including our wheat." [Speaker 1] "We'll have the contract typed up and in the mail to you with the copy of the call option agreement." "OK see you later. Night." "My grandad used to say that if you know when to seed and when to sow you can make money farming. And I thought that was an over simplistic statement, but now the older I get the smarter he looks." [Laughs] [Machine noise] "I remember my dad asking me when I was 13 years old whether I wanted to keep the cows or sell the cows. And I thought it over and I said, 'Dad, sell the cows. Let's go fishing.' That's what I wanted to do. Go fishing with my dad. So I'm the fifth generation here, and hopefully my kids one of them might want to- or maybe all of them- they might want to take over some day and be the sixth generation." "Well, get dressed. Time to go.

Robin, Amy, 15 minutes." "It's 4 am and George Marsh's family is already awake. Today is show day at the Washington County Fair. All of the Marsh kids: Will, Anna, Amy, Robin, and Brandy, raise their own cows and show them in the 4H and FFA competitions. It takes a lot of preparation." [Scraping] [Water hose running] "This facilitates their interest in the dairy, hopefully that, uh, one of these days they'll have enough interest that they'll wanna take over the farm and run the dairy." You know out here in Washington County there used to be a lot of farms but the young people don't want to work as hard as mom and dad had to or don't- maybe don't have the opportunity. There's not a big profit margin in the farm. Especially in the dairy cows. The prices have been down, feed costs are up,

all expenses are up and yet the income, the milk price, hasn't changed that much..." "Bernie Warner is the judge at the Future Farmers of America competition." [Speaker 1] "Next we we have her younger sister, Amy Marsh. She's a 16 year old from Blanco. She's also showing a Guernsey and her name is Lacy." [Banjo music plays] "The dairy industry in Washington County has been on the decline for quite a few years, and there's not too many dairy families that are left. And in the FFA program, I think our kids are about the only ones that are left." "It's just the fun of competing against each other to see who has the better animal or who knows more than the other person. She's just a big baby to me. I bought her almost nine years ago." "This is Robin Marsh's ninth year showing cows here. In just a few weeks she'll head off to college." [Robin] Right now I'm going for

my bachelor of science in animal sciences. So just basically everything with animals." [Speaker 1] "The animals are clean. Condition is good. [inaudible] They've been showing longer, they should know what to do. And these people out here all know what to do. They're all blue ribbon show people. They all deserve a nice round of applause. They did a good job." [Excited screams] "For performing families like the Marsh's, the county fair offers more than a good time. [Pig squeals] It's a chance to teach city folks about farm life. And it's a chance for farm kids to earn money for college. Amy Marsh has raised her steer for the past 10 months and now she hopes to sell him for a profit." [Auctioneer chant, bid calling] [Auctioneer chant, bid calling contd]

"He's here for one purpose and one purpose only. You just sort of live with it. Just learn not to get too attached." [To cow] "Hi boy." "Sold at a dollar forty a pound. All right, lucky number 13, Amy Marsh, FFA member. Let's start at a dollar, folks. Give it a dollar bill." bill. "It's just a way for kids to get some money to help pay for college. And it's a good way to learn how to manage- cause you have to buy feed and then everything for them." [Auctioneer chant, bid calling] [Host] "Two days from now, this steer will be hamburger in someone's freezer." [Auctioneer] "Sold it out, a dollar ten a pound." [Host] "And Amy's college savings will have grown by twelve hundred dollars." [Amy] "Not too bad. The prices are low today, so I'm happy." [Machine sounds] "I don't think it's any secret that, you know, not only wheat farming, but most of the commodity

growers in general are hurting to some extent." "Sherman handles the farm work alone for 11 months of the year, but during the critical harvest time he needs additional help. His father Leon, his cousin Dirk, and two retired gentleman from town complete his crew." "Everything OK on that truck? Alright now does that give us enough room?" "Dirk started working for us. When he was in high school and worked pretty steady up through college. We go back a long ways. [laughs]" [Dirk] "Works out well. Doesn't always work with family I don't think, but in this case it has. We're more like brothers almost. And he's a pretty good teacher. [Sherman] "He's my go to guy. I mean he does he does it all, and of course, my father. Dad was always very good about giving me the chances to, you know,

spread my wings and try my own. He said he was there to help. But he wasn't, you know, he'd give advice if asked but he wasn't gonna offer it. He's pretty well held true to that." [Speaker 1] "Farming, especially this kind is always chicken or feathers. And you never know. What looks bad right now may be good tomorrow or next year. And we've been through it I know several times, and I guess most everybody else that farms." [Sherman] "I've heard of some families who farm east of us who are about to be foreclosed on or haven't got operating lines of credit yet, either." [Speaker 1] Financing is a huge part of farming anymore. All the machines are so expensive, in order to keep up, well, somebody has to pay the money and somebody has to take the chance, that's for sure. [speaker in background] Why don't you back up there a little bit, Jim, and give us some shade.

They always say the best cure for low prices is low prices, so it's going to take a while to work out. Well as machines are so complicated, there are so many moving parts. [2nd man] Especially if the air conditioning breaks. [1st man] Yeah, that's a major breakdown. [2nd man laughs] [2nd man] That stops everything doesn't matter what else-- [1st man] These cabs go to about 110 or 20 degrees just like that. More if it's a hot day. Might be my last year too, (inaudible) down where it is. Well the government's going to save you now; they're buying up wheat. Uh huh, and I'll respect you in the morning, and your check's in the mail. You kind of think the long term, at least I think the long term, you know, there's always less and less land and more and more people so you know, the obvious reasoning there is that there ought to be a demand for food that would cover your cost. Hopefully he'll farm another year. If he doesn't [laughter], I guess we sell it. [Narrator] By the time Sherman's great-grandfather Warren Reese came to Oregon, homesteading in the fertile Willamette Valley was not an option.

[Sherman] Probably most of the good agricultural land in the Willamette Valley, that is to say the land that was -- had been cleared through Indian burning practices was mostly taken up by the late 1850s. Warren Reese chose to try his luck growing wheat where the railroad was recently built on the dry lands of eastern Oregon. [Reese] The Northern Pacific Railroad, the Oregon and California railroad begin publishing brochures, promotional material, trying to attract people to settle along their rail lines because they provided a way to make the railroad's a going proposition. The Great Northern Railroad literally advertised far and wide, and this includes not only the eastern United States but in Paris and London, in Berlin and in other places, even in Eastern Europe, to attract settlers to settle. What we would call today dry land agriculture. [Horse neighing] The

statistics are awesome in terms of the land turned to the production of wheat. Within a very short period of time -- 10 years, you have hundreds of thousands of acres put to the plough, turned over to wheat production. [Narrator] Warren Reese and his family succeeded at making a living dry land wheat farming in Umatilla County. But farmers who followed the promoters' calls further south were not so lucky. [Reese] Dry land farming succeeded and failed depending upon precipitation. And it succeeded along the Deschutes-Umatilla Plateau, and succeeded around the rim of the Columbia Basin, the Palouse country. It failed in areas where precipitation was less adequate. The kind of embellishments that the railroad gave people very unrealistic expectations about the possibilities, the potential of agriculture in very, very arid environments. People

came in, tried to establish farms, tried to grow wheat and so forth, and they failed simply because rainfall wasn't adequate enough to conduct dry land agriculture. [Wind] [Narrator] Promoters and investors were not to be deterred. If dry land farming had failed to make all the land in Oregon productive, reclamation would. [Reese] Reclamation is reclaiming dry land and putting water on it through irrigation ditches, canals, and so forth, and watering the land so that you can grow humid, climate agricultural crops in an area where the annual rainfall is not sufficient to grow those kinds of crops. [Narrator] Speculators believed irrigation would turn Eastern Oregon into an Eden for farming. [Reese] It would be a settlement of small communities with picket fences and small

farmers making a great success as irrigationists. Well, over a period of time that wasn't realized because the larger business organizations, what we would call today agribusiness, were actually the most successful. So the vision and the dream wasn't borne out by reality. [Machine sounds] [George Marsh] If we don't have irrigation, we just don't raise a crop that needs irrigation. Just plain and simple. [Narrator] Even in the rainy Willamette Valley, farmers need to irrigate during the dry summer months. [Marsh] With irrigation, you know, we can raise four to five cuttings of alfalfa, where without irrigation you're lucky to get three. [Narrator] George Marsh draws his water from a reservoir eight miles away. He used to take water from Dairy Creek which borders his farm, but in dry years

he found his water shut off by the holder of an earlier water right. George would be forced to watch his crops dry up in the summer sun as the water in the creek flowed past. [Marsh] Now a lot of people still have river rights. When somebody with an older right needs the water, and you put in a request to the water master and he gives you a phone call, "Shut your pump off," regardless. So you know out here in the west, you know without water, water is precious and many people died over water. Go that way. [Clanking] OK. When it comes to manure everything's temperamental. I hate this part. It's a lot different than water. We've been pretty proactive in trying to educate ourselves on managing our manure.

To keep it out of the streams and rivers, trying to eliminate all direct discharges into the public waters. [Narrator] George stores the waste produced by his cows in these manure ponds. He hopes to pump the manure onto his corn fields as a natural fertilizer. If it works, George will save money on both fertilizer and the labor for hauling. Go ahead, try it. Just a little. [Farm equipment noise] [Marsh] Pressure. The faster we run it, the more pressure we have. If we run it too fast all at once before the sprinkler gets up puts too much pressure in here it'll blow the pipe apart. I'm still learning. You know the first three years we had our lagoon it was really terrific, and I really enjoyed it because we were in the process of filling it up, you know. Man, you don't have to haul manure every four or five days. This is wonderful, you know? And now we're full.

And now we got to get rid of or use the stuff and it can be a hassle this time. Yeah, let's let some water in. [Narrator] It takes several tries, but finally the technology works and the pumping process is successful. [New speaker] To be as efficient as possible you have to get as many equipment as possible one man can run. Whether that man is a one man unit or several men that are working for you. And in order to amortize that over a number of acres, you have to have more acres because equipment costs more. The very nature of that cost means that you know you have to be able to farm enough acres to spread that cost or enough acres to make it pay. And it's the same with all pieces of equipment, they're all that way. We can grow more food, every acre cheaper so that lowers the cost of food which

lowers our net return, which forces us to grow more food in order to have a higher gross. I think you're loaded. Okay. Do you want me to empty it? We're always on that treadmill trying to become ever more efficient, but I sometimes think our efficiency is killing us. I've talked to big farmers and they're not feeling any better than we are so, you know, I think that when the commodity price gets this low, it doesn't matter what size you are, I guess you just go broke faster. The old saw about if you're making widgets and you lose five cents on each widget you make more widgets to make up the difference, and it doesn't work. [Laughs] [Plane sounds] Probably the biggest headache we have or I have is trying to conform to government regulations as far as pesticides. There's a lot of people who would like to see us I think return to farming in the days of yore when Farmer Brown wore the jumpers and had the straw in his mouth and the white straw hat and the plow with

the mule. But John Barleycorn's not around anymore. My dad is fond of saying if you don't want us to use chemicals, then let's line up and count off one, two, three, four - and the twos, threes and fours don't get to eat today because that's what we'll be down to. Farming is that you know, the world's first stewards of the land. And you like to think that what you're doing is helping the land, not hurting it. We have to live here too. Our children have to be grown in this environment too. If we didn't put any herbicides in the corn, we wouldn't be having any corn. That's about what it amounts to. It would be nice in a perfect world, but we don't live in a perfect world. We tried different ways of controlling our wheats and crop rotation. And that helps to a certain extent. But if we eliminate all of our herbicides in our

crops, we just wouldn't get any crops. There is a move, towards organic milk. They have to have their hay shipped in from a certified organic hay ranch. So the costs are a lot higher. What it boils down to is what the consumers want. If the consumers want a product like that and are willing to pay it, I think us as farmers can produce it. [Narrator] When George isn't tending to cows and crops, he too must tend to the financial side of farming. As a small dairy manager, he pays careful attention to expenses. [Marsh] You know, if you look where we're at today, with all our money is tied up into the farm. It's tied up in tractors and equipment. Our profit margin that we have is very, very narrow. Right now the

price of feed is fairly low and the price of milk is fairly high so I'm hoping that we'll be able to pay off some bills here while the price of milk is relatively high. [Narrator] One bill George doesn't mind paying goes for regular visits from the dairy's veterinarian, Steve ?Haugen?. [Marsh] I feel that the money I spend on him, it doesn't cost me; it pays me. We get a chance the once a month to go through all the cows and find our problem cows. [Haugen] Once you get a basis of nutrition and herd health, there are fewer individual cow problems. [Cow lowing] So what you hope is your herd is healthy and then those few individuals that are sick you can treat. This cow was bred 116 days. She was open last time we checked her. Palpitating normal, tones up as I massaged her, in a heats it would seem. Not pregnant.

UT, RCL, LS. [March] We do just about all of it. We have him here once a month to do freight? checks and examine each cow's that calfed in the last month. And see if there's any problems developing. [Haugen] She's ready to breed, we can breed her anytime. [Marsh] Tonight? [March] She's done nothing almost a year. [Narrator] It's important that George's cows become pregnant every year because cows give the most milk right after giving birth. [March] They're not pets you know. There are means that are, are living. And they have to produce milk in order to stay around. [Haugen] I think she's starting a little pink eye. I don't see anything in there. I can just pick up some cloudiness. It's not going to hurt that much. Not like getting your ears pierced, now I've never done that so I don't know but probably less painful than your tongue.

There you go. [Marsh's daughter Robin] I really love animals and that's a highlight of being a dairy farmer. [Haugen] There we go. [Marsh] She shows the most interest as far a working with the health of the animals. [Robin] I know in the end I'll probably know everything that my dad does. [Narrator] The vet gives vaccinations, ear tags, and tattoos to each calf. Robin records the numbers. [Robin] If we ever lose an ear tag or we can't identify a calf but we can read the number in the ear. We can look that up and we'll know who's who. [Haugen] Cows don't have upper teeth. They have four stomachs, so they're just made different, and I don't think that ear hurts as much on them as it does on us. [Mooing] Yeah it's coming from those who know what we're doing. [Mooing] OK. From a strictly business standpoint cow comfort,

good nutrition, pays for itself. Why, because they milk more. [Marsh] That's what we're doing, we're making a living. [Bell ringing, yelling] [Narrator] But making a living as a farmer at the turn of the 21st century is complicated, especially for farmers who depend on international markets. [Marsh] You know, I don't think my grandmother, or grandfather I should say, worried about whether or not France was subsidizing flour exports to Yemen. [Narrator] German Reese sells his wheat wherever he finds a buyer. Sometimes that means trucking his wheat to the local flour mill. But more often it means shipping his wheat down the Columbia river and across oceans to buyers on all corners of the planet. [Newscaster] Well the Asian crisis is also rattling U.S. commodity markets.

Traders say El Nino could lower yields for both corn and soybeans during the next planting season. The U.S. has imposed economic sanctions 61 times in the last four years. [Marsh] You never know where it's going to come from. You never know. You have some ideas but sometimes it can be, you know, far out stuff. [Newscaster] As Pakistanis celebrate their new nuclear status, looming U.S. trade sanctions that could rob thousands of Northwest wheat farmers-- [Marsh] You know international actions it may have nothing to do, absolutely nothing to do with the wheat market except in a very tangential sense and then suddenly it, it strikes. [Narrator] To keep up, Sherman has had to enter the age of high technology. [Marsh] Cell phones, fax machines, the data transmission network information uplink to markets around the world and, and weather, and, and political news and so forth. That was unheard of 10 years ago. Six to ten day temperatures above normal, Carol. That's one thing that's really nice about the DTN, even though it's an expensive service to have,

it's nice to be able to catch that news really quickly. Everything's down across the board yesterday because they can, they can drop the price of wheat 10 cents in an hour or less. [New speaker]The pressures for farmers as always, as it was in the 19th century and will continue into the 21st century, will depend on markets. Farmers begin looking into other kinds of crops in part because of shifting markets. [Narrator] At the end of the 19th century, the success of dry land wheat farmers in Eastern Oregon shifted the market for Willamette Valley farmers. [New speaker] When the railroad was built through the Columbia River corridor. And you have the massive shipment of wheat down the river, wheat production in the Willamette Valley goes in the tank because it couldn't compete with wheat farmers east of the

mountains. And so depending upon the market price of wheat agricultural in the Williamette Valley ever since had diversified into all kinds of other production. There's a whole variety of crops that are introduced by the early 20th century. Everything from walnuts to filberts to apples to ?row? crop, to some seed grass production. Then you have the introduction of other kinds of crops. You have the fairly thriving small dairy industry, for a period of time a thriving hops industry. Vegetable production in the Williamette Valley is an ongoing thing but really gains momentum after World War II. [Narrator] In the second half of the 20th century, economic pressures on farmers continued to mount. Farmers started to look beyond traditional food crops to see what alternative, more lucrative commodities might thrive in Oregon's climate.

[New speaker] Well as it turns out, it's a wonderful climate, a wonderful environment for growing seed grass. Oregon is a bounty for growing Christmas trees that are marketed all the way to Dallas, Texas to Los Angeles to Miami. [Narrator] High value non-food crops like Christmas trees, grass seed, and nursery products are the most economically successful types of farming in the Willamette Valley today. But George still hopes to make a profit from his traditional dairy. Modern breeding technology helps. [Marsh] We use mostly artificial insemination. Because of the better genetics that are involved, we can buy in some of the top bowls in the country. [New speakers] OK let me tell you you know right away you know when the specials over I'll carry them another week. [Narrator] Bernie Warner makes his living selling bull semen to dairy farmers like George. Each ?king? has 10 units of semen on him. Off the price list there's

probably over a hundred thousand dollars worth of semen in that tank. [Narrator] Selective artificial insemination allows George to breed cows that give more milk with higher protein and butter fat. And breeding cows this way has advantages over keeping bulls. [Marsh] We don't have to feed them, we don't have to put up with them. We want to go breed a cow we just go thaw and draw the semen out I and go inseminate the cow. So. No, she was in heat last night. ?Pipe? and I have to pass through the cervix and sometimes that's difficult to do and you have to feel it. And maneuver it around before you can get through there. And if I'm lucky I'll be able to get it the first time. That's it. Hopefully, she's bred. Certainly, they've learned a lot about the birds and the bees on a farm. You know sometimes a sex

education goes on right in front of your face. To a certain extent that's good, I think. I think it's a great lifestyle to raise kids. They have so many things to do out here. It's not congested or crowded like big cities or anything like that. Good job, Sara. I think it's a plus for kids to be raised on a farm. Well, it teaches them responsibility. [Daughter] I get paid for working on the farm so I'll put that in the bank. [New speaker] You know they can't be can't run around down the street because they're here. You know they get home from school and unwind a little bit and then five o'clock they're supposed to be up here for doing their chores. [Daughter]Come on, let's go. You learn a lot more here than in school, that's what I think. [Marsh] I've made all the kids work a shift in milking with the milker.

[Daughter] One of the things you have to do is wipe off the manure that gets kicked on to the teat. [Marsh] If they do that I pay them some money and that way they have their own money to handle and to control. Also have them feeding the calves. Then during the summer, you know, I have been training the older girls as they get old enough to handle the equipment to go out and mow hay, and bale hay. [Daughter] I hate mowing hay. Six hours in a tractor turning circles isn't much fun. [Marsh]You know it teaches them something about life in general, that there's a cycle to life. That, you know, things are born and things die. And they get to see that I think more dramatically on the farm than you would in the city. [New speaker] It's dark at night when it's supposed to be dark and you can go out on your back porch and look at the stars and you can see just like the millions and millions, and you can't always do that in

town. [Marsh] You get to hear meadowlarks in the morning and coyotes at night and maybe cows in between, so it's a more idyllic life, I think. It gives you a chance to go [deep breath] at the end of the day so instead still looking for some place to go party to try to blow off excess energy. (Different voice) It's a good life. I was raised on a farm, my four kids were raised on a farm. I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't want to be raised in sidewalks and concrete in town. (Daughter?) It's had its advantages you know, you learn a lot out of life. [New speaker] The role that the family played in a traditional farm was as a production unit. A husband, wife, children. Everybody was involved. [Narrator] On family farms children have always worked right along with the adults and as farms have grown larger, migrant farm workers have met the need for additional labor.

[New speaker] Migrant workers have been the workers in the labor force for a lot of successful agriculture. In the Pacific Northwest, Japanese workers who come as contract laborers to the Northwest work in the agricultural industry until eventually they become successful farmers in their own right. Migrant white laborers in the 30s, 40s and 50s, but they're supplanted by, eventually, Mexican American workers. [Gunfire] World wars have always had a dramatic impact on agriculture. (Narrator) World War 2 drew young men off the farms and into uniforms just as Oregon farms were expected to produce unprecedented amounts to serve the war effort. Oregon farmers desperately needed laborers and turned to Mexico for help. The Emergency Farm Labor Supply Program, or bracero program, brought Mexican migrants legally into the country to serve as temporary farm labor.

When the war ended many returning soldiers never went back to the farm and Many Mexican migrant workers continued to arrive. (Spanish speaker) We come here because our money goes farther. There are more opportunities to live more comfortably and there is work. (Narrator) As migrants have come here to do farm work, labor saving technology has allowed fewer and fewer families to farm more and more land. (Different voice) If you look at the decade between 1940 and 1950, you see a decline in the agricultural population, and that's directly related to the introduction of labor saving devices, more sophisticated technology, the building of dams on the Columbia River, the development of the chainsaw. So what you have between 1940 and 1970, the actual deep population of some agricultural areas, where

at one time agricultural practices were labor intensive, they become capital machinery intensive after that point in time. [Guitar plays] (Narrator) As rural populations decreased, urban and suburban populations expanded, pushing further and further into surrounding farmland. (Different voice) Urban and suburban population growth following the Second World War did bring increasing pressures all over the country and here in the Willamette Valley on our agricultural land base. Let's say if you have some valuable agricultural land around Hillsboro, where it might be very lucrative to sell it off to a developer, and, you know, you can reap a bonanza. On the other hand, that's land, agricultural land, that goes out of production. It's no longer agricultural land. (Narrator) To protect open lands, Governor Tom McCall led Oregon to enact land use legislation requiring counties to create urban growth boundaries. (Different voice) And the issue of course is to protect a viable agricultural base from

sprawling suburban subdivisions where you have one house on one acre or two acres or three acres of land and you have literally these places going out of agricultural production. The idea is to preserve land for exclusive farm use. (Narrator) Still, Oregon cities have continued to grow, making farming at the city's edge more and more difficult. (Different voice) We're getting a little more encroachment on us and every time we pump manure, sometimes we get complaints about the smell or We have a busy highway out in front of her house. (Different voice) I really think we'll probably be pushed out. I don't know--maybe this farm won't even be here. New housing development. (Different voice) All the small farms are eaten up by the nurseries and the housing and it comes a point in time when the land's so valuable, you might as well take what you can get and, if you still want to farm, find another place where you not going to be crowded out. It's kind of a double edged sword you know. Yes, I want to stay away so I can make a living here and pass it

on my kids. But then if I go to retire and no kids want to take it over, I want to get the most money I can out of it. (Different voice) It's more profitable to sell your land to a developer Than it is to farm. That's it in a nutshell. Kinda sad. (Different voice) We always, as Americans, have idealized life on the farm and yet droves and droves escaped the farm to urban areas or to different lines of activity. Rural people in some respects, farmers, in many respects, are kind of left in the wake. They're left outside of the modern order. And it becomes very difficult for them to survive as they Had once been. [Machinery sounds] [New speaker] ?Gett'em boss. Gett'em boss? There is more money every night working a 9 to 5 job in town with fringe benefits with

health insurance with regular vacations. After 28 years of dairy farming, George is growing weary of the daily struggle that is farmland. [Marsh] Typical day I usually get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and go move our irrigation and then back at the dairy to find out if there's any cows are in heat, go breed some cows. Go rake some hay, get our irrigation moved, go work on our manure system, go work pumping manure out. We'll fix our pipe that broke here last week. In the evening it's back time moving pipe again. So we'll put in, I don't know, a 14-, 15-hour day during the summer. But that just comes with the territory you know. Working on dairy farm we have to operate 365 days a year, holidays. twice a day, you know, no shutting down. [Machinery sounds] You kind of grow old quicker you know because you're always so busy doing things

and time seems to fly so fast that, you know, you've- Here I am, you know, just turned 48 years old and I think, Oh gee, what have I done with my life, you know. I've been so busy. I'm not alone. And all the other dairy farmers are probably just about like that. [Narrator] George's once clear hope that his children take over the dairy is now tempered by uncertainty about the cost. [Marsh] Well, I don't know what makes up for losing most of your life. Hope that your kids can enjoy that kind of life. [laughs] Maybe I shouldn't wish that on my kids. [Child speaks] I probly won't become a farmer. [Marsh] My hope would be that one of 'em would want to take over, and run the operation. [Child] Mm-mm, Uhm Uh. Too much work. Once you get up there and yet to take over my dad's chores way too much work.

[Marsh] I'd just like the kids to make sure this is really what they want to do. [Robin Marsh] I'm not quite sure. I'm going to college this fall so I'll see what's out there and then I'll decide. [George] A lot of the future is right here in our kids. That's where you see a lot of the small dairies are leaving because of the next generation is not willing to take over. You know, there used to be everyone used to have a dairy farm. In fact our creek out here is called Dairy Creek, you know, because there is a dairy on every- in every corner. And now there's only a handful left. [Narrator] If George is uncertain about whether to pass his dairy to his children, German Reese's dilemma is more immediate. Low wheat prices have hurt him more than he expected. And now he needs an additional loan. [Band plays anthem. Cheering. Chanting.] Defense. Defense. [Reese] Holy smokes - good job Echo!

[Narrator] Even the pleasure of watching his old high school team takes a back seat to Sherman's anxiety over financial concerns. [Reese] Oh, I'm talkin' to two bankers at once. I'm supposed to see one tomorrow, to see if I can get an operating loan. I'm hearing all sorts of bad rumors about U.S. I'm a little worried. I heard ?Swearingtons? up, but Pendleton got dumped by 'em. I figure, well, if they got dumped, I don't have any chance. [Child] Daddy, can I [inaudible]? [Reese] How much money do I have to give you? Here. There you go. Go get 'em. [New speaker] A buck ain't gonna buy nothing. [Reese] Gummy worms, it does. Gummy worms, it does. [Band plays "We Will Rock You"] [Reese] You get kinda tired of buttin' your head against the wall. [New speaker] Yeah, it gets a little depressing. Yeah, wow, it's just- [Reese] Yeah. [Speaker 2] money makin'. [Reese] When you look at guys that are half your age and, you know, got into computers and they'rre multimillionaires or at least- at the very least they can afford a new car every couple years. [Cheers. Whistle blows] Good job, Echo. Ha ha.

[Child] More money for another hot cocoa? [Reese] Hold that. [Child] Brrr. [Reese] You want the money, don't ya? [Cheerleaders] Get through, get through, Get through that line! [Reese] I don't know of anything in ag that's good right now, except maybe- I don't know. I guess if you grew cocaine or some marijuana maybe. Go! Go! Don't look back - just run. He's in, he's in - yeah! [Child] Now I need another dollar. [Reese] Here. [Speaker 2] That won't do it. You better have another one. [Child] Yea, I better have another one. (giggling) [Narrator] The time has come for Sherman to convince the bank that his farm is still a worthy investment. [Woman] It's stressful for him trying to, you know, go to the bank, and ask

for more money. [Reese] If it were love of money you wouldn't be doing this I don't think, so, there's got to be some other intangibles. I like the freedom of being able to do what I want to do. I still like being able to say, you know, now it's the time to seed, now it's the time to harvest. And I get to make those decisions. Some guy in a three piece suit doesn't tell me. [Narrator] Sherman's fears are realized. U.S. Bank will not refinance the farm. [Dog barks] [Woman] This is the family farm and it's been here almost 100 years so it's- it would to be hard to leave. [Narrator] Their ties to the farm run too deep to give it up so easily. Sherman will keep looking for the loan he needs. [Reese] There's a certain tie to the past generations, you know, knowing that I'm living in a house where I grew up, which a lot of people can't say. [Water runs] And not only that but it's also the house my Dad grew up. And it's virtually the, you know, the site where my grandparents lived and where my great grandparents

homesteaded, and so that tie not only to the land but to the generations. I'm always fond of saying that everybody that's farming is standing on the shoulders of the generation before him. [Woman] I think we just live like everyone else and try to make ends meet. There's not a big difference. Right, so are you ready to go? [Reese] We're taking care of the ground and we'd expect a fair return. [Woman] I don't have any regrets. I love it here. And as long as we can continue to make it work I want to stay here where we are and continue what we're doing. [Narrator] George Marsh is still working 12 to 15 hours a day running the Marsh Dairy. His daughter Robin is now a pre-vet student at Portland Community College. His son Will says he wants to run the farm after his dad. Sherman Reese had to put his truck and his small cattle herd up for sale. But

he is likely to receive a loan from farm credit services that will carry him through for another year. He hopes that someday one of his daughters will farm this land.