Friends of Family Farmers – Socially Responsible Agricultural Project –
Food and Water Watch – Sierra Club, Oregon Chapter – Center for Food
Safety – Our Family Farms Coalition – Friends of the Earth – Humane
Oregon – Animal Welfare Approved – Public Justice
September 28, 2015
Honorable Governor Kate Brown
State Capitol Building
900 Court St. NE, Suite 160
Salem, OR 97301
Dear Governor Brown:
Our organizations work on issues related to sustainable agriculture, the environment, animal
welfare and public health. Our collective members and supporters total hundreds of
thousands of Oregonians and are located in every county in this state.
We are thoroughly disappointed with your appointment of Mr. Marty Myers from Threemile
Canyon Farms LLC to the State Board of Agriculture. The selection of a factory farm
executive over a family farmer who produces milk by responsibly raising cows on pasture is
completely out of step with the majority of Oregonians who care about how their food is
produced and what impact it has on the local environment, animals, rural communities, and
their health.
Threemile Canyon Farms represents a type of agriculture that is exploitative by nature and
does not reflect the majority of farms in Oregon, of which nearly 85% are family-owned and
operated. It is Oregon’s diverse array of small and mid-sized family farms that help maintain
a high quality of life for all Oregonians, rural and urban, while conserving open-space,
protecting environmental quality, and providing significant positive impacts for Oregon’s
economy.
But in Oregon’s vast and diverse agricultural landscape, Threemile Canyon Farms stands out
as a rare mega-scale concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) owned by out-of-state
interests, carrying with it significant pollution problems. While Threemile has often touted
itself as a sustainable operation, it remains one of Oregon’s single largest sources of
agricultural air pollution. By the company’s own admission, manure from its operation emits
as much as 2850 tons (5.6 million pounds) of ammonia gas each year, which the U.S. Forest
Service has identified as one of two leading causes of air pollution and acid fog in the
Columbia River Gorge. And while Threemile recently added a manure digester to its

 operation, it captures methane from the manure from as few as one-third of the cows on site.
This likely makes Threemile one of the state’s largest sources of agricultural methane
emissions, even as releases of other harmful gases including hydrogen sulfide, ammonia,
and carbon dioxide go on.
Threemile has also been at the leading edge of a national trend of small farms going out of
business while trying to compete against major industrial-scale factory farms that benefit
from tax subsidies while externalizing their costs of production onto the public. Between
2002 and 2007, in the years immediately following the controversial sale of state land to
Threemile to facilitate the growth of its dairy operations, Oregon lost nearly half of its
family-scale dairy farms, on average nine per month over a five-year period.
Under Mr. Myers’ leadership, Threemile additionally has a history of fighting against
common sense reforms in how it does business, supporting legislation to exempt significant
sources of agricultural air emissions from the Clean Air Act, actively fighting legislation to
curb the overuse of medically important antibiotics at large CAFOs, opposing meaningful
state action to protect organic and other farmers from unwanted contamination from
genetically engineered crops, and fighting efforts proposed by the State Department of
Energy to reduce lucrative tax subsidies it currently receives.
Finally, we are deeply concerned about the lack of transparency regarding how this
appointment came to be. The secretive process for this appointment is out of line with your
commitment to “making government more accountable and standing up for working
families.” The Board of Agriculture already suffers from a profound lack of oversight and
transparency in how it is selected and how it influences the Department of Agriculture’s
decision-making. The Board is exempt from the Oregon Government Ethics Commission’s
requirements that public officials disclose financial conflicts of interest, and appointees are
not vetted or confirmed by the Oregon Senate. Given the significant financial conflicts of
interest that Mr. Myers may have while serving as both a formal advisor to the Oregon
Department of Agriculture and as the general manager of one of the state’s largest industrial
agriculture operations and factory farms, this lack of transparency is particularly troubling.
Due to these significant issues, we urge you to reconsider your appointment of Marty Myers
to the Board of Agriculture and instead appoint a farmer to this seat who makes a living
running a small to mid-sized family-scale operation using sustainable practices that enhance
the environment, not degrade it.
We would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss our concerns and to talk
about ways that the Board of Agriculture could be more transparent and reflective of the

 concerns of Oregonians who care deeply about sustainable food production and the future of
this state.
Sincerely

Ivan Maluski
Friends of Family Farmers
Kendra Kimbirauskas
Socially Responsible Agricultural Project
Patty Lovera
Food and Water Watch
Rhett Lawrence
Sierra Club, Oregon Chapter
George Kimbrell
Center for Food Safety
Elise Higley
Our Family Farms Coalition
Lisa Archer
Friends of the Earth
Brian Posewitz
Humane Oregon
Andrew Gunther
Animal Welfare Approved
Jessica Culpepper
Public Justice

Cc: Katy Coba
Richard Whitman