Officials in southeast Oregon are calling a proposed rail transload facility in Malheur County a game changer for the local agricultural economy.

It’s big news, particularly after a disastrous winter that saw local farmers lose 100 million pounds of onions from last year’s crop when heavy snows destroyed 60 storage sheds.

The $5.3 billion transportation package passed by the Oregon Legislature includes $26 million to create the facility near Ontario.

The facility will be a big benefit to the area’s agricultural sector, particularly the onion industry, Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, said.

The 300 growers in the Treasure Valley of Oregon and Idaho raise 1.5 billion pounds of Spanish big bulb onions each year. There are 30 packer/shippers.

Much of the crop is shipped to East Coast markets by rail now. But to do that, the onions first have to be trucked more than 200 miles to the nearest transload facility in Wallula, Wash. Shippers say that costs about 50 cents per 50-pound bag of onions, and wipes out the geographic advantage the area has over competitors in Washington.

Packers say the facility could put $15 million a year back into the hands of farmers, and turn a trip to the final market that now takes weeks into days.

“This thing is huge,” Paul Skeen, an onion farmer who is president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association, told Capital Press. “It’s a big, big deal. It will allow us to move product faster and cheaper.”

Getting onions to market faster and cheaper is a big deal in itself, but growers also see the opportunity to expand the region’s market share once its access improves.

Kudos go to Bentz, who has been working over the last couple of years to get Oregon’s urban legislators to pay a bit more attention to the needs of rural Oregonians, particularly those in his far eastern district.

At Bentz’s invitation, House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, made a three-day trip to Eastern Oregon last year and saw first-hand the challenges farmers and other businesses in the region face.

That eventually led to the passage of House Bill 2012, which provides $5 million for a special economic development region in Eastern Oregon.

In the context of a $5 billion spending package, a $26 million investment in Eastern Oregon is small potatoes. But it will produce a big return for people in a region that hasn’t had a lot of good economic news over the years.