Agriculture is an integral part of the Willamette Valley, covering over
one million acres, including much of the state’s best agricultural land, and
providing a diverse array of commodities for both domestic and international
markets. Agricultural lands also provide important areas of open space and
wildlife habitat, while the proximity of farmland to natural areas challenges
growers to use management techniques that reduce the negative impacts of
farming on sensitive areas. These factors suggest that any significant changes
in the agricultural system would be felt throughout the valley economy and
ecosystem. Yet despite agriculture’s importance, the only comprehensive
description of agricultural production and practices is in the form of countylevel
statistics. While these statistics are helpful, they cannot be used to infer
the future impact of various policy options on different aspects of the agricultural
system. To achieve this, a land and crop allocation model was developed
that simulates yearly changes in the basin’s farmland from 1990 to
2050. The three future landscapes generated from this model provide a
means of studying the effect of different management alternatives on the
agronomic, economic, and environmental components of the agricultural
system.