In western Washington, two counties have begun a
program called FarmLink to save family
farms.
FarmLink connects prospective farmers with
current farmers in King and Snohomish counties who would like to
sell all or part of their lands. It also provides workshops on
marketing and other subjects for both would-be and current farmers.
Over the next three years, the counties will spend $175,000 on
FarmLink to help small farms currently squeezed by subdivisions,
competition from food imports and rising transportation
costs.
“FarmLink is the best way to preserve
farmland and keep it in the hands of the farmer,” says Eric Nelson,
King County agricultural program
coordinator.
Nelson says residents of urban
Seattle care about containing development in part because they want
to buy locally grown food at farm stands and cooperative grocery
stores. FarmLink’s sister program, called Puget Sound Fresh, will
market local produce to that population as well as to restaurants
and supermarkets.
“Urban-fringe farming is
successful,” says FarmLink assistant Mary Embelton. “There’s a
local demand for fresh and sometimes fresh organic food. It’s a
great market.”
Residents in both Snohomish and
King counties passed growth initiatives in the early 1990s to
protect farmland. FarmLink was developed in response to those
initiatives; it is one of two dozen similar programs nationwide.
For information, call 877/728-9453 or visit wafarmlink.org.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Some Puget Sounders bet on the farm.
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