Document text
Smith: Economy needs timber, agriculture By DAMIAN MANN Mail Tribune Oregon's struggling economy could be improved by stimulating the timber and agricultural industries, U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith said Monday at the Rogue Valley Economic Summit. "It has been a decade where we have valued the silicon forest over the forest," said the Pendleton Republican. Smith, who was touring Southern Oregon, organized the hour-long summit of about 40 community leaders worried about an Oregon economy that has an unemployment rate of 8 percent, the highest in the nation. By comparison, Jackson County's unemployment rate is 5.6 percent. Some of Oregon's downturn has been blamed on an overreliance on the high-tech industry, prompting Smith to suggest a more diverse economic base. Many in the audience worried that rules and regulations are strangling the timber industry, suggesting that forests can be harvested in an ecological way that is also beneficial to the economy. "No one will want to invest in the timber industry when it is gone," said County Commissioner Jack Walker. Smith agreed that lengthy appeals processes and other problems have tied up forests that otherwise could be harvested. He has urged President Bush to follow former President Clinton's plan of harvesting 1 billion board feet a year. "We only do 20 percent of that," he said. Skip Patterson, a Medford Urban Renewal Agency board member, said environmental regulations and legal debates have led to a morass of unemployment throughout the state. Others said the agricultural industry - particularly pears - is being hurt by foreign products that don't have to meet U.S. standards. "Then they shouldn't be sold here," said Smith. "If it's good for the American farmer, then it should be good for the foreign farmer." Dennis Hofer, executive director of the Fruit Growers League of Jackson County, said this area has seen a loss of about 50 percent of its orchards in recent years because orchardists can't make enough money. Smith, whose family operates a large frozen-food company near Pendleton, characterized it as a "bedeviling situation. Most of the big processors aren't making money, either." His suggestion to farmers: "Agricultural mechanization is the key to agricultural survival in the U.S." Philip VanBuskirk, a scientist at Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center, said pests from abandoned orchards are invading working orchards, making it more difficult to avoid using synthetic pesticides. Smith agreed that the federal government could look into this problem. Rogue Community College President Rick Levine said the school needs financial help to deal with higher enrollment as a faltering economy forces more people to change careers. Smith said he would have his staff work with RCC to find grants to support the school. To get the economy moving now, Smith is backing President Bush's tax incentive plan as a way to partially "backfill" Oregon's current state shortfall. However, he said raising taxes as a way for Oregon to pull itself out of its economic problems isn't sound policy. "It's hard to tax your way into surplus and prosperity," he said. Reach reporter Damian Mann at 776-4476, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.