Author: Deep Harvest Farm

What’s a farm, anyhow?

We just went to Remlinger Farm in Carnation for a concert this past weekend. Despite the bucolic landscape and old-timey signage, not a lot of crops could be found during our stroll of the land. It seems that they primarily run a music venue and an amusement park while using their historic name to brand a lot of value-added goods and junk food in their little market store. So, are they still a farm? Okay, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re still growing crops, but the example raises a bigger question.

When is a farm an actual farm and when it is just evoking farmy feelings? As farmers, we hear the word ‘farm’  tossed around in some dubious contexts. Is a historic farm that now just sells tickets to hay rides and corn mazes still a farm? On the other side of the scale, are nature-loving people with a couple horses and big garden actually farmers? And if they’re not farmers, would you call their land a farm? The dilution of the meaning of farming into a plethora of other activities, both commercial and hobbyist, has potential impacts beyond the mere academic discussion of language.

The dictionary defines farm as:  (noun) “an area of land, together with a house and buildings, used for growing crops and/or keeping animals as a business” or (verb) “to make one’s living by growing crops or keeping livestock.” Good.

I think it’s important to keep food production at the center of the definition of farm for two main reasons. 1) Farmers deal with a specific set of technical and economic challenges that gardeners, equestrians, concert venues and other land use operations do not. Farming is often more challenging and riskier than these other operations and should not have to compete with non-farms for loans, grants and stipends. 2)  Many people have an overly romantic vision of what a farm is. This is largely because the farms they’ve visited are not actually farms but rather large swaths of land with maybe a barn and a couple cows.

The USDA defines a farm as the following. A farm is any place from which $1,000 or more of ag products are sold within a year. Island County uses a similar benchmark to qualify property in the Current Use program which provides a significant property tax reduction. These definitions are too lenient for me as they’re often as loop holes to gain tax breaks. I like the FSA requirements better which considers a mix of percent household income made from the land as well as labor hours.

Anyhow, we’re not trying to warp the English language to our personal desires, but it’s an interesting exercise to consider what we mean by farms and farming. Let’s work to keep food production central to our discussion of what farming is and should be.

Boy, we get swept up in the breezy vibes of summer on Whidbey Island. Goss lake swims, farmers markets, crab pots and street dances. We’re all darn lucky to be here. But despite the glow, we feel compelled to highlight new and growing concerns about our local economical and agricultural resiliency. It seems that every week there is a new decision from Washington DC aimed at dismantling the way we feed ourselves.

Let’s start funding to critical food and farm programs. The budget and staffing cuts across nearly all agencies is pushing many small farmers, food banks and school gardens programs to the brink. With AmeriCorps cuts, our South Whidbey school gardens will no longer have the funding for their intern program. This limits the amount of food they can harvest for their meal program. Also, back in February, the administration put a freeze on most of the infrastructure grants awarded to small farms through the NRCS and cut an additional $3 billion in grants to climate-focused, regenerative farm programs.

These programs helped farms of all sizes promote sustainability through greenhouse gas reduction and carbon sequestration. (Luckily, some of this freeze on NRCS grants melted after much public outcry). Finally, cuts to the USDA’s National Plant Germplasm System will impact how scientists study, maintain and distribute valuable seeds and plant germ to crop breeders. This impacts our ability to adapt to climate change.

What about Good Cheer food bank? As pandemic funding for food bank assistance phases out, food banks get double whammied by addition cuts to the Emergency Food Assistance Program ($500 million) and the Local Food Purchases Assistance program (another $500 million). Many small, diversified, first-generation farmers relied on these programs as an outlet for their produce.  It’s a triple whammy to food banks when you consider the skyrocketing need for these services. Potentially 130,000 Washingtonians lose their SNAP benefits as fallout of congress’ newly passed budget bill.

Zooming out, the hits keep coming for larger farms across the country. ICE raids on migrant farm communities are putting many crop producers on edge, especially growers that rely on hand labor. Many grain producers across the Midwest saw their business model evaporate overnight as USAID eliminated over $1 billion in foreign food aid. And while I’m not fan of GMO soybean production, I feel for the farmers who’s tight margins fell victim to the sweeping tariff regime. Now China and other countries are turning instead Brazil, where more soybean destruction means more Amazon deforestation.

Returning to Whidbey, we farmers rely on many other basic governmental services under attack. Severe cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service threaten our ability to plan for several weather and monitor climatic trends. Cuts to the USPS threaten our ability to run a mail order seed company. (We’ve already seen an increase in lost and misrouted parcels, costing us hundreds of dollars). And perhaps most devastating, the Big Beautiful Bill’s rollback of funding for green energy systems means more climate change. It also means more challenges to our fragile agricultural and ecosystems.

This is not a normal time, and sometimes it’s hard to see how we turn this ship around. We must all lean into this challenge…one seed, one dollar and one act of resistance at a time.