Farmers got burnt in the end

Farmers have made changes. They are using more chemicals, and growing different crops. They have greatly reduced the number of acres burned, obtained burning permits, and are allowed to burn only when conditions are considered ideal by regulators.

Pardon Oregon's grass seed producers around Eugene, Ore. if they feel this summer that the heat is on them - and they got burnt for actions they did for the community.

Farmers who burn their fields in other places in the West might want to pay attention to what happened when farmers tried to do something in good faith. The Willamette Valley farmers had voluntarily promised not to burn their fields during the Olympic Track and Field trials so that athletes would have better air quality conditions.

Unfortunately, now these farmers will face even greater hurdles.

Instead of appreciating what the farmers offered, environmentalists are eagerly lining up lawyers to race after farmers to quit burning fields completely.

"It's not fair to protect only elite athletes," Charlie Tebbutt, staff attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center in Eugene, said in an Associated Press story, when he demanded the burn ban year-round. "Those of us who live here the rest of the time deserve the same protection."

Gov. Ted Kulongoski has also expressed his wish to end field burning during the next few years, so farmers can expect legislation to come up in the future.

Ironically, while farmers didn't burn their fields, athletes and people who cheered them on had even worse air quality conditions from dense forest fire smoke that came from as far away as California.

John Byers, program manager for the smoke management program for Oregon Department of Agriculture, said his department received about a half dozen complaints about the smoke. He said they tried to explain the farms were not burning at this time of year, and what was causing the smoke, but people still used the forest fire smoke as a reason to call and complain about field burning.

Unfortunately, this skews statistics. All these complaints end up as field burning complaints - even if another cause is to blame, or at times if there is no specific smoke incident at all but people just want to complain in general about stubble burning.

Farmers in Oregon and other places in the West have tried to lessen the impact of burning, which is an important production practice that helps them control diseases and pests.

In the Willamette Valley of Oregon, the valley can be divided into north and south of the Santiam River, according to Byers. In the north, the species of grass seed grown require the field to be burnt so they can grow. In some of these areas, farmers are limited in what else they can grow, said Byers.

In the south, the rye grass fields need to be burned occasionally to deal with pests and diseases. Their options include using more chemicals to deal with their challenges - or grow other crops.

Farmers have made changes. They are using more chemicals, and growing different crops. They have greatly reduced the number of acres burned, obtained burning permits, and are allowed to burn only when conditions are considered ideal by regulators.

Using Oregon as an example in 2007, 77 percent of the field burning was done within four days, compared to 56 percent in a four-day span the year before.

Farmers have also greatly reduced the amount of acres burned. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, they averaged 200,000 acres in Oregon. In the late 1980s, that dropped to 175,000.

On August 3, 1988, smoke caused a bad multi-vehicle accident on I-5 that killed seven and injured 30, and this led to a maximum of 65,000 acres that could be burned.

While in an average year 50,000 acres is being burned, last year it dropped to 32,000 acres because of various conditions in a La Nina year.

No matter how careful farmers and regulators attempt to manage smoke impact on urban areas, rapidly changing winds, weather forecast error, inaccuracies in computer model forecasts, and inefficient ignition procedures can make this an "inexact and evolving science" in predicting smoke patterns, said an ODA report about smoke management.

Byers said last year producers were influenced by how the wind was blowing, concern by growers about the impact of their burning fields, and also because insurance companies were not giving liability coverage.

What has happened in other states?

In California, straw burning was outlawed, unless there are specific problems such as stem rust. Because stem rust is a problem there, California continues to burn as much as in the past.

In Washington State, when burning grass seed fields was outlawed, but wheat wasn't, the growers just switched their crops to wheat and burn 150,000 acres each year.

Idaho faced lawsuits over burning fields, but has reached a deal that allows burning to continue.

Unfortunately, the Oregon situation has revealed that when farmers are asked to cooperate with their biggest critics, it might be a case of smoke and mirrors, and may lead to despicable actions by the other side. It is frustrating that Oregon's producers truly attempted to extinguish criticism about their burning practices and instead fanned the flames of controversy.