WFT to keep two farms in production with current land sales
Washington Farmland Trust (WFT) has listed two of our conserved properties for sale, the Ford Farm in the Orting Valley, and the Delta Farm in the Dungeness Valley.
The Ford Farm is currently for sale and located on the last 30 acres of the historic Ford Family Dairy. The farm is one of seven farms, nearly 300 acres, that the Trust has conserved in the Orting Valley over the years, an area known for its vegetable and livestock production, fertile soils, and flood infrastructure.
The Delta Farm is currently for sale and is 73 acres located in the fertile Dungeness Delta. It was the first farm conserved by WFT and was stewarded for many years by Nash’s Organic Produce. Because of Sequim’s unique climate and prime soils, farmland in the Dungeness Valley is among the most sought-after in the region. The land on Delta Farm drains into the Lower Dungeness River, home to six salmon species, and hosts the headwaters of Meadowbrook Creek.
Though most of the farms we conserve are owned by farmers themselves, we sometimes step in to purchase land outright. This is a critical strategy for keeping fertile farmland from getting paved over and gives us adequate time to conserve the land in perpetuity with a conservation easement, ensuring it remains farmland forever. In land conservation, this strategy is called Buy Protect Sell. The final and critical step includes selling land back to a farmer who can serve as the long-term owner and steward of the land. This is essential to achieving our mission, and we aim for affordability and access wherever possible.
In some cases, however, both the agricultural and ecological value of land combined with the rapidly increasing real estate values in the Puget Sound can make cost an enormous barrier for interested farm buyers even after the land has been conserved.
As an accredited land trust and nonprofit organization, we are committed to upholding a variety of obligations that influence these decisions, from selling land at fair market value to ensuring we have the financial stability to continue to move our mission forward. At the same time, we are committed to undergoing an intentional process to sell the Ford and Delta Farms to growers who can prioritize bringing land back into production, stewarding the soil with care, and ensuring these farms can continue to serve as anchors within two deeply important agricultural communities in our state.
As we undergo this critical process, we know that farmland, much like farming, is not a monolith. Not every piece of farmland is going to be accessible to every farmer. Despite that hard reality, WFT commits to continuing to explore how both traditional and more innovative conservation tools can support farmers looking to secure land, especially for first generation and immigrant farmers who face significant barriers in open market sales.
No matter the forces at a play, we commit to continuing to take a values-driven approach to each and every project, holding the complexity that this work requires alongside our unwavering vision to sustain a future for farming in Washington.
