Viva Farms Update

Although some might call these first days of warmth and longer days “fake spring” in the Pacific Northwest, it’s clear that the growing season is upon us. I’m writing to you all in early March, on the cusp of daylight savings. The irrigation has been turned back on. There is less and less risk of frost. Hope for wee seedlings and the produce ahead of us abounds. And yet, to try to summarize all that’s happened at Viva Farms since the start of the year is a challenge and full of concern.

Following recent Executive Orders and changes in the priorities of the federal government, at the time of writing, many of our contractually bound federal funds are inaccessible. Viva Farms is 70% federally funded and has been a long-time partner of the USDA. Continued inaccessibility of these funds or losing any more of our federal funding could be catastrophic to the future of the organization. Losing what Viva provides to our food system would weaken our resilience as a community by eliminating the land, resources, and support that, this year alone, 35 incubating farm businesses rely on, along with nearly 100 jobs, all the while reducing our local supply of organic produce—grown right here in your backyard—by close to $3M per year.

For years, as an organization, we have leveraged our expertise and experience to contract with many government programs that empower our staff to train farmers, build creative, replicable models for food supply chains and land access, and strengthen science that supports agricultural viability. We have incubated 90 farm businesses and educated over 200 students through our Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture, to date.

This moment has exposed the vulnerability of reliance on federal funding—for Viva Farms and for nonprofits across the country. According to the 2022 Census of Agriculture, Washington State has lost over 60% of its farms since 1945, and in the next 20 years, 66% of all Washington farmers are expected to retire. The food system as a whole needs support, and now we must recognize that much of the existing financial support is unreliable.

We face a critical moment to preserve and embolden organizations like Viva Farms to weather these changes—or risk them ceasing to exist. As many of you likely read in The Seattle Times, we have been awarded a gracious moment of reprieve as community funders turned to support us, just hours away from laying off more than half our staff. We are so grateful, but we are not yet through the woods.

With spring came hope and more persistence to continue into summer, through the season, and with any luck, into the indefinite future. After all, we need food, and we need farms.

Keep Farmers Farming

You can get the latest updates surrounding the freeze and support us at vivafarms.org/donate. Thank you all for shopping local and supporting the agricultural backbones of our community.