Valentin Celaya, Board President

Nellie McAdams, Executive Director

Ag Business Support

We have offered 20 workshops so far this year and many more are in the planning stages. We trained over 500 producers and service providers in the first quarter of 2025. Find our upcoming events here.

Our 1:1 business advising program has served farming and ranching families on topics such as lending readiness, mediating family disputes, and succession plan outlining and implementation.

We are regularly growing our resource library with business planning guides, videos, and educational webinars. Our most recent video is about Napa County vintners who donated working land easements. It comes with a guide describing how Oregon vintners can do the same.

Cheers to the Land

In Cheers to the Land 2025, we’ll focus on the relationships between farmers, suppliers, distributors, and beverage makers that make the craft beverage industry connected and strong. We’ll be growing membership from our new audience, and offering fun perks.

Land Protection

Nonprofit funding is uncertain in these times. To help OAT achieve our mission while raising operating funds, we are expanding our Donate-Protect-Transfer program. In a Donate-Protect-Transfer transaction, a producer donates their property to OAT so we can protect it and sell it to a farmer at agricultural value. The donating landowner receives a significant tax benefit for the donation. Proceeds from the sale help OAT do our work across Oregon. It’s a win-win-win for all involved, and we’re grateful to be working with 4 landowners currently on these projects.  Learn more here.

We expect to close on 6 easements covering a total of 32,831 acres across 8 counties by the end of 2025.

Advocacy

State: This year, we’re advocating for $17.3 million for the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Program (OAHP). This program provides match funding for working land conservation easements, and other funds that support both agriculture and natural resource conservation.

Federal: Our advocacy for land protection funding for Oregon and the nation is especially important right now. We’re advocating to at least maintain Farm Bill funding levels for land conservation, as well as for other innovative easement funding programs.

Revenue: We are constantly looking for ways to even out cash flow throughout the year. To do that, we have historically contracted for reimbursement-based grants where we can bill monthly. Due to delays in contracting these grants and onboarding staff to bill to the grants, revenue was $182,682 short of expenses. We are now technically able to bill to those grants, but are uncertain about when funding from our eight federal awards will again become available. For that reason, we are expanding corporate sponsorship and membership opportunities, increasing foundation funding, and leaning into new funding streams for which OAT is uniquely qualified, like Donate-Protect-Transfer transactions.

Expenses: Our team is working on all cylinders to support farm and ranch land and businesses. Our Fundraising and admin expenses are at 38% and our greatest program commitments are to our Land Protection and Ag Business Support Programs.