Please view our 2008 Annual Report and 2009 Annual Report here to learn more about our work.
Recent Projects
MOBILE CHICKEN PROCESSING EQUIPMENT
For many local farmers, raising pastured poultry helps diversify their farm income and fertilize the fields. For community members, it means access to local food. Although many farmers have successful poultry operations, they don’t have access to equipment to process the poultry and get it ready for sale.
To help overcome this barrier, we received a grant from Heifer International earlier this year. The award provided match funding for a collection of mobile equipment that farmers can use on-site instead of transporting their poultry or attempting to process by hand. The grant also funds a series of poultry processing workshops this summer at farms in Thurston, Mason, and King counties. Activities and additional grassroots fundraising for the grant have been a joint effort between the South of the Sound Community Farm Land Trust, WSDA Organic Program, WSDA Small Farms & Direct Marketing, The Evergreen State College, Homegrown Pastures, and the Mason Conservation District.
The equipment, which can be viewed at http://www.featherman.net/pluckers.html, is now available for rental from the Thurston Conservation District. Please contact them at (360) 754-3588 for details regarding rental and upcoming poultry processing workshops.
THURSTON COUNTY FARMLAND INVENTORY
How much farmland is left in Thurston County and how can we work together to protect it? These are the questions that helped guide our recently completed inventory of current and potential farmlands in the South Sound.
We’re using the inventory to help us better understand local working lands and the risks they face. It will also help us develop strategies to protect them and help ensure that farming remains a viable livelihood for current and future farmers. Please click here to learn more, and view a summary of our findings.
THURSTON COUNTY WORKING LANDS CONSERVATION PLAN
Sustaining the health of local agriculture in our region is a formidable challenge that demands an innovative approach. That’s why we are working with Thurston County to create a new Working Lands Conservation Plan that supports local farms and farmers. The plan will include economic support for farmers and tools – such as Purchase of Development Rights and Transfer of
Development Rights – to permanently protect working lands. Our farmland inventory will be central to the process. Board member Pat Labine serves on the county’s Agricultural Advisory Committee responsible for developing the plan. There will be plenty of opportunity for public involvement before completion in June 2009, and we’ll keep you updated about how you can make your voice heard.
BLACK RIVER RANCH
In July 2010, after we worked for more than two years to put together a purchase agreement for its full appraised value, the current owners of the Black River Ranch unexpectedly refused to accept our offer. In collaboration with Capitol Land Trust, PCC Farmland Trust, Thurston County, the South Sound office of The Nature Conservancy and the Washington Rivers Conservancy we had done everything we could to fulfill our vision to assure that 350 acres of farmland and farming infrastructure would be accessible and affordable for local diversified agriculture forever.
Of course all of us who have worked so hard on this project are very disappointed, but at the same time we feel we are well positioned to begin working on other possible farm/farmland acquisitions. The Thurston County Commissioners are very interested in supporting another farmland preservation project that uses our community farm land trust model of ownership–a model that assures productive local farming on into the foreseeable future. And we certainly have become much more accomplished in the process of farmland acquisition. We now know in great detail the ins and outs of such things as environmental assessments, title reports, property surveys, appraisals and conservation easement agreements.
Our Farmland Preservation Committee has begun researching other potential farm or farmland acquisitions, and we plan to continue working with the local farmers who have expressed an interest in leasing property as the land trust acquires it. We are still interested in exploring the feasibility of a community farm cooperative for new or existing farm enterprises that might be interested in a co-op model for leasing land, sharing equipment, cooperative marketing and other mutually beneficial farming relationships.
Past Projects
EVERGREEN DAIRY FARM
The project focus of our early work was to save the Evergreen Dairy Farm in Littlerock, an icon dairy farm in Thurston County for over sixty years. With bank foreclosure pending, we prepared a farm plan, secured commitments from several small farm enterprises to lease land and facilities on the farm, collaborated with The Community Foundation on a major grant application to the Hitachi Foundation, gained community support from dozens of local agencies and organizations, and made an offer to purchase the property from the Weiks family prior to foreclosure. We were unsuccessful – the project was too large and complex, the time too short, our organization too young – yet it enabled us to flesh out the details and feasibility of our vision and strategy of using the community land trust land tenure model to help preserve the economic viability of small-scale local agriculture.