Land Seeking Farmers in Puget Sound

Posted on October 4, 2021 by Taylor in Farming Resources, Finding Land // 2 Comments

Land Seeking Farmers for the Puget Sound Agrarian Commons – Apply to Farm This Beautiful Protected Land on Whidbey Island

Agrarian Trust has released our first request for proposals for the Puget Sound Agrarian Commons! This call for proposals from land seeking farmers marks an exciting milestone for the first farmland to be donated to an Agrarian Commons.

Caroline Gardner donated this ten-acre farm to the Agrarian Commons in 2019. Located about thirty miles north of Seattle on Whidbey Island, this beautiful acreage includes prime soils and about 3.5 acres of tillable land. Though unique, it is also representative of smallholder farmland across the US: intense development pressures and inflated real estate values threaten small-scale farming in the region, and the value of farmland on Whidbey has risen as much as 30 percent in less than two years.

Farmland owned and sold in the conventional way—as private property, with sales driven by market and profit—has become inaccessible to the kind of farmers who will grow food for their communities and mindfully steward the land.

This call for farmers presents an opportunity for restorative, community-centered farming on Whidbey Island. It is a unique challenge—and opportunity—for strengthening food sovereignty in an island community with a long agricultural history. Fill out the application and find out more information here about the land, the lease, and the current board members.

We are thrilled and grateful that Caroline’s generosity and vision could help catalyze the Agrarian Commons.

For more information, email rhys@agrariantrust.org.

THE PUGET SOUND AGRARIAN COMMONS IS INFORMED BY AGRARIAN TRUST MODELS OF LAND EQUITY, HUMAN/COMMUNITY EQUITY, AND FINANCIAL EQUITY:

As with each individual Agrarian Commons, at least one-third of Puget Sound Agrarian Commons board members will be leaseholding farmers, ensuring that farmers share in the major decision-making as colleagues.
In an effort to interrupt the racial power dynamics that can arise in white-majority boards, the board’s goal is to have 50 percent of leasehold farmers be people from Black, Indigenous, South and East Asian, and other communities of color who have been displaced from their land and/or struggled against injustices in land access.
The Puget Sound Agrarian Commons is committed to holding land for food production, farmland preservation, restorative farming, and investment in ecosystem, and has invested in soil improvements and pollinator habitats while awaiting a new steward for the land on Whidbey.