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Local farms are essential to our daily lives. Investing in Washington farmland means healthy food for our children, thriving rural economies, and fertile, productive soil. Simply put: farms make our communities better.
But the future of farming is threatened. Over the last four decades, some of Washington’s best soils have been irreversibly lost to development. In the next ten years, 70% of local growers will retire without a successor in place, and new farmers face countless barriers to accessing land, from affordability to systemic racism and discrimination. As land prices skyrocket and climate change threatens our landscape, we are working to protect farmland, support farmers, and chart a new path for the future of farming in Washington.
We see farmland conservation at the nexus of many important issues, from rural economic development to local food production and climate change. By working in partnership to protect farmland and prioritizing the needs of local farmers and the community, we are creating a more sustainable and resilient future for our state.
We are a statewide organization, prioritizing farming communities in Washington based on a set of conservation criteria. We conduct technical mapping to understand where soil quality is highest, and use factors like development pressure and climate impacts to help us identify the most urgent threats to farmland. We typically protect farms in close proximity to one another in order to strengthen the fabric of the rural communities where we work. Threatened farmland sometimes needs direct intervention to ensure it stays available for future generations of farmers. We use tools in different combinations, depending on the context and needs of each specific project. Each tool ensures the permanent protection of farmland.
Through our Farm to Farmer program, we help farmers find the land opportunities they need to grow their businesses, and help landowners sell or lease their land to keep it in farming. We offer personalized technical assistance to current and aspiring farmers, farming and non-farming landowners, veterans, real estate agents, and organizations looking to expand their incubator or agricultural park programs, which are areas set aside specifically to encourage continued farming operations.
By protecting farmland forever, we are creating access and affordability for a new generation of farmers. By removing development potential from farmland, the purchase price becomes much more affordable — often by as much as 50%. With access to land being the number-one hurdle that new and beginning farmers face, we aim to address this barrier by protecting land and making connections to land opportunities through our Farm to Farmer program.
Our story began with Nash Huber, who has been growing food in the fertile Dungeness Valley for more than 30 years. When Nash learned that land near his farm was in danger of being developed into small housing parcels, he called local retailer PCC Community Markets. PCC leaders spearheaded a first-of-its-kind effort, calling on members, vendors, and shoppers to raise funds to purchase Nash's threatened land. In just a few short weeks, 97 acres were protected forever and the PCC Farmland Fund (today, Washington Farmland Trust) was born.
Partnerships are central to our work at Washington Farmland Trust. In every effort, we build relationships with local stakeholders and work toward advancing shared goals that have multiple benefits — for farmland, fish habitat, and flood resilience. We convene with farmers, Tribal representatives, local government, electeds, and other community stakeholders to build strategies for regional and statewide farmland protection and access.
This approach not only helps create a healthier landscape, it also enables us to secure more public funding to support agricultural conservation easements with grants funding pools of projects, rather than piecemeal efforts. We are truly stronger together.
Over the last 20 years, Washington Farmland Trust has worked side by side with farmers, developing a deep understanding of the many barriers that they face. Whether it is finding and affording land or navigating the challenges of adopting new practices, farming is a balancing act. In order to have the biggest impact on Washington’s land and farmers, we focus on three core strategies: keeping farms healthy, building climate resilience, and making land accessible.
Through our stewardship program, we provide micro-grants to farmers as a way to incentivize practices that enhance soil, water, and habitat — moving the needle toward a healthier farming ecosystem. Through our conservation program, we have developed strategies that prioritize farms threatened by flooding, droughts, and wildfires. Through our Farm to Farmer program, we have created tools and strategic partnerships that help farmers find affordable land, ensuring that a new generation of growers has the resources that they need to succeed in farming.
These innovations respond to emergent needs, advocate for farmers, and ensure our land is cared for long into the future.
While tracking the number of farms and acres we conserve demonstrates one lever of impact, our work extends far beyond land protection. We see farmers as the key to the health of the land, so we also measure success by tracking the number of farmers we serve through technical assistance and connections to service providers as they aim to meet their land search and tenure goals.
Land is the foundation of our food system. We need your support to sustain a future for farming in Washington before it’s too late. Join us.
We are scaling up efforts to serve more communities: growing our land access program, Farm to Farmer, to support farmers statewide and adding nearly 40% more acres to our portfolio of protected land across 2021-2022.
To achieve these ambitious goals, have grown our staff capacity. Over the last three years, we have been engaged in deep organizational transformation to become a more inclusive, multi-cultural, and anti-racist organization. In 2021, we welcomed a cohort of leaders to help shape the direction of Washington Farmland Trust. Together, our scaled-up team is building an organization that better represents the communities we aim to serve.
Would you give $4 a month to support four nonprofits that are making a big difference? Join forces with other 52andChangmakers to automatically give to every Cause of the Week. Every Monday, you’ll wake up knowing you’ve already made a difference! As our community grows, so does the impact!
Together we’ve become volunteers in places we would have never expected, planted milkweed for butterflies, provided books to kids in need, helped save endangered turtles, helped turn excess food into nutrition, helped bring art to youth, educated one another about how we are connected to our delicate food systems, helped save abandoned horses and given old dogs new hope, watched foster youth shine in the spotlight of movie making, helped clean tires out of rivers… we could go on and on and on. It is an absolute joy to be a part of such an amazing network of humans making a difference.
“ALMA reconnects the lives of the formerly incarcerated back to the fabric of society. Our participants have the chance at attaining gainful employment and becoming self-sufficient. Urban Farming helps everyone involved explore the relationships between plants, animals and humans as a way of creating a profound connection to both nature and their community.” - ALMA Backyard Farms
While we’re writing this and you’re reading it, Pajaro Valley Loaves and Fishes is out there, finding ways to provide food to more people in need throughout Santa Cruz County, where one of three residents are reported to be food insecure.
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