HB 4153 – Farm Store Bill

HB 4153 TIMELINE:

3/6 – Passed out of Senate

3/3 – Passed out of House

3/2 – Work Session – Joint Committee on Ways and Means

2/27 – Work Session – Subcommittee On Capital Construction

2/25 – Assigned to Subcommittee On Capital Construction

2/19 – Informational Hearing in Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildfire

2/18 – Start contacting your Legislators (template below) until there is a floor vote!

2/17 – Referred to Ways and Means

2/16 – Work Session – -3 amendment adopted

2/16 – FoFF’s amendment posted – READ FoFF’s AMENDMENT HERE

2/11 – Written Testimony due

2/9 – Public Hearing scheduled – READ FoFF’s TESTIMONY HERE 

2/4 – Public Hearing scheduled

We do NOT support HB 4153A because it:

– Creates a confusing 2-tiered system that does not allow small farmers to engage in educational fee-based activity or farm-to-table dinners.
– Creates confusion for counties and farmers by creating another permit for very similar businesses.
– Opens the land use system for unlimited event based income on farmland without any regard for the impact on neighboring farms or land prices.
– Was not created with input from all stakeholders and lacks the perspective of diversified, small farms and ranches.

OUR POSITION on the Farm Store Bill:

HB 4153-6 (FoFF’s Amendment): More opportunities for all farmers

Senator Neron-Misslin worked with Friends of Family Farmers to draft the -6 amendment to HB 4153 to protect our farmland, but also expand the current opportunities for farmers who want to welcome community members to their farms for educational and promotional events, and sell their farm products directly to the people who enjoy them.

Expanded Opportunities for All Farmers

Unlike the base bill and the -2, -3, and -4 amendments, the -6 amendment does not limit who can apply for a farm store permit. It maintains the current approach of judging a farm store’s legitimacy based not on how many acres are in production, but whether or not the farm store is used primarily to promote the farm and its products. But we have heard loud and clear from our members that we want more flexibility in promotional and educational fee-based activity. The -6 amendment expands opportunities for all farmers by allowing farm store permit holders to host the following types of events:

• Farm tours;
• Educational exhibits or classes;
• Crop mazes;
• Nonmechanized play structures;
• Farm-to-table meals;
• Incidental retail sales;
• Animal petting and feeding exhibits;
• Hay or tractor rides; or
• Other seasonal or holiday events showcasing the products and processed farm products of the farm operation.

This amendment maintains the clarification from the -2 that value added products made with farm produce are indeed farm products. This is a welcome change and will provide clarity and security for small farms building their businesses. This amendment allows for farms to build a certified commercial kitchen for their farm to table dinners and the ability to sell pre-packaged prepared foods and alcohol as part of incidental items. 

The -6 amendment raises the current law’s 25% limitation on incidental item sales and promotional activity to 35%.This provides additional flexibility for farms to expand their business without excluding small operations.

Protection for Agricultural Land

The -6 amendment addresses the concerns from our farming community about the potential for agri-tourism to overtake farm production as the purpose of EFU and farm and Forest zoned lands. FoFF represents both producers who want to take advantage of the new revenue pathways, and those who are concerned about competition for farmland with buyers only looking for event venues and the interference with existing farm operations that unlimited large events would have. To address these concerns and come to a middle solution, the -6 amendment:

• Uses the term “promotional activities” not agri-tourism to avoid confusion with other statutes/permitting processes.
• Requires promotional activities to meet the standards of the “Good Neighbor Test” in ORS 215.296 (1) that other uses are subject to.
• Requires Farm to Table dinners to feature at least one product from the farm operation who hosts it.
• Limits Farm to Table Dinners and “Other seasonal or holiday events” to 18 72-hour long events (that’s 54 days a year!). No other promotional activity types are limited.

These common sense limitations will preserve the character of our agricultural communities and ensure that farm production is always the primary economic activity on EFU and farm forest zoned land.

Clarity for the Simplest Form of Farm Stand

The -6 amendment maintains the language of farm stands as an allowed use of EFU zone land. In this amendment, the intent is to clarify when a permit is needed and when the sale of farm product is simply farm use:

• Farm Store: Requires a permit from the county, allows up to 35% of revenue to come from promotional activity and incidental item sales.
• Farm Stand: Does not require a permit, requires any structures only be used for the sale of farm product from the farm operation and the local agricultural area

Oppose HB 4153-2, -3, -4: These are NOT the solution!

FoFF is opposed to HB 4153 as it is written and the -2 , -3 and -4 amendments because it limits who is allowed to have a farm store for their operation and makes no specific protections for the simplest form of farm stand currently in operation.

Friends of Family Farmers was part of conversations regarding farm stands on EFU and Farm Forest zoned land in 2025 including the legislative working group surrounding HB 3133, and the rulemaking advisory committee convened by the Department of Land Conservation and Development. This conversation has come back to the legislature in 2026. Sadly, we and the farmers we represent were not given a seat at the table in producing HB 4153. We were asked to make comments and suggestions after the fact, none of which were adopted in a meaningful way. Friends of Family Farmers likes some parts of this bill and agrees that diversified farm income is necessary for small farms. We believe that the connection between a farm and the public that can be forged through on farm experiences is important to strengthening our food system and uplifting our rural communities. But this bill is not the solution. It goes far beyond what was discussed in the previous public processes and would require many of the farms FoFF works with to close their farm stores – or keep them from applying for permits in the first place – while giving vast privileges to larger operations.

Things we like

There are aspects of this proposal that FoFF believes are good for farmers and communities. 

• The inclusion of educational events (like farm tours, workshops, and speakers) in farm related fee based activity. This is something that FoFF farmers have been asking for over many years. Part of helping people understand why supporting local agriculture is so important is helping them understand the impact of the choices farmers are making in production, distribution, conservation practices, and community participation.
• The clarification that products made under the farm direct producer processed exemption are farm products, not incidental. A processed farm product is just made into a more usable form. We worked hard to provide the opportunity for our farmers to expand their offerings through the farm direct marketing law. These products should be included in the definition of farm products.
• Inclusion of farm to table dinners in fee based events. This is also something that FoFF farmers have told us loud and clear is a priority for them. Our one caveat is that the bill does not currently require any of the food at the dinner be produced by the host farmer, only in the local agricultural area (defined as the state of Oregon and adjacent counties). We proposed amendments that were not taken up to stipulate that at least one ingredient had to come from the farm hosting the dinner. We were told that was not possible and could not be included.

Why we have to oppose this bill

Gives opportunity based on farm size, not sales of farm product

Current law restricts fee-based activity and the sale of incidental (non-farm items like t-shirts, bottled water, etc) to a total of 25% of the sales of the farm stand. The new bill would create new eligibility requirements based on acreage in production or sales numbers for farms to even apply for a farm store permit. These requirements would put some farm stands in our network out of business. The farm stands at risk are affiliated with small and beginning operations. Here is what the current text of the bill available on OLIS (as of 2/2/26) says:

4(a) The farm store is used for the sale of farm products produced by the farm operation; (b) The farm store is situated on a tract of: (A) At least 80 acres with at least 45 acres employed for farm use; (B) Less than 80 acres but at least 40 acres and with at least 25 acres employed for farm use; (C) Less than 40 acres but at least 20 acres and with at least 15 acres employed for farm use; or (D) Less than 20 acres if: (i) At least 10 acres are employed for farm use; or (ii) The farm store operates in conjunction with a farm operation, including a farm operation on a separate tract from the farm store, that earned at least $40,000 in gross farm income in the preceding two years; and…

In the -1 Amendment and the -2 Amendment the income requirement is lowered to $10,000 and it is clarified that this is cumulative income over a 2 year period. 

This means that for large farms, the area in production could be 56% if the property is only 80 acres, but the same static acreage number is applied to all properties above this threshold, it could be as little as 1% if a landowner with thousands of acres chose to take advantage of this.

For properties 40-79.99 acres the percentage in farm use varies from 31%-62%. For properties 39.99-20 acres the 37%-75% in farm use and for all properties under 20 acres the percentage of farm usage starts at just over 50% and could be more than the total land they have. Making it very, very challenging for a property under 10 acres to ever qualify for a farmstand. Not only are these acreage requirements arbitrary and place a higher burden on smaller properties, it leaves the door open for someone who happens to own a lot of land to do nominal farm production and unlimited agri-tourism activity, which is not in the spirit of this law.

Farm stands have always been a pathway for folks to introduce themselves to a community. They have represented direct agriculture in a way that is missing from many people’s understanding of the food system. Farm stands allow new, beginning and small farmers to carve a niche for themselves without having to compete with larger farms in forums like wholesale markets, institutional sales, or even farmers markets. Very small farms are drawn to farm stand sales because they are creating their own market and they represent an opportunity for your community to decide to support you simply because they think your stewardship is valid, they believe in how you take care of the land and produce food, flowers, or other ag products, and they want you to exist. They are also a boon to folks who are scaling their businesses, have to maintain off farm income to continue their health coverage or pay their bills, are only selling a little over their subsistence production or who simply want to pay the costs of doing the conservation work on their own farm. This bill tells all those farms that what they are doing is invalid and not as important as farms who are able to scale production to a certain arbitrary level. We are taking opportunities away from small farms with this bill.

Under these acreage requirements, someone who owns 7 acres would never be able to qualify to have a farm stand through having their land in production. They would need to qualify by proving farm income, a limit that is not imposed on any other scale of farm. Under this bill (in the version available on OLIS on 2/2/26) land owners with less than 20 acres would need to demonstrate $40,000 of farm revenue over the proceeding 2 years to apply for a farm store permit. That means that land owners with 30 acres who have 15 acres in production, producing hay (which according to the 2024 Oregon state statistics overview) would produce on average $9,521.10 per year in gross revenue. That is far short of the $40,000 required to demonstrate that your land is productive enough for a farm stand. Even with the lower sales threshold in the in the proposed amendments -1, and -2, this is a requirement that is hard to meet in your first years of production, and is not being imposed on anyone else in the scale. Not to mention that larger land owners (who are not subject to an income requirement) are also allowed to apply right away, whereas a smaller land owner would need to wait until their 3rd year of production to even attempt to get a permit.

To put it simply these requirements are bad for small farms because:

• Small farms have the highest burden of eligibility by acreage in production
• Small farms are the only ones who have to prove farm income in order to qualify
• A farm property of under 10 acres cannot qualify for a permit until minimally their third year of business while larger land owners can qualify right away.

Existing law is better for small farms than HB 4153-2

1. This bill replaces the only definition of farm stand in ORS 215.213 and ORS 215.283. This is the only place a farm stand is defined. There are many ways to sell farm product on farm land, but the one that comes with permanent structures that historically bring scrutiny from the county is farm stands. Many members, especially those selling meat and eggs requiring refrigeration opt for small permanent structures (pre-fab sheds, or three walled wooden buildings) to accommodate the need for food safety equipment like refrigerators and freezers. By removing all existing definitions of farm stand from ORS, depending on the county’s interpretation of the law, some farm stand operators will have to advocate for themselves and some may be intimidated out of having their farm stand because of a lack of legal background. We do not believe that the existing inclusion of the sale of farm product as an allowed use of EFU zone land is enough to protect these simple farm stands.
2. Right now, under current law, all farms in Oregon have the opportunity to apply for a farm stand permit that includes the ability to generate 25% of its income from promotional fee-based activity (ticketed events) and sale of incidental items. This bill would take the option to have any event revenue away from future farm stand operators who can’t meet the acreage/income requirement. Why should a small farm who got their farm stand permit a year ago have fewer revenue options than an identical farm trying to get a permit a year from now?
3. Existing operations with a non-conforming use permit cannot expand or significantly change their farm stand without adhering to these eligibility requirements. Although no operations would be shut down by this bill, it prevents existing small farm stands from growing.

Changes the purpose and function of a farm store/stand

As stated before, the current law restricts the total of fee-based income (ticket sales) and incidental item sales to 25% of the revenue from the farm stand. This bill removes this requirement and the only limit imposed on non-farm product sales is to limit the footprint of the incidental items in the farm store to no more than 25% of the square footage. The purpose of a farm stand or farm store should be to sell agricultural product. This bill removes that requirement. 

FoFF believes that events related to the promotion of your farm product or education about the processes you use on your farm are an important part of connecting with the community, but revenue from these events should not overcome income from selling farm products at a farm stand. We can change the percentage, we are open to that conversation, but removing the requirement that the majority of the business done at the farm stand has to be selling your farm’s or local area product is a mistake. 

FoFF believes that accountability for farm stands (and farm stores) should be in what commercial activities are conducted, not the size of production or amount of sales. By focusing on the size and scale of businesses to legitimize their farm stores we are fundamentally changing who is allowed to have on farm sales and putting small farms at a disadvantage.

Bottom line – we need to make community food systems possible

What this bill makes legal as a farm store: 100 acre EFU property with 45 acres of hay field and 55 acres of outdoor concert venue where events can be held on an unlimited basis with no impact test to the farms around it or need to get an agritourism permit.

What this bill makes illegal for a farm store: 10 acre property where 5 acres is under production and the farm makes $4,000 per year in farm income to supplement their income and occasionally teaches a class on preserving their farm product.

This bill makes farm stores easier and more permissive for large property owners while penalizing small land holders for having less to work with. Even if you support the 100 acre farmer example above, should it come at the expense of the 10 acre farmer example?