Oregon regulators issue payment demands to Bailey Seed

Published 11:17 am Monday, March 2, 2026

As Oregon farm regulators demand that seed dealer Bailey Seed and Grain make delinquent crop payments, the company is vowing to square up its accounts with farmers.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture recently validated five “slow pay/no pay” complaints against Bailey and issued “notice of payment demands” for the company to compensate those growers.

Troy Ralston, vice president of Bailey Seed and Grain, said the company is seeking to increase its operating line of credit to settle those debts and resolve most complaints within roughly a month.

The company is also trying to sell one of its facilities in Albany, Ore., which would “get us all cash flush and back up and running” as the grass seed industry hopefully recovers from a recent downturn, he said.

“The last two years, commodity prices have gone down, and it’s just been extremely hard to retain margins. We’re working through high priced inventory. We feel like we’re six months or a year away from being back on the right side of everything,” Ralston said.

$840,000 owed

In the payment order involving the largest amount, the ODA has demanded that Bailey pay more than $840,000 owed to Creekside Valley Farms of Lafayette, Ore., for perennial ryegrass seed and radish seed.

Creekside produced nearly 890,000 pounds of the “Fireball” cultivar of perennial ryegrass seed and more than 12,000 pounds of green stem radish seed for Bailey in 2023 and 2024, according to ODA records.

Though Bailey made several partial payments for the perennial ryegrass seed totaling about $130,000, the company still owes $842,000 to Creekside, according to the agency’s “notice of payment demand.”

The ODA has ordered Bailey to pay the delinquent amount, plus 1% monthly interest, by March 21 but the company can challenge the findings as part of a “contested case” hearing within two months.

In addition to the payment demand issued on behalf of Creekside, the ODA has ordered Bailey to pay four other Oregon farms for peas, radish, collards and oats based on complaints filed last year, according to public records:

• A delinquent amount of more than $143,700 is owed to McKee River Farms of Monmouth, Ore., for radish and pea crops.

• A delinquent amount of about $37,000 is owed to Hazel Valley Farms of Dayton, Ore., for oats.

• A delinquent amount of roughly $82,500 is owed to Sayer Farms of Brownsville, Ore., for radish, buckwheat and mustard seed.

• An undetermined delinquent amount is owed to Steven Oneil of Corvallis, Ore., for collard seed after some partial payments were made.

Ralston said that representatives of Bailey Seed and Grain have recently met with ODA to discuss “the best strategy on how to handle this.”

Though the company may challenge some of the agency’s findings due to “issues with the product,” it generally expects to comply with the payment demands, he said.

“Most of them, we know that we owe the growers money and we 100% plan on getting them paid,” Ralston said.

Since last year, 12 agricultural liens have also been filed against Bailey alleging farmers are owed payments for peas, buckwheat, kale seed, mustard seed, radish seed and crimson clover seed.

The amounts claimed under the liens total nearly $400,000, though one of the filings does not specify a contracted amount owed by the company.

Some of those liens appear to have been filed by the same farms that have made “slow pay/no pay” complaints with the ODA.

Agricultural liens allow farmers to establish themselves as secured creditors with collateral in a debtor’s assets, typically with a higher priority for repayment than other creditors in the event of a bankruptcy.

The seed cleaning facility owned by Bailey along Highway 34 in Albany, Ore., is currently being offered for sale for $9.5 million, according to a real estate listing.

According the real estate listing, the “light industrial” property includes “eight functional buildings,” including a warehouse and office, on nearly 12 acres.

Several interested parties have already inquired about the property along Highway 34, and if it is sold, Bailey’s operations would be consolidated at another existing location in Albany, Ralston said.

“We don’t have any firm offers yet, but we expect it to be done shortly, we hope,” he said “That’s what we’re praying for, anyway.”