A bill under consideration in Salem adds Oregon State University to a research team to study how farmworkers are faring under existing regulations. (Capital Press file photo)

A proposed study of farmworker experiences in Oregon has won the endorsement of a key policy committee after Oregon State University was added to the research team.

House Bill 2548 began the 2025 legislative session as a proposal for an agricultural labor standards board that would set wages and work conditions for farmworkers, but that idea encountered fierce opposition from farm organizations.

More recently, the bill was revised to fund a study by Portland State University’s Center for Public Service about how farmworkers are faring under existing regulations and labor protections, which supporters say is needed to fill information gaps about the ag workforce.

However, agricultural groups continued to object to HB 2548, arguing the study appears designed to arrive at a predetermined outcome that would cast farm employers in a negative light — and eventually help resurrect the labor standards board concept.

One of the major complaints about the study was the choice of PSU to conduct the farmworker surveys and the lack of participation from OSU, which is the state’s major agricultural research institution with extensive contacts in the farm industry.

The latest version of HB 2548 attempts to respond to those criticisms by having Oregon State University consult on the study and providing a more detailed description of how the research will be carried out.

The Applied Economics Department at OSU’s College of Agriculture has agreed to advise PSU on how the survey questions are structured and possibly to assist with introductions to farm employers and workers, said Katie Fast, OSU’s executive director of government relations.

“At the end, once the data has been collected and synthesized, we’d also be reviewing the end product before it comes out to the Legislature,” Fast said.

The researchers would be required to report on their initial findings to several legislative committees by May 2026, then provide an update in September 2026 and issue a final report in December 2026.

Also, the bill would require the Legislative Policy and Research Office to conduct a separate report on labor standards that relies on federal and state statistics, as well as peer-reviewed research, which would be due in September 2026.

Two Republican lawmakers on the House Rules Committee — Rep. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, and Rep. Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville — said they appreciated OSU’s inclusion in the study but nonetheless voted against the bill.

“Fundamentally, I still don’t see the need for this, so I will be a ‘no’ today,” Elmer said.

Though the approval of the House Rules Committee is an important hurdle for the bill to have cleared, it must now be reviewed by the budget-setting Joint Committee on Ways and Means, as the study is estimated to cost nearly $670,000 to complete.