Oregon nurseries reeling

PORTLAND – When winter storms collapsed the metal frames and plastic sheathing that protected nursery stock in the Willamette Valley, the wreckage fell on a billion-dollar Oregon industry already feeling the pinch of the downturn in construction and the recession.

The demand for Oregon’s trees, shrubs and garden plants was already plummeting, and unemployment is running unusually high in the heavily Hispanic work force.

Nursery crops are Oregon’s most valuable agricultural sector.

Oregon is regularly in the top three in nursery crop statistics, second in sales behind California in 2006.

It depends heavily on out-of-state sales – exporting about 75 percent, half east of the Mississippi.

“There has been decreased demand because of slower commercial and residential development. It is obvious there is a general concern about the economy, resulting in slow consumer demand,” said John Aguirre, who heads the Oregon Association of Nurseries.

Sales of Oregon nursery stock topped $1 billion in 2007.

Sales figures from 2008 aren’t in yet, he said, but anecdotal reports describe declining sales across the board, by 15 percent to 40 percent.

Damage from the storm that hit just before Christmas, the worst in 40 years in the valley, is estimated well into the millions of dollars, he said, and farmers are still adding it up.

He said the association has applied for emergency declarations and low-cost loans for some growers in the northern Willamette Valley just south of Portland, where the industry is concentrated.

“Shipping season is just months away and this creates enormous challenges,” Aguirre said.

“There is no robust economy to bail us out, and there is a difficult credit market to contend with,” he said.

“The fact that a grower has just suffered a major loss is not a compelling reason to give him a loan.”

He said there have already been layoffs in the industry that in 2007 employed about 21,000 people.

“Where that stands today, I do not know,” he said.

“It has had a tremendous impact on the Hispanic community,” said Ramon Ramirez, who heads Treeplanters and Farmworkers United of the Northwest, or PCUN, the overwhelmingly Hispanic farmworkers’ union based in Woodburn.

“We’re starting to see the effects now. I can tell you the general situation is pretty serious in the Latino community among the nursery workers. There is high unemployment in the Woodburn area.”

Many of the buildings that came down in the storm were “hoop houses,” Quonset-like structures with a plastic covering, sometimes containing heating and irrigation equipment.

They are cheaper than standard greenhouses but still allow growers to propagate plants and protect them from freezes, Aguirre said.

But, he said, insurance companies are telling many growers the hoop houses are not considered permanent buildings, so they are not insured.

The loss of the buildings, he said, will reduce the ability to manage the crops and add disposal and demolition costs.

Neal Lucht said his family-owned Northwest Transplants between Molalla and Wilsonville lost 68 hoop houses.

“We tried for 2  1/2 days to save what we could,” he said. “They would come down with a thump, with no warning. We sat there and cried.”