On July 8, the Oregon Legislature adjourned its 2013 session, which was marked by the passage of significant legislation important to small farmers. Friends of Family Farmers, the state's leading sustainable agriculture organization, hailed the session as a success for family farmers across Oregon, noting bipartisan support for many family farm priorities.

Over a weekend session on July 6, the Oregon Senate passed HB 2700, establishing a first-ever Oregon Beginning Farmer and Rancher Program. The bill, also known as 'Aggie Bonds,' creates a beginning farmer and rancher lending program at the Oregon Business Development Department to help a wide array of small farmers with challenges attaining access to capital for land and equipment. Before the July 4 break, the Oregon Senate also passed HB 2427, a bill to ban commercial production of canola until 2019 inside the 3 million acre Willamette Valley Protected District, one of the world's preeminent vegetable seed producing regions, an effort widely supported by family farmers across the Willamette Valley.

Both bills were top priorities of Friends of Family Farmers, a Molalla based non-profit working to protect family-scale agriculture in Oregon. Another priority bill, HB 2393, created a land-use permitting exemption for small scale poultry producers who raise, butcher and sell no more than 1000 birds directly to consumers from their farms which will help small-scale meat producers across the state meet consumer demand for locally raised poultry.

HB 2427, which passed the Senate 18-12 after passing the Oregon House 37-22, replaces a policy adopted by the Oregon Department of Agriculture in February 2013 that would have allowed 25,000 acres of canola to be planted over the next decade in a region where the production of the plant for its seed has been banned since 2005. It instead retains strong canola restrictions in place in the Willamette Valley Protected District since 2009, while authorizing limited canola research under the oversight of Oregon State University.

HB 2700, which passed the Senate 21-9 after passing the Oregon House 48-10, creates an Oregon 'Aggie Bonds' program similar to small farm lending programs currently in place in 16 other states. HB 2700 allows lenders who make loans to qualifying farmers to take a federal tax credit on the interest earned on those loans, which will lead to lower interest rates for small farmers seeking to acquire farmland as well as new or used equipment.

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Just after the market opens, you may or may not find Ari Rosner, the HFM Community Volunteer Coordinator, munching on something sweet and sugary whilst in the information booth. On more than one occasion, the potato doughnut has been the culprit. Dense, but at the same time airy and smothered in cinnamon sugar this sweet snack does not fail to disappoint. And Fleur de Lis doesn't cheat you; you get the companion hole, making this a truly complete doughnut experience.