Help Protect Farmland!

The Portland metro area is in the midst of making land use decisions that will affect us all for the next 50 years. Good decisions will protect farmland and natural resources for the next generation. Bad decisions and we’ll have 30,000 acres of sprawl – forever. If you care about food and farmland for the future then please contact your elected officials today! Email the Metro Council and Multnomah County Commissioners listed below:

mult.chair@co.multnomah.or.us,
jeff.cogen@co.multnomah.or.us, 
district1@co.multnomah.or.us, 
district3@co.multnomah.or.us, 
 district4@co.multnomah.or.us,
Metrocouncil@oregonmetro.gov

Ask them to actively support Small Urban Reserves and the Agriculture & Natural Resource Coalition Map because…

  • We Need to Protect Our Local Food Shed! Small urban reserves protect the local food & farms that Portland is famous for. Many of the farms that serve our local CSA’s & Farmers Markets are in Washington County too, so Multnomah County Commissioners need to need to think regionally.
  • Local Food  = Food security
  • Multnomah County is the #1 county in the state in agricultural processing and that’s jobs. We have those jobs here because we have close-by farms and a wide variety of farm products. Multnomah is the most urban county in the state and the smallest land-wise, but it plays a critical part of the ag industry and many jobs depend on local food. Multnomah County commissioners should care about the whole region in this discussion and decision.
  • Climate Change & Peak Oil could dramatically change the way we live over  the next 50 years.  Compact urban areas means less driving and protection of the farms, forests, and natural areas that sequester carbon and absorb water from the increased rain, run-off, flooding, that we will experience from climate change.
  • Urban Expansion is Expensive! Metro estimates it will cost $10-40 billion just to maintain the current tri-county infrastructure. Bridges, roads, parks are suffering from lack of funding and it’s only going to get more expensive to do that work. Where is the money going to come from? Building houses on at the edge of the UGB destroys the farmland forever AND it is 2-3 times more expensive than accommodating that same population inside the existing UGB.  Let’s reinvest in neighborhoods, light rail, bike paths, and parks –not sprawl!