Viva Farms Update: Co-ops Build Better Farming Communities
By Viva Farms
Walk through the produce aisle in the Skagit Valley Food Co-op just about any time of year, and you will witness community. All those producer signs above different organic produce grown locally here in the Northwest represent farmers and their families. As Co-op shoppers and members, we trust that you know and understand that behind every fresh product, there’s a farmer, supported by community—family, friends, farm staff, and more. What you might not know is that many of these growers, farmers, and producers also know each other. In a thriving agricultural community supported by places like the Co-op, no farmer is operating in a vacuum.
Each winter, farmers in our Valley gather at the Co-op for the annual produce meeting run by the stellar produce team, hashing out who will be responsible for which products and learning about updates the Co-op has for local farmers. Many farmers deliver their produce themselves to the Co-op, but also to restaurants up and down 1st Street, to the big sliding doors of the Puget Sound Food Hub, and to Farmers Markets between Seattle and Bellingham. In all those places, they’re shaking hands, learning names, and getting to know people—building communities.
In many of the products shelved away from the produce department, local fruits and vegetables grown by Skagit Valley farmers are the main ingredients. Up and down the local supply chain, across farm fields and across the store, more relationships—more community—are being built between grower, producer, and consumer.
At Viva Farms, we are committed to growing farmers, community, and food. We are a non-profit, farm-business incubator and training program operating over 100 acres and, this year, supporting 34 individual farm businesses. Some of them are just getting started, and some are preparing to leave the incubator and become fully independent. Some of them sell directly to the Co-op. No matter their size, farms operate side-by-side, where this community building can also happen between rows of veggies, in the greenhouses, in the wash-pack station, and at regular community gatherings.
This year, Viva Farms experienced unprecedented precarity due to the unexpected suspension of government grants and funding, and suddenly these 34 farms were at risk. What kept farmers farming through this past summer season was community support—community based here at the Co-op and across the country.
Skagit Valley Food Co-op has donated $300,000 to Viva Farms over the past few years, and they were prepared to reallocate the most recent chunk of funding from our current infrastructure project, The Barn at Viva Farms, towards general operating funds to keep farmers farming, to keep programs like Viva’s Community-Supported Agriculture box and the Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture course running over this past summer, and to keep feeding Skagitonians.
Thankfully, because more community came out to support, that was unnecessary, and today, The Barn at Viva Farms project is fully funded and on track to finish at the start of next year. This season, with those 34 farms operating as expected, millions of dollars of organic produce reached tables up and down the I-5 corridor, thanks to the Co-op and other members of the strong and viable agricultural community that’s operating here. Next month, upwards of 30 students will complete the 8-month Practicum in Sustainable Agriculture between our locations in King and Skagit County, and Viva Farms will make its last round of CSA deliveries before the season winds down and the holidays ramp up.
As you gather with your community, we ask humbly that you consider Viva in your end-of-year giving. Viva Farms has steadily been redefining our fundraising strategy in the constantly shifting federal and philanthropic landscape and hopes to be part of your community and the farmers’ community for years to come.
Thank you, and thank you, Skagit Food Co-op, for helping us grow farmers, community, and food!
Keep Farmers Farming: Learn more, donate, or sign up for our newsletter at vivafarms.org