Bruce Chapin knows well what Oregon’s agricultural industry needs and doesn’t need.

The Marion County representative to the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation knows his industry needs to support Ballot Measure 49 because it certainly doesn’t need Ballot Measure 37.

“For agriculture to survive, we’ve got to have a land base. Measure 37 destroys that base,” Bruce says.

That’s what prompted the state farm bureau to take an active role during this election cycle to save a $4.4 billion statewide industry.

The bureau was officially neutral on Measure 37. Then it saw the dire consequences that would come from unchecked residential, commercial and industrial development on prime farmland.

Bruce, who grows cherries and filberts on property north of Keizer, said the bureau went to Salem during the last legislative session to lobby for passage of a land use reform bill that grew into Ballot Measure 49.

“The reality of what’s happening out there” pushed the bureau from neutral to engaged, he says.

Farmers aren’t worried about an individual house here and there but densely populated subdivisions, shopping malls, destination resorts, industrial parks and other types of development proposed with Measure 37 claims simply don’t mix with working farms, Bruce says.

“When you start putting houses out there next to farms you have people complaining about activities and trying to shut us down,” he says.

If homeowners, for example, complain about pesticide dust, then they’re likely to get a sympathetic hearing from local governments, Bruce says.

A working farm, he adds, just isn’t the most peaceful next door neighbor.

On top of land issues, Measure 37 claims also imperil sometimes fragile water supplies, Bruce says.

Measure 49 won the backing of the farm bureau because it represents a fair compromise that allows farmers some development options but slams the door on large scale developments.

And the farm bureau is a voice Oregonians can trust when it comes to agricultural issues.

“The bureaus are the voice of agriculture,” Bruce says. “They do a good job of that.”