It is currently seeking to advance the goals expressed by farmers for favorable county land use policies through promoting the adoption of an “Agriculture” specific section of the Land Use Element of the Comprehensive Plan, currently under revision. A revaluation and realignment of county policy and political economy are needed to accurately account for and support the endeavors of the Lopez agricultural community. Currently, revenues from sales of local food products comprise roughly 2% of total county revenue . However, farms are contributing so much more to the island economy than sales of food products: they are attracting tourists, educating community members at farm tours, quantifying efforts to sequester carbon on working lands, creating resilience to off island food supply chain disruptions, building community health, and weaving a fabric of community land ethics that infuses the Lopez “sense of place.” Tourists, local residents, and restaurants alike attribute their desire to come to the San Juan Islands in large part to the local food scene and pastoral island character. If the county is able to more holistically account for the value streams generated by local farms, it will become easier to justify commitment of staff and funds to support the goals of successfully transitioning, protecting, and sustaining the progress made on local farms for future generations . Tax revenues from vacation rentals, for example, could be channeled in some percentage towards supporting farmland transitions and expanded farm worker housing, as these agricultural activities directly feed back into the tourism industry.Many farming practices used on Lopez contribute to carbon storage and thus climate mitigation, and these same practices are widely utilized due to their numerous benefits such as crop nutritional quality,procona flower transport containers water conservation and drought resilience, pollution prevention, fire resilience, improved soil fertility, and numerous positive human health and community-building impacts.
However, the impacts of agroecological farming practices on sustainable economies and livelihoods is less clear, and a space for policy intervention . On the policy side, there is a need for greater flexibility in housing allowances on lands zoned as “agricultural.” This is important for both allowing farm workers to live affordably and work on multiple farms, as well as for enabling some parcels to be farmed cooperatively, with multiple families living on and farming a piece of land. More flexibility in farmland use, ownership models, and housing availability has potential to serve the needs of both farmers and the agritourism industry, connecting visitors directly to the wellspring of the local food system. Legal streamlining and strategic language in county housing policy have potential to redress current farmer concerns and confusion and could expedite creative affordable housing solutions such as tiny houses for farm worker housing . Several of these goals around clarifying language and allowing for ease of permitting for farm worker housing are addressed in the recent ARC memo urging the San Juan County Council to adopt section 2.2NAgriculture as part of the Land Use Element .Adopting policies that explicitly recognize and address the need for health care, retirement funds, and basic social services among farm worker and farmer communities would further strengthen the ability of farming to present a viable, sustainable, equitable career opportunity for young and aspiring farmers. When farmers are reliant on personal wealth or off farm jobs for benefits and financial security, the attraction and viability of farming as a career pathway is compromised. Referring back to the language of the 2011 “Growing our Future” report, state and local policies are needed to “foster farm businesses and support a thriving local farm economy.” This need not be a pure market, profit-driven economy, but rather an economy that exchanges goods and services of both monetary and non-monetary value . Finally, policy initiatives at the county and state level could help create fulfilling, living wage jobs in agroecology through facilitating the relocalization of food production, processing, distribution, marketing, and education. Jobs such as 1) developing and installing appropriate technology for small farms, including on-farm energy generation, 2) preparing and distributing value-added products , 3) processing small scale grain and dry bean harvests, 4) operating an inter-island food hub, 5) processing woody debris to produce both bio-char and energy, 5) tracking climate impacts and threats to agriculture at the county level, and 6) operating a climate-resilient farmer training program would help strengthen local purchasing power and keep wealth circulating within the local economy.
A “model” of county agriculture governance and work towards sustainable farming on Lopez must ultimately challenge the economic roots of the dominant food system, the private property paradigm, and business-as-usual in terms of food pricing and affordability– prices for food are too high to allow equitable access among lower income brackets, yet can’t easily be reduced due to concerns of adequately compensating farmers. Therefore, addressing root causes of poverty and raising purchasing power for food among low income households is essential to restoring justice and equity in the food system. Labor considerations, living wage job availability, and affordable farmland are all challenges linked to the current political economic context. With farmers earning net negative incomes annually and struggling to access health care, these realities demand policy and political attention, reversing the trends of the “neoliberal state” placing the burden of action on individuals and directly impacted communities with limited ability to successfully confront existing corporate influence over systems of political power and food policy. Direct confrontation with existing power structures requires alliances between farmers, consumers, and policymakers. It is time to move beyond an ethic of “rugged individualism” and towards a regenerative, agroecological, and cooperative resource management ethic. In a time of food and climate crisis, important moral, ethical, and environmental questions are raised about the current hegemony of private property ownership and a “do-it yourself” mentality; there is a need for collective action and management of the planet’s natural resources as a “commons,” along the lines of Ostrom’s all to action . Conservation organizations, public land trusts, and others in the public and non-profit sphere are called upon to step into the solution space, recognizing synergistic opportunities between ecological conservation goals and sustainable food system needs. By harnessing existing resources and institutions operating on behalf of the “public good,” food system goals can be met holistically, rather than focusing exclusively on one system element at a time . Society’s ability to address food system change can be enhanced by moving outside of the private and for profit sectors . Furthermore, important opportunities exist in the realm of collaboration, cooperation, and collective ownership of resources in the Lopez Island food system: the Food Hub project, the expansion and coordination of Lopez Island Family Resources Center activities to provide food to low-income families, and opportunities for cooperative farm management are not yet fully realized, but are among the most promising options for continued progress towards an equitable and resilient local food system. There are also promising signs of both organic and conventional farmers recognizing opportunities to come together and share information along the lines of regenerative agriculture practices,procona valencia which can advance shared goals of soil preservation and enhanced crop productivity. Each of these collaboration opportunities requires some opposition to the speculative real estate market and second home industry, which if left unchecked might otherwise remove prime farmland from productive use. Summarizing the work that needs to be done to secure transitions to local food systems, Judy Feldman of the Organic Farm School states, “ultimately, we need new farmers, and the question is, how to inspire more bright young people to go into growing food for us? Farming has always been complex and is growing more so due to climate change. There are complex issues in the mix: politics, regulations, food safety concerns, farmland loss. We need the best and the brightest” . Echoing this climate farming link, lecturer and farmer Eli Wheat of U.W. states, “small-scale farms can become an active part of solving the climate change problem—capturing carbon that would otherwise be stored in the atmosphere in the form of organic matter and storing it in the reserves of soil” . Here, education becomes important: farmer training programs targeting both young adults, and older individuals transitioning into farming are in need of development to encourage the “best and the brightest” to take on the challenges of building a climate resilient and equitable food system.
From a business perspective, starting a farm is similar to starting any small business: high failure rates, steep learning curves, and a leap of faith initially, that can ultimately pay off for those who are creative and determined enough. However, the cards are stacked against small operations in today’s national political economy. There is a need to redesign policy and infrastructure to enable small farms to exist and increase their odds of success: “all of the infrastructure that used to support a diverse systems of food production has slowly disappeared in favor of larger structures presumed to be more efficient” . Small scale infrastructure such as grain processing machines, mills, dry bean processing facilities, and other technologies used to be present in the San Juan Islands and must return as food systems relocalize and optimize for multiple values rather than yields and profits alone. Small farms offer many forms of value that large farms are often not able to, and if these values are to be held in communities, policies must shift to allow and encourage more small farms to exist. With developments like the mobile processing unit, commercial kitchen space, and renewed interest in revitalizing a local grain economy, key infrastructure pieces are falling into place, often thanks to large private donations. In order to be transferable, the Lopez model requires further democratization and incentive alignment to allow for such infrastructure improvements in lower resourced regions. Even the relatively well-resourced and well-educated agents of change on Lopez eventually come up against entrenched political economic systems that must be revised and rehabilitated to encourage local and equitable food systems to thrive as a viable alternative to the industrial, globalized food system. Farmers and researchers working together towards goals of local production and climate mitigation often confront challenges that they alone cannot resolve. Increased dialogue and education are needed to bridge between farmer-research identified needs and the policy designs and economic restructuring needed to meet these needs. Education and training for policymakers in critical food systems challenges will be necessary to enact food system changes and “vision statements” adopted by communities through well designed policies that prevent loopholes, minimize negative unintended consequences, and embrace adaptive and evolving strategies as they emerge.Islands can be natural leaders in sustainable practices, climate resilience, and local food system adoption, often out of necessity due to longer and more expensive supply chains to the mainland. Learning from the Lopez example, mobilizing a locally appropriate combination of motivated individuals, farmers educated in agroecological practices, land trusts, academics, and supportive local elected officials is a promising first step towards transforming a community food system into one that ensures food security, addresses environmental resource constraints, and mitigates climate change. Future community food systems development should be sure to bring along low income consumers and food justice organizations as active partners.Urban agriculture has sparked growing civic interest, urban farming projects, and scholarship from academic institutions across the U.S. in the past decade .These span city greening and beautification to improved nutrition, public and mental health, community food security, climate change mitigation, community building, economic development and empowerment . Those highlighting the beneficial environmental and ecological impacts of urban agriculture cite reduced urban heat island effect, improved local air quality, improved storm water quality , increased pollinator populations, and climate mitigation services, such as carbon sequestration . More recently, social-ecological systems scholars point out social-ecological memory developed through collective activities such as allotment gardening that can contribute to a city’s resilience and are vital for governance of urban food systems . Urban agriculture is often celebrated as part of the burgeoning food justice movement aimed at improving food access among low-income communities in urban areas. However, its impact on reducing food insecurity in U.S. cities remains poorly understood . In fact, there are few robust analyses that measure the actual social, economic and health impacts of urban agriculture, or the policy and governance environments and civic engagement frameworks in which UA models are effective in reducing food insecurity.