Oregon State University (OSU) is a major source of the world’s research on hazelnut breeding, agronomy, and food science. For many years the Oregon Hazelnut Industry has partnered with OSU by providing direct annual financial support from the Oregon Hazelnut Commission and the Hazelnut Marketing Board, and through contributions from many individuals and companies.

However, as a public entity, large portions of OSU’s funding are dependent on appropriations from the Oregon State Legislature, which can be unpredictable and incompatible with long-term research. Several years ago, the industry worked with OSU to permanently fund a breeding researcher position through an endowment at the OSU Foundation.

With that success, members of the hazelnut industry met with the OSU Foundation in 2017 to discuss how they could maintain hazelnuts as a primary research priority for OSU. From those meetings came the creation of the Oregon Hazelnut Research and Extension Fund (OHREF), with the goal of establishing an endowment of $1 million. The objective was for this endowment to provide $40,000 a year (4%), in perpetuity, for the general operations of the OSU’s hazelnut research programs.

The industry had an early success with the OHREF when the largest processor, George Packing Company, created a match program with growers. Other family-owned processors (Northwest Hazelnut Co, Willamette Hazelnut Co, Denfeld Packing, and Firestone Farms) join the effort by contributing and encouraging their hazelnut growers to contribute as well.

With nearly $600,000 raised by 2019, the Oregon Hazelnut Commission used some of the funds to contribute $100,000 annually to the endowment to help finish off this successful effort.

In the end, over 330 individuals, farm families, companies and organizations contributed to raise the $1 million for the endowment, which will now benefit future generations of hazelnut farmers. The industry expected the fund-raising efforts to take six years, but with the overwhelming support from growers, to processors, to the commission, the endowment was funded in just four years!

Having now endowed the breeding researcher position and successfully completed the operational funding endowment, the Oregon hazelnut industry is already planning its next OSU endowment project. This new endowment will support the agronomic research being done by Dr. Nik Wiman’s office through the OSU Extension. Currently, Dr. Wiman is required to personally raise roughly half of his operating budget through voluntary contributions from farmers and other supporters. This also leads to Dr. Wiman being required to work on non-hazelnut research, slowing the industries’ efforts substantially.

Last month members of the industry developed a new agreement with the OSU Foundation to raise the necessary money to create the “Endowed Chair in Hazelnut Production and Management” fund, which will support an OSU production researcher position in perpetuity (Dr. Wiman).

With an 80-year orchard life cycle, the hazelnut industry is always planning far into the future. With breeding and production research positions continuously funded through endowments, and a general operation fund, future generations of Northwest hazelnut growers will benefit from a steady flow of world-leading research.