Under the guise of environmentalism, the State of Oregon has launched a fresh salvo in the war between urban activists and rural farmers. New laws on water use have gone into force, and enforcement is pressuring many small business owners, particularly those who grow crops and raise cattle, to close down for good.
One such farmer, who owns the Yanasa Ama Ranch, explained the situation in a 20-minute video posted to YouTube last week. According to the video, the new laws class small farms, market gardeners, and some homesteads as “concentrated animal feeding operations,” a designation normally applied to feed lots where cows are finished on grain before heading to slaughter. Any feeding area with a gravel, rock, or concrete floor now falls under this designation, which ropes in small egg farms and most dairies of any size.
The ranch owner explains that the State of Oregon is now issuing cease-and-desist letters, saying that they’ve received their intelligence from satellite surveillance.
This is the latest salvo in a new propaganda and enforcement push on small farmers, apparently following in the wake of the environmental agendas advanced by the UN, the WHO, and various other activist, think-tank, and multilateral institutions. Recently, the left-wing activist group Media Matters released a hit piece characterizing homesteaders as “anti-government” and “white nationalists.”
This new law also follows hot on the heels of an enforcement push against Amish farmers for alleged infractions against USDA regulations, which has been ongoing since 2022. Last month Amish dairy farmer Amos Miller, who has been harassed the FDA and Pennsylvania state regulators over his sale of raw milk products, won a mixed victory in his ongoing legal battle to continue to farm as he always has. Despite popular support for rural farmers, it seems clear that regulators and policymakers have little regard for the products, services, and roles served by these preservers of ancestral traditions of both freedom and farming.
