The June, 2007 meeting of the 31st District Democrats was a forum on urban edge agriculture held at at the Neuwaukum Home Grange near Enumclaw and Auburn.

Neuwaukum Home Grange is a 1925 wooden frame building with a "Sociable Squares" sign above the front door, and the forum had an old-time community feeling to match. Janice Hammerstrom from Country Farmers Market brought bright red, perfectly ripe strawberries, Wade Bennett from Rock Ridge Orchards donated cider fresh from his farm, and the Democrats brought the folding chairs in the back of a pickup truck.  With the back door open to a view of a rolling green meadow with cows, a diverse group of farmers and agricultural and environmental advocates, Grange members, elected officials, and local Democrats (1), discussed the promise and fragility of urban edge agriculture in Pierce and King Counties.

We're losing farmland in King and Pierce Counties. Although farms near cities have the advantage of large markets nearby, they also face intense development, environmental, and regulatory challenges.  Even the highest-yield farmland near a city is worth much more in short-term profit when developed for residential use.  These farms are more likely to flood and to experience other development impacts.  And they exist within a more complex regulatory environment. In the bill establishing the new Washington State Office of Farmland Preservation this year, Washington's legislature expressed an urgent need to focus on protecting agriculture. This sense of urgency was also present at the forum. Below are notes from selected presentations.

L-R: Tim Pearson, 31st LD Chair; Mark Boswell, 31st LD State Committeeman; Craig Keman, Member of Neuwaukum Home Grange; Karen Willard, 31st LD Secretary.   Mayor John Wise stands at the back door of the Neuwaukum Home Grange.   Jennifer Harte readies presentation on Urban Edge Agriculture.  Also in picture, L-R, 31st LD Vice Chair Michael McGalliard; Don Whiting, and Mark Boswell.   Councilmember Ron Weigelt.

Karen Willard, Secretary of the LD and a key event organizer, gave a brief introduction.  When I came here 30 years ago, she said, the going wisdom was that farming was already almost "gone" in this region.  So I was thrilled, she said, to see this map.  Willard held up a USDA map illustrating agriculture as Washington's top employer, and showing a $120 million annual market for crop and livestock products in King County and a $94 market in Pierce County.

King and Pierce County stack up really well in comparison to other counties in the state, she said.  We still have many farms in these two counties worth preserving.  We don't want you to go home tonight "in total despair".  We want you to go home with things you can do, just as ordinary consumers and citizens.   Number one.  Vote every time.  Vote wisely.  And let your elected know you're voting and that you support local agriculture.   Number two, buy local.  Don't pay the middleman; pay your neighbor.  You get a better product and you'll help keep your neighborhood healthier.  A handout Willard provided listed other actions, including support for Transfer of Development Rights, and joining the Washington State Grange.

LOCAL FOOD IN WASHINGTON SCHOOLS
Washington State Representative Christopher Hurst reported on legislation he plans to sponsor next session.  School districts are now required to consider cost in food purchases in a way that frequently requires bypassing the local market and local farmers.  Subsidies and other factors often make food from other states and countries cheaper than Washington food.  Hurst's legislation would allow schools to factor in the "carbon cost" of transporting food from outside Washington State as part of the overall cost (an idea, he said, which he heard first from a SPEA engineer at a recent hearing.)

Hurst, who is considering runnning for US Congress in the 8th Congressional District, stayed through the meeting and lingered afterwards to talk with other participants.  David Postman has a recent interview with Hurst on Postman on Politics.

MEADOWWOOD ORGANICS: A KING COUNTY HOMESTEAD

Darlene and Tom Silliman own a farm in an unincorporated area of King County near Enumclaw.

The Sillimans both grew up on farms, but they didn't start out with a plan to run a commercial operation.  It began, simply, with a garden patch and a few chickens, and grew as they learned that their neighbors really liked their eggs with the bright orange yolks. "We never set out to be farmers, it just overtook us," she said.

Recently, Tom has been able to quit his job in the corporate world and become a full-time farmer, but Darlene still is working an outside job to pay the bills.  This is a common situation with small farms and I noticed John Wise, Enumclaw's Mayor, shaking his head, as if in agreement, as Darlene Silliman described this economic arrangement.

Making a living as a King County farmer is a little more difficult than some areas of the country that we've lived in, Darlene said.  There are some "strange laws" in the King County Greenbook (Handbook of Regulations for Direct Farm Marketing).  You can buy eggs if you come onto my property, no problem.  But if I want to sell you the eggs off site, I have to go through all kinds of permitting processes.  I can sell you heads of lettuce on my farm.  But if I want to cut different types of leaves and sell them to you in a mix, that's a value-added process, and I have to get a commercial kitchen permit.  Even just finding out what we're allowed to do takes some doing, she said.

Until early 2006, the Sillimans operated a Cowshare from their farm.  People purchased shares in return for a portion of the milk produced by one of the Silliman's three cows, and would collect their "dividends" in the form of raw milk at the farm. Washington law changed in March, 2006 with SB 6377, which required milk sales under cow share agreements to be provided only by licensed Grade A dairies.  To comply with the new law, the Sillimans canceled their contracts, sold their cows, and began the process of becoming a Grade A dairy.  We've had to work with the Washington Department of Agriculture, the Department of Ecology, the Health Department -- and I'm sure I've forgotten a few other departments in there, Darlene said.

They are near to reaching their goal of becoming a Grade A Dairy.  Tom has nearly completed the construction of a new processing facility and "clean room", and, over a 6-month period, they have negotiated a waste management system with the state and county.  This was a lengthy process because state and county regulations for the disposal of dairy waste were not scaled to the size of their operation.  An initial requirement that they build a waste lagoon was scaled down a septic system and then finally, after about 6 months of back and forth between many different departments and agencies -- to an agreement to maintain a green strip.  Along the way people from all the different agencies were very helpful, Darlene said.  In particular, one of the employees in the state Department of Ecology made a special commitment to help them, Darlene said. But it was a complex, uncertain, and long process.  

I visited Meadowwood Organics a few days after the forum.  What was it like, I asked, to hear that your business suddenly was no longer legal?  Did it make you angry, I asked?  It hurt, she answered, it felt like a kick in the gut.

The Sillimans gave me a tour of the farm and their new dairy facilities -- and a cup of raw milk, which was a new experience for me.  The milk was even more delicious and creamy -- tastier and somehow more hearty than the organic milk that my family now drinks.  The eggs I bought from the Sillimans also taste better.  They have brighter yolks than the organic eggs we normally purchase.  
And, although they're the same size, they're noticeably heavier -- perhaps by 50% or so.  

WASHINGTON STATE GRANGE: TOOLS FOR PRESERVING AGRICULTURE
If I slip into a southern Baptist mode, said Don Whiting, Legislative Director for Washington Grange, it goes with the topic.  We'll be lucky, he said, to preserve any of our farmland, at all.

Whiting called attention to three laws passed this last legislative session:

1. HB 5108: Preserving the viability of agricultural lands
   This suspends the amending or adopting of any Critical Area Ordinances (36.70A RCW) as they apply to agricultural activities until July, 2010.  The William D. Ruckelshaus Center will consult with agricultural, environmental, tribal, local government, and other stakeholders to identify goals and outcome-based approaches for reaching them with primarily voluntary approaches.
2. HB 1636: Regional Transfer of Development Rights
   This law expands the use of transfer of development rights (TDR) to protect farmland. TDR is a market-based technique that encourages the voluntary transfer of growth -- or development rights -- from places where a community would like to see less development (sending areas), to places where a community would like to see more development (receiving areas).  Under this technique, permanent deed restrictions are placed on the sending area properties to ensure that the land will be used only for approved activities such as farming, forest management, conservation,  or passive recreation.
3. HB 5108: Creating the Office of Farmland Preservation
   The legislature finds that many once-productive agricultural areas in western Washington have been overtaken and irreversibly converted to nonagricultural uses.  Other agricultural areas in the state have diminished to the point that they are dangerously close to losing the land mass necessary to be economically viable....  The legislature recognizes that because this significant decline has largely occurred in less than a half century, it is imperative that mechanisms be established at the state level to focus attention, take the action needed to retain agricultural land, and ensure the opportunity for future generations to farm these lands.

Whiting characterized the main threat to farmland as residential development.  I don't remember him using the word, sprawl, but he spoke of Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) as a tool that can concentrate residential development into more compact areas, which allows greater use of shared services such as sewer lines, preserves farmland, and compensates farmers for keeping that land in agriculture.  We hope to build up tools, he said,  so that people can protect the property they want to protect.

He also commented on the Viaduct.  If the city of Seattle is successful in turning that into a surface street option, we'll have a tremendous amount of traffic diverted out into I-5 and 405.  We can't expand the capacity of those roadways.  That's going to put life into the I-605 proposal (a proposed North-South freeway east of I-405).  That would make every piece of farmland into prime development property.  If we don't have these tools in place before that happens, we'll be fighting a losing battle.  Over the next few years, these are the areas that the Grange will be working on.  

WADE BENNETT: ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, COTTAGE INDUSTRIES, AGRI-TOURISM

I've got 15 minutes to talk?  Bennett asked.  To get even close to covering the most important issues that urban farming faces, we'd need at least 2 hours.

Bennett placed a basket of produce on the table in front of him.  All of this is grown locally, he said.  You have a choice in the next 10-15 years.  Right now, farming is not profitable on the fringe in King County.   Many things are happening out there that are making it very difficult for the farmer. The fight is whether we are going to have these foods at all.

Most of us who are farmers make half of what our minimum wage workers make, Bennett said.  My wife and I figured out that we make $3.50 an hour.  With agri-tourism, we can change that.  We have 3.5 million people within half an hour of our farms.  This is a no brainier.  We have to develop the tourism industry in this region, the artists, the cheese makers, the wine makers, the bed & breakfasts, to capture the people in Seattle and urban and suburban environments, bring them out here to the foothills area.  Transfer of development rights is one of the best tools we have.  It is not a takings.  It allows business to thrive, it allows cities developers to get what they want.  This can happen, but the government has to be involved.

We worked out a cottage industry clause that allows me to process my juices, that allows a cheese maker to make cheese. There were a number of people involved in this. It would revise Title 21A of the King County Code and open up opportunities for cottage industries. King County has been sitting on this legislation for nine months. (3)

Without a rural economic development strategy, farmland preservation turns agricultural land into parkland.   It is very important for everyone sitting in this room to understand that.  It starts right here in the dirt on the plateau.   The wholesale market is brutal.  Wholesale, pears might go for 19 cents a pound.  In Seattle, I sold them $3 per pound.  But you have to have a venue, and we're losing locations for these markets.  We need to have guaranteed sites in the urban areas for green grocers.  It is crucial for what it earns us here in the rural areas, our entire future depends on that and on the development of ag-tourism.

Bennett touched on two themes that Don Whiting also covered --  the pressures of residential development and the feeling among many that there is a need to move toward voluntary environmental stewardship for farmers.  There are not many farmers I know who want to damage farmlands, he said.  To a farmer every day is earth day.   Our living is tied to the soil.  Yes, there are bad farmers, just as there are bad priests.  But what I would suggest is that the rural folks don't cotton well to being told they have to do things.

A sore point for Bennett and others is the surface water management fee that King County has recently begun to charge farmers.  Most of us were outraged when this was levied, he said.  We were told that we need to help pay for water management.  Folks, we are the water rechargers.   Our farms are the last place where you can aquifer recharge.  We have got to repeal that SWM fee on principles.  No offense, but I have to sell a hell of a lot of apples to make up for that $140 dollars per parcel.  There's a local farm out here paying $11,000.  We want you to say, on principle, we should not be charged.  Or you can charge us, but give us a water aquifer recharge credit for the same amount. (4)

I want to stay in King County, Bennett said.  I want to die here.  I want to die on my farm.  Do you plan to die soon, Wade, someone called out from the audience.   Oh, I guess I'll live till at least 105, he said, smiling.  I've got my orchards in now, my raspberries are planted.  My son's working for me full time.  I want to stay here, but I can't see doing that if I can't get changes to King County government. Just for moving to Thurston County, I'd make $50,000 more per year.  I'd be taxed less, the cost of business is less, and what I want to do is legal there.  Some of what King County's done has been necessary.  For example, the nutrient management rules (governing nutrients entering waterways) was necessary.   But the county has got to work with us if we want to have agriculture here at all.  That's the choice your party has to make.  

This is the view visible (at a greater distance) out the back door of the Neuwaukum Home Grange during the forum. It is a typical scene of land traditionally occupied by agricultural uses with a large, recently-constructed, single-family home right at its edge.

1. Presenters
   Wade Bennett, Rockridge Orchards; Jennifer Harte, Washington State University Faculty, Pierce County Extension; Darlene and Tom Silliman, Meadowwood Organics; Dan Stonington, Project Manager, Cascade Agenda,  Cascade Land Conservancy; Don Whiting, Legislative Director, Washington State Grange.
   Other participants
   Washington State Representative Christopher Hurst; Yvonne Ward, the civil and consumer rights attorney who ran for state Senator in the 31st legislative district in 2006; John Wise, Mayor of Enumclaw; Ron Weigelt, Buckley Councilmember; Janice Hammerstrom from Country Farmers Market; and Matt Perry, the Political Director for U.S. Representative Adam Smith's Congressional Campaign Committee.
2. Referendum 67
   Last session, the state legislature passed a major piece of pro-consumer legislation, the Insurance Fair Conduct Act.

   The new law protects consumers against an insurance company practice of refusing to pay valid claims that is so common that the Washington State Insurance Commissioner handles over 4,000 consumer complaints on this annually.  Judging from how fiercly the insurance lobby fought this bill, The practice must pay well.  Hurst recounted the continual visits of insurance lobbyists to his office. And the day after Governor Gregoire signed the new law, a coalition of insurance companies led by the American Insurance Association, filed a referendum to overturn it.  This is Referendum 67.  Signature gatherers are already out on the street telling people that signing the petitions will protect consumer rights.   The law will stand if the referendum fails to get enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.  If it does make it onto the ballot, a "Yes" vote is needed to retain the law.

3. I called King County Councilmember Larry Phillips and we spoke on June 26.  I asked if the hearings on the Title 21A changes were coming up soon.  He said that they are, that in fact they had already been scheduled and then had to be rescheduled because of other urgent matters before the Council.  He noted that he is fully committed to farmland preservation in King County and he has worked on farmland preservation over the last decades.


4. Interestingly, the US GAO has recently ruled that these SWM fees are not fees at all, but a tax: GAO Decision on King County Surface Water Management Fees.  Hat tip to Christopher Clifford.