After Years of Land-Use Debate, Packer Orchards Perseveres
By Vicki Hillhouse
The peaches left Packer Orchards & Bakery almost as quickly as they arrived on a mid-July day. Customers descended on the stone fruit as it came into the Odell shop from grower Larry Packer’s pickup. Harvested that morning, the peaches were still warm from the sun’s gaze on the trees that grew them, giving new meaning to the idea of a hot commodity.
Tammi Packer, who co-owns and manages the bakery, as well as Packer Orchards & Farm Place farm stand with Larry, beams at the couple’s commitment to seasonality and the integrity of the farm-to-table food chain.
“That peach has gone nowhere but the 2 miles on a truck from the farm to the bakery,” she says.
In the roughly two-month window for peaches each summer, the Packer operation makes the most of every piece of fruit—peach milkshakes, peach jam, peach pies, peach pie filling and peach salsa, among other things.
“There’s never a peach that goes bad or gets thrown away,” Tammi says. This approach, also applied to the operation’s apples, cherries, strawberries, and pears, has been critical to the survival of the fifth-generation farm in an increasingly volatile industry.
Take last year’s cherry season, Tammi says. The fruit? Lovely. The projected market returns? Hideous. Sales for Larry’s Black Pearl cherries were expected to earn less than 60 cents a pound. So, the Packers pivoted. They turned 1,000 pounds of cherries into a smoked cherry barbecue sauce that sells for $11 a jar.
“I understand why my husband wants to farm,” Tammi says. “It’s his life. But we have to have multiple arms of the farm to make this viable.”
Which is why the end of a years-long land-use dispute earlier this year over the Packers’ Thomsen Road farm stand has been such a relief, even as it’s brought some tough changes, Tammi says.
Resourcefulness has guided the Packers in their farming and business. As a young couple with 2 children, they found themselves in need of a steadier income stream. Tammi’s father-in-law was at the end of his farming career, and Larry was just stepping in.
“It was a difficult transition,” she says. “There was no plan. I started selling fruit at a local farmers market. That’s how the whole business started. I was selling cherries at the market. It made just a couple hundred bucks a week, but it was grocery money.”
1 day, her father-in-law came over with a surplus of overripe peaches. He asked Tammi if she could do something with them.
“I had never made jam in my life,” she says. “But I learned I could take 100 pounds of fruit and make something that wouldn’t go bad.”
As the couple nurtured the Packer Orchards operation that began in 1920, Tammi opened the farm stand in Odell, featuring her baked goods, jams and, of course, produce.
In 2015, the Packers bought what was known as the Rasmussen property from longtime friends on Thomsen Road. The county granted approval for them to reestablish a farm stand there, with conditions.
But problems arose. Complaints filed against the Packers in 2022 reportedly ranged from unpermitted structures and parking overflow to noise issues and unauthorized events at the farm stand, known not only for its fruits and products but also for sunflower fields, an autumnal corn maze and Fall Festival, and self-guided farm tours. The Packers made efforts to correct problems, but discord remained.
When the farm stand’s revised permit application was submitted last year, approval came with more than 2 dozen conditions, supported by land-use advocacy nonprofit Thrive Hood River.
Oregon law has long allowed farm stands in exclusive farm-use zones for the sale of crops or livestock from the farm operation and activities that promote them. This is governed, however, by what’s commonly referred to as the 75/25 rule.
Based on that, at least 75% of the annual income from the stand must be from livestock or agricultural products raised on the farm or in the region. Only 25% of the income can come from sales of incidental items and fees from activities.
Retail sales have been at the heart of land-use debates in the exclusive farm-use zone, at the state level and in Hood River County. The land-use designation is intended to prevent commercial developments and urban sprawl from eating up farmland. It’s a simple enough concept, made deeply complicated when the development is the owners’ farm stand.
The Packers rallied support on social media as they filed to appeal more than a dozen of the conditions.
“I just knew in my heart of hearts that what we were doing on this farm for our family and for our community was good and true,” Tammi says. “In the end, our county commissioners agreed with us. We’ve always stayed true to what we began doing and what we have been doing.” Tammi has removed retail items not directly connected to the farm, such as aprons, dish towels, and canvas bags. She’s homed in on local vendors. She’s navigated permitting requirements for buildings on the property.
On the other hand, the Packers got to keep their playground equipment and continue to offer casual seating outside. As much of this went down, the state was moving forward with House Bill 4153, which allows farm stores up to 10,000 square feet in exclusive farm-use zones, as long as retail items are limited to 25% of the total area. It’s set to take effect January 1, 2027.
Tammi hears the fears that the new law will add gas stations and retail stands to farm zones. But the operators are the same people who value the land, she says.
“I’m so, so thankful we have these farm stands,” she says. “Honest-to-God truth, the only reason we’re still farming is because of them.”