Since 1950 the amount of farmland in Clallam County has declined by 70 percent, leaving about 20,000 acres accessible.

At that rate, an average of about 1,000 acres per year of local farmland disappears, Tom Sanford, North Olympic Land Trust executive director, said.

“Sequim is a farm town and our community reflects that in so many ways, even though farming isn’t anything like it once was,” Joe Holtrop, Clallam Conservation District executive director, said. “As we lose farmland, we lose a critical part of what helped create our character.”

Sequim continues to be home to the oldest festival in the state, the Sequim Irrigation Festival that began when the first headgate on the Dungeness River was lifted to allow for irrigation in 1895 — A lingering indicator of the historic importance of agriculture in the valley.

The Sequim-Dungenes Valley, once dotted with more than 500 dairies, now supports two, Sanford said. Although it continues to undergo change and face challenges, many individuals and organizations are working to protect and keep what farmland is left.

The fertile soils of the Dungeness River delta and the river as a water supply make the Sequim-Dungeness area, stretching to Agnew an ideal location for farming, Sanford explained.

“We’re so lucky here in Clallam County with great resources,” Clea Rome, Washington State University Clallam County Extension director, said. “Soil and water are a farmer’s greatest resource and there is a large proportion of prime farmland in our county and we’re unique with our irrigation network.”

The United States Department of Agriculture recognizes 32,961 acres of prime farmland based on an area’s soil type and 250,455 acres of farmland of statewide importance. “Prime farmland” as defined by the USDA is “land that has the best combination of physical and chemical characteristics for producing food, feed, forage, fiber, and oilseed crops and is available for these uses.”

A balancing act

The area’s natural makeup conducive for farming, the flat, scenic land with mild weather and surrounding a town (Sequim) became an attractive place to live. By the 1960s and continuing into the following decades, Sequim became a targeted area for residential development.

“Growth in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley is a challenge because that’s where a lot of people want to live,” Steve Gray, Clallam County planning manager, said. “During the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and even into the 1990s people were buying and selling 1- to 2-acre lots. The zoning development now reflects that.”

“It’s certainly a balancing act,” he said. “Once the land is divided, establishing the new development footprint has its challenges.”

The onset of development and draw to the area opened the door to economic potential and the chance for many farmers to pursue a different lifestyle.

“Dairy farming is very hard work that requires a constant presence to milk, feed and clean up after the cows,” Holtrop said. “That generation of farmers was worn out and not very well off … the next generation wasn’t real excited about taking over. The Sequim-area farmers had an out — their land was very valuable for residential development.”

To help balance growth, Clallam County officials created the zoning designation “Agricultural Retention” (AR) following the state Growth Management Act.

“The purpose of the Agricultural Retention zone is to maintain and enhance the agricultural resource industry of Clallam County through conservation of productive agricultural lands and discouragement of incompatible land uses within the agricultural retention zone,” according to the county zoning code.

Under the zoning designation, the minimum size for an AR development is 16 acres and therefore residential density can’t exceed one dwelling unit per 16 acres or unless subdivided before the effective date of AR designation.

About 6,200 acres are zoned AR, Gray said.

“That’s a small footprint of the agricultural land compared to the past, but hopefully the zoning can retain those farms as they are today and keep the large farms in place,” he said.

Agriculture is an allowed land use throughout the county, but when identifying areas to AR, county planners targeted the Sequim-Dungeness area given it’s rich history with farming and ongoing pressure from urban sprawl.

Because of the aggressive subdividing done prior to the AR zoning designation, county planners use “cluster” development as a method for balancing growth with farmland.

For example, cluster development occurs when development is concentrated in one parcel of six, 5-acre parcels of a previously subdivided 30-acre farm, thus leaving 25 acres available for agricultural use.

“I think overall its (zoning) certainly been effective in keeping the Agricultural Retention zones intact,” Gray said. “I’d still like to see more of the 5-acre parcels combined.”

However, Holtrop doesn’t look to zoning as an effective method for conserving the area’s farmland. Instead, he points to the property owners and their ability to capitalize on the value of their property without converting it to non-agricultural uses as key in maintaining what farmland is left.

Transferring farmland

“For some (farmers), the only real worth they have is locked up in their land and they have no retirement other than to sell off land,” he said. “Therefore, we need to be able to purchase their development rights.”

One of, if not the lead agency within the area for buying development rights as an avenue for protecting farmland is the North Olympic Land Trust. Having incorporated Friends of the Fields, within its 25 years officials with the land trust have conserved 3,200 acres countywide, Sanford said. Of that, about 460 acres are working farmland, about 11.5 miles are salmon habitat and 1,800 acres of timber land with 460 work working timber land.

“One of the targeted focal areas has been in the lower Dungeness basin,” he said. “The North Olympic Land Trust has worked to conserve 14 farms in the county and 13 of them are in eastern Clallam County.”

Both the Dungeness Valley Creamery and 24-Carrot Farm are success stories of farmland conservation, Sanford said.

The Dungeness Valley Creamery is one of two of the remaining dairies in Sequim-Dungeness and was able to continue after owners Jeff and Debbie Brown retired. Friends of the Fields worked with the Browns’ daughter Sarah McCarthey to secure state and federal grants as well as community fundraising to purchase the farm’s development rights and afford her parents to retire.

“This gave the Browns the equity to retire and allowed their daughter to buy the family business,” Sanford said. “It’s a good example of intergenerational transfer of farmland.”

In 2012, the land trust was able to successfully work with landowners of a 10-acre parcel of prime farmland that had once been part of the Delta Farm. Using funds from several years of community fundraising, the development rights were purchased on the parcel known as “24-Carrot Farm.” This effort then allowed Nash and Patty Huber, owners of Nash’s Organic Produce, to purchase the land at affordable agricultural prices.

There’s plenty of willingness from farm owners to sell their development rights, but it’s expensive to buy them so the land trust is limited, Sanford explained. This is especially true when it comes to smaller farms like 24-Carrot Farm that aren’t large enough to compete for state and federal grants.

“We work with a number of farmers and landowners that are very interested in selling their development rights of the farmland, but not in a financial position to donate it, so how much we can do really depends on us being able to get funding,” he said.

The 1960s surge in development in Sequim wasn’t unique to the area, but farmland was disappearing across the state. In reaction, concerned Washingtonians shortly passed an amendment aimed at the taxation of agriculture and timberland, allowing active farms to be taxed at a lower rate.

“That farmland value is pennies per acre than if it were valued at full market price,” Susan Lundstedt, GIS technician for Clallam County and county representative on the county’s Agricultural Commission, said. “The program works well until a farmer gets too old to farm.”

If a farmer can’t keep the farm active to satisfy the current use requirements, it’s often costly to transfer the property from its designated current use.

The tax program helps make it affordable for farmers keep their land, but its also been designed to prevent large and/or well-off developers from stashing their land at a reduced tax rate until they’re able to develop it, Lundstedt explained.

“That’s the reasons for the compensated tax,” she said. “It’s been very successful for that first and second generation of farmers … if they were paying full blown taxes they would be under, but the challenge comes when they decide they want to stop farming and move their land into another use.”

Typically, although there are exemptions and caveats, when taking farmland out of its current use, the difference between the agricultural value and what would have been paid on full market value (based on highest and best use price) for the past seven years need paid.

“Those bills can get big really fast,” Lundstedt said. “From my point of view the biggest concern for these farms is getting new, younger people to come in take these farms over,” she said. “That’s the surest and safest way that these farms will survive.”

An aging demographic

According to the USDA 2012 Census of Agriculture, the average age of farmers is 58.3 years, continuing a 30-year trend of steady increase.

Given the aging farming population, Rome said there’s not only a need to maintain access to farmland, but there needs to be an active push to foster the next generation of farmers.

Rome helps with this effort through her work at the WSU Extension. In collaboration with local farmers Extension offers an internship program aimed at educating the next generation of farmers.

The Extension also hosts a variety of workshops and educational opportunities to help bridge the knowledge gap for interested future farmers.

“There are different legs of the stool we are all working on to address farming here,” Sanford said. “The land trust focuses on land, whereas I lean heavily on the (WSU) Extension to help ensure the farmers are there.”

When working with future farmers, Rome and the programs offered through Extension focus on farming practices, but also the technical and business side of farming, like how to invest and successfully market their products and grow their business.

“It can be difficult for farmers to transfer their land to willing, excited young farmers that also have the capital,” she said. “For a thriving farming community, we need more innovative ways for new and beginning farmers to access capital and strong local and national policies that support farming.”

Two community programs beginning to take shape and help contribute to those needed access to capital are “Local Dollars and Sense” and “COIN” (Clallam Opportunity Investment Network), Rome said. Both network groups work to pool funds and invest into the community.

Already, within its first year of existence, the Local Dollars and Sense have made local loans.

Despite the challenges facing farmland and aspiring farmers, Rome is “encouraged within the past couple years,” she said. “There have been people here or coming here that are interested in commercial agriculture.”

“River Run Farm is a great example of this,” she said.

Industry sees growth

In the fall of 2012 River Run Farm off Woodcock Road was co-founded by young farmers and friends. The cooperative farm is run by four partners, with an additional two partners coming this winter.

Noah Bresler, 31-years-old, settled in the Sequim-Dungeness Valley, along with his partners to start their own farming endeavor after eyeing a variety of areas in Washington.

“We moved to Sequim because we saw a lot of potential,” Bresler said. “A big part of that was because there was a lot of land here — it’s fragmented by development, but still has a lot of potential.”

“We were looking for a place with good soil and water and close enough to urban centers to make enough revenue to support businesses,” he said.

There are some huge agricultural areas in Skagit and many parts of eastern Washington, but with the existing large-scale and successful farmers, Bresler said, “it felt difficult to access good land” in places like that.

“The farm business is really difficult to pencil out,” he said. “I think at this point you have to do it for the love of working outside and growing plants — that’s why we’re doing it, but in doing so you’re forced to make it financially viable.”

Being a cooperative farm is an innovative and creative way to pursue operating their own farm, Bresler said. It spreads the costs of operating the farm and equipment among more people, he said, and provides more “economic stability.”

Bresler and his business partners ran into the hurdles that keep many people from getting started, but fortunately found ways to overcome the challenges.

With financial support from family and collaboration with local descendants of the Woodcock family who wanted to see their historical farmland kept in farming, Bresler and his partners were able to buy part and lease the rest of their 60-acre farm.

“The inspiration and skills are out there,” Bresler said. “I have a lot of really bright friends that want to farm and know what they’re doing, but the capital and access to land is the challenge.”

Recognizing the funding limitations of local organizations like the land trust, Bresler feels in order to conserve farmland, it’s dependent on the area’s land owners.

“Ultimately it depends entirely on the land owners and what they want to do with their land,” he said. “It’s a pretty grim future if land owners can’t afford to do anything but get top dollar for their land.”

Although not all land owners can afford to get anything less than their land’s fair market price, it’s “really important” for those that can to make the monetary sacrifice for the greater good, Bresler said.

Bresler points to the fact that most people who move or visit Sequim are doing so because of the area’s rural character and open space.

While still allowing for growth, Clallam County Agricultural Commission member Paul Forrest sees plenty of local, untapped farming potential. With a diversified career in many facets of the agriculture industry both domestically and internationally, Forrest noticed the absence of agriculture in some areas of the county when he moved to the area more than two years ago.

“A lot of farmland isn’t being farmed and should be,”  he said. “I find it unsatisfactory that all these parcels of land are going to weeds, but first we need to show there’s money to be made.”

“The only thing sustainable in agriculture is profitability,” he said.

The market is there

If ambitious farmers can get both the access and capital to begin to farm the untapped farmland in the area, Bresler is confident the market is there.

Making way for the success of River Run Farm is the shifting and developing consumer market.

“The demand for what we’re doing is growing exponentially,” he said. “Especially in the Seattle area, but around here, too.”

However, Bresler is quick to point out that the market River Run Farm serves is specific and centered primarily on those seeking local and organic.

“One of the biggest challenges with the farmland is the fact that farmers own only a very small percentage of the land they farm,” Holtrop said.

Because of fewer large swaths of available farmland good for crops like grain and fact that many farmers lease their land, Holtrop envisions more, small “diverse farms that are nimble enough to adjust to changing consumer demands,” he said.

However as efforts to balance land use continue, the characteristics of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley will continue to offer unique opportunities “that can’t be done very easily anywhere else in Washington,” Holtrop said. For example, the climate and geographic isolation of the peninsula makes the area an “excellent location for growing seed, which is a high value crop and already being done” and is seeing more interest.

“It’s been a big transformation, but maintaining the farmland that’s here is important, Sanford said. “It’s a piece of our identity.”