Oregon Grass Seed Industry

Oregon's Grass Seed Industry never fails to surprise me. It thrives as organism to survive in optimal conditions, feeding on the life source that has consumed it with overwhelming arrogance....money. As portrayed here in a recent anonymous commenter on the field burning issue in Oregon, the industry is angry. This man, who is obviously involved in the grass seed industry is protecting and defending himself as would any organism being threatened from outside sources. They feel the necessity to protect the best interest of the industry to prosper despite their year over year growth. It's like a cancer that will continue to grow unless a more powerful entity steps in to regulate it.

The thing that I don't understand is how the people who don't like field burning have any say in what we as farmers do at all. You folks have a hard time making your lawns look nice without the help of a lawn care service. What makes you think you should be able to tell the farmers what to do with their land. The other misconception is the straw is NOT TRASH!!!!! There is a very large amount of nutrients in that straw that we want back out of it and put back in the soil. Burning the straw is the only way to make the nutrients that are tied up in the straw, completely readily available for the new crop you just planted. ANY other way either removes the nutrients completely, or is at least a two to three year turn around for the straw to rot down in the soil and unlock the nutrients it had tied up. One more point is a black burnt field almost always means way less chemicals applied. Fire is and always will be the most naturally effective herbicide/pesticide a farmer can use, man made chemicals don't really come close.

While their argument is valid, Oregon's population has now increased to a level where it no longer will tolerate this traditional method of releasing nutrients back to the soil.

According to the Oregon Seed Council, there are about 1400 grass seed farmers in the state of Oregon. Of those 1400 farmers are about 55 grass seed companies that market and sell the seeds. According to SeedQuest, "Oregon is the world's No. 1 grass seed producer, supplying nearly 60 percent of all commercial grass seed, according to William Young, an OSU Extension agronomist." The grass seed industry continues to grow every year as well. In 2006, the seed industry grew 789 million pounds of grass seed worth $454 million, according to William Young. Compare that to 720 million pounds worth $348 million in 2005.

Their is an obvious relationship between the Oregon Grass Seed Industry and Oregon State University in Corvallis. OSU tests the purity of Oregon's grass seeds which should be between 95% and 98% pure of weed seeds, stems, and debris depending on what type seed is being tested. The higher the purity, the more the seeds are worth on the market. The Seed Laboratory in OSU is self-funded mostly through the fees it charges for seed testing, however, it receives funds of $100,000 a year on average in the past 5 years from private industries. Can you guess which industries those might be?

About three weeks ago, $94,000 have been allotted to OSU to study the health effects of field burning on Oregon residents. Many say that the relationship that the grass seed industry has with OSU will foster a biased study. Even as this concerned Oregon resident comments:

My concern is that this will end up being a biased study given OSU's close ties with the Grass Seed Industry. It's rather silly to be doing another study given there has already been ample studies that prove the health hazards of this archaic practice. However, as you said, the push to ban the practice will not stop until the mission is accomplished. The arrogance of the grass seed farmers who still engage in this practice is sad. If they don't come around, I fully support a class action lawsuit as I am one of the those people who suffer unnecessarily every year.

Oregon's grass seed industry is no doubt a resilient industry that continues to grow every year. If field burning were to be banned, I am sure that they would survive and continue to grow. Their strong relationship with OSU would likely provoke innovative alternatives never before thought of. We are living in age of advanced technology and information and it's time the government step in and ban field burning so that next year's summer will be one of fresh clean air.