5/23/2007 8:03:00 AM Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative launched
Nine local organizations are taking an innovative approach to farmland preservation in Jefferson County that is garnering the attention of the regional conservation community as well as funding organizations.
In 2006, Jefferson Land Trust and ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia formed the Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative to address the concern that Jefferson County's rural landscape is under increasing development pressure, making farmland a more valuable commodity for real estate than for growing crops.
The two founding partners invited seven other local organizations to join forces in creating the collaborative, whose ranks now include Jefferson County Conservation District, Jefferson County Farmers Market Association, Northwest Natural Resource Group, Sunfield Farm, The Food Co-op, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and WSU Extension.
Don Stuart, director of the Pacific Northwest office of American Farmland Trust, calls the collaborative a "new, creative and ground-breaking approach to protecting agriculture in local communities. Combining the resources of each of the participants in the collaborative will be a great model for similar efforts in other communities trying to make farm preservation programs succeed."
$40,000 base
Last month the Bullitt Foundation awarded the collaborative $30,000, and the Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation provided $10,000.
Kate Dean, LandWorks new outreach coordinator, says she is "primarily interested to hear what farmers feel are their biggest hurdles in becoming more successful. Then I can bring this information to LandWorks to see if there is a way to remove these obstacles."
Dean is intimately aware of the challenges facing local farmers. For the past 13 years she has been farming commercially, first at Old Tarboo Farm in Quilcene and later FinnRiver Farm in Chimacum. She lists mediocre soil and a lack of distribution and infrastructure as the two biggest challenges she faced as a grower in Jefferson County. Dean also served for five years as the president of the farmers market, witnessing record growth each year, and is now co-owner of Mount Townsend Creamery, with her husband, Will O'Donnell.
"We have spent many years trying to help grow the local economy for farm products here in Jefferson County, and I see LandWorks as the next step toward that goal," she states.
Rural landscape
LandWorks does not exist simply to put aside or protect farm and forestlands. Instead, its members believe that the best way to keep the rural landscape rural is to ensure that the business conducted there is profitable for the landowner.
The mission of Jefferson LandWorks is threefold, explained Dean: to keep the county's "working lands" - farms and forestland - available, affordable, productive and profitable; to provide farmers and foresters access to business training, capital and know-how to operate profitably; to ensure that robust markets and consumer demand are in place to accommodate the farmers' products.
The inclusion of ShoreBank Enterprise Cascadia (SBEC) in the collaborative adds a new layer of services available to landowners: access to capital. SBEC is a nonprofit community development financial institution that promotes economic development in coastal communities in Washington and Oregon. It has invested more than $60 million in capital in rural communities as well as providing personalized business planning assistance. It will play a similar role in the collaborative, helping landowners leverage capital and assisting in business planning to put the capital to good use.
"ShoreBank's primary goal is to use our capital to leverage other's equity, borrowed funds, and conservation easements to buy and actively manage farm and forestland in a sustainable manner," said Mark Bowman, vice-president and loan officer for ShoreBank on the North Olympic Peninsula. "We want to provide an economic return to farmers and foresters that's also beneficial to the local community and environment."
Multi-layered map
One of the first tasks of the Jefferson LandWorks Collaborative has been to gather data and map the existing and historical farmland in East Jefferson County. Volunteer Albert Foster donated his time and expertise to create a "first of its kind" analysis while completing a geographic information system course at the University of Washington. The result is a multi-layered, interactive map that allows the collaborative to identify and assess various aspects of farmland such as best agricultural soils, net change in acreage being farmed, and zoning of farmable acres. Foster's work will be updated by the collaborative and used as a tool for storing and analyzing data as well as measuring the success of its efforts.
Other projects the collaborative might pursue include educational training for farmers and foresters in areas such as marketing and labor laws, connecting tenant farmers with available land to lease, setting up an equipment co-op, and researching the viability of a commercial processing facility.
"It's yet to be seen exactly what the needs are," said Dean. "We want to hear directly from growers what they need, what would be useful and utilized, and how to best go about helping their operations be more productive and profitable."
To learn more, contact Dean at 379-5610, ext. 306, or info@jeffersonlandworks.org.
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