My family has been farming in the United States for nearly 200 years – but the last few decades seem to have taken a devastating toll on the American farmer. In my hometown, once-valuable farmland gave way to the blight of sprawl development – even worse is that the recent economic downturn has made bankruptcy attorneys and repo men the most prosperous jobs in the county.

But my hope for the farm family grew substantially when I recently had the opportunity to tour the Orting Valley Farms with donors and staff of the PCC Farmland Trust.  The Farms, set on 100 acres along the Puyallup River in the shadow of Mount Rainier, are a preservation success story. The fertile farmland is among the Puget Sound’s best, but its close proximity to newly developing communities makes it also valuable for new development. Furthermore, it’s home to riparian wildlife as well as a healthy and robust herd of elk. The PCC Farmland Trust was able to negotiate the sale of the properties and place permanent easements on the properties to keep them in organic farming in perpetuity. In doing so, not only was the Farmland Trust able to protect the properties, but it was also able to establish a wildlife corridor adjacent to the properties which is part of a continuum that stretches from Mount Rainier to Tacoma’s Commencement Bay.

To achieve this, the Farmland Trust partnered with the former property owners, Pierce County, the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office, and the organic farmers who will farm the land. And perhaps most exciting is that the partnerships don’t stop there. The Farmland Trust will continue to work with its farmers to help give them the training and tools not only to be successful in their work, but to be long-term stewards of the lands they farm. The Farmland Trust will help farmers comply with environmental and policy regulations in a manner that will benefit farm while still ensuring that farming can be a sustainable way of life for the farmer. 

The PCC Farmland Trust served a critical role in helping connect all of these partners together so that they can all achieve their desired good. These models of successful partnerships make it all seem so easy – but it never is. It took more than two years of nail-biting work to make it into the successful working farm that it is becoming today, and it is worth the hard work. In looking at the intelligent, hardworking farmers who will till the soil and care for the animals that will bring us healthy food for our table – I think of my family of old farmers and become optimistic again.

Check out the Farmland Trust’s Facebook profile (and see pictures of our tour) online at: http://www.facebook.com/pccfarmlandtrust

Filed under: Trends, Uncategorized by Jim Hopper on March 23, 2010