Doug Benoliel and Tamara Buchanan are among the most knowledgeable and skilled people to be producing and distributing diverse vegetables to the Lopez Island food bank . After 25 years of running a successful plant nursery in Kirkland, WA, the couple “retired” to Lopez Island to start their own farm. Doug has a degree in botany from UW and wrote a book titled Northwest Foraging, and Tamara has exemplary culinary skills that she developed through self-guided experience. With a 5-year crop plan in hand, they began diversified vegetable production at Sweetbriar in 2011, cultivating an array of seed varieties for each crop . They hired LCLT interns for several summers and recruited an additional crew of volunteers to help out with farm harvests and multi-person chores weekly, on Fridays throughout the growing season. Produce was sold through a farm stand at the end of the driveway, a CSA subscription, and at the island Farmer’s Market for a few seasons. However, due to personal health conditions and a series of operations, Doug and Tamara had to scale back from production-sales operations. They currently run a scaled-down farm and do not sell any vegetables; all of the harvest is used for self-consumption and processing or delivered to Lopez Fresh and specific families in need . Volunteers still come by several times a month to bring in the harvest and package it for delivery to the food bank and take home vegetables for their families. This donation-based model of farming is supported by the farm owners’ personal wealth from previous careers and life pursuits . It rests on the recognition that many of the island-grown vegetables and specialty products are unaffordable to large sectors of the island population, who work in the tourism industry and do not own land.
Food insecurity in San Juan County is estimated to affect 39% of residents, according to a United Way of the Pacific Northwest ALICE report in 2018. The island food system as a whole is precarious, hydroponic rack system and not equitable, when such large percentages of the population cannot afford to access nutritious, locally produced food. It is unclear how long Doug and Tamara will continue their mission of supplying Lopez Fresh with produce from their farm, as they are in the active process of scaling back and downsizing. Doug has offered up space for gardening on his land to other individuals, but so far no one has taken him up on the offer, for a variety of personal circumstances. Whether other farms will follow suit in donating produce as they exit market-oriented production is an open question, which might require policy incentives and nudges to facilitate a more robust food donation system. The volunteer-based gleaning operation run by the Lopez Island Family Resource Center and the LIFE program8 are two other examples that donate fresh food to low income families. Addressing food security problems with donations of food serves an important interim purpose, but larger policy and economic changes, in the form of increased living wage jobs and affordable housing, are needed to address the root cause .Two of the three farms highlighted in the section above acquired farmland in the first place due to wealth transfers from previous careers or family members. The value proposition of purchasing farmland and paying off debts through limited farm incomes is otherwise extremely difficult and disadvantages low income and minority groups who have been excluded from generational land and wealth accumulation.
There is not yet a “social safety net” in place to enable farming as an equal-opportunity, financially viable or desirable career pathway, in terms of guaranteed income, health care, and time off to support personal wellbeing. This is preventing the easy transition of farmland from current to new farmers and causing hesitancy among young people seeking to make an early career as a farmer in the San Juan Islands, ultimately challenging the sustainability of agriculture on the islands as a “way of life.” In order to avoid a situation where only the wealthy can afford to farm sustainably, policy mechanisms must be put in place to democratize land access. Promoting and facilitating cooperative ownership and buy-in to farmland is something the county has yet to address effectively; it is challenging, and yet a promising action step for enabling successful farmland transition for a more diverse array of new farmers . Opportunities exist on the production side of the Lopez food system in the form of local knowledge accumulated over decades of implementing sustainable and regenerative, agroecological practices, that is ripe for sharing and transferring to new and beginning farmers through mentorship programs or the establishment of a more formalized “farmer training program” on the islands. Additionally, on the land acquisition front, the LCLT long-term affordable lease model piloted with the Stonecrest Farm purchase could lead to other transfers of farmland at low cost to new farmers .On a small island such as Lopez, there are opportunities to share and collaborate on distribution activities especially for complementary products. However, the limited number and size of markets could prohibit entry into a channel that is already dominated by one farmer or food business; therefore, diversifying and coordinating with other farmers is an opportunity to streamline distribution activities.
Opportunities exist for farms growing fruit to partner with and distribute alongside farms growing vegetables, meat or dairy products, which would be expedited by access to enabling infrastructure such as a shared refrigerated truck, aggregated cold storage, and designated food delivery person to transport products from farms to customers and retail locations. Ideally a shared transport system could be optimized to reduce vehicle miles traveled for food distribution, and a transport vehicle could be a hybrid or electric model to meet local goals of carbon emissions reductions in all facets of the food system. Efforts to streamline distribution exist in the form of the proposed San Juan Island Food Hub, which would provide institutional support for aggregating and distributing farm products between islands, improving transparency between producers and food purveyors. According to a 2015 Food Hub Feasibility Study led by the Ag Guild and ARC, there is a strong desire and opportunity for a San Juan County Food Hub to provide an online platform for ordering, aggregated cold storage, and aggregated purchase opportunities that would help meet the unmet demand for local food products in restaurants, grocery stores, and other food businesses9. Most farmers currently do not have the time and capital to transport their produce to other islands but stand to benefit from accessing these additional markets. While food security is a stated goal of the project, it is unclear how increased access and affordability to low income consumers would be accomplished, other than through assumed improvements to local economic development and job creation. A specific plan for meeting the needs of low-income residents in the activities of the food hub would be a valuable improvement to the current planning process. The Lopez Farmer’s Market is an opportunity for farmers willing to participate weekly throughout the summer, as farmer participation has dwindled in recent years and there is interest in attracting more farmers to sell at the market. Finally, rolling tables grow the close-knit Lopez community breeds the trust and interpersonal relationships that facilitate many non-monetary forms of exchange, whereby farmers can trade food products directly for other goods and services they may need from island residents, in mutually beneficial trades that create solidarity and sovereignty from financial institutions. It is challenging to establish a successful CSA distribution on Lopez, requiring farmers to think creatively about how to structure weekly shares in a way that provides products that many residents do not grow for themselves, and accounts for the shorter-term seasonal demand of summer visitors.There are limited retail establishments on Lopez, many of which have outstanding relationships with specific farmers to supply certain goods. This can create a barrier to entry for new producers, who must either provide something that is not already present in the retail environment or establish affordable marketing opportunities off island . The school cafeteria is seeking to procure more locally sourced meat and dairy, providing a retail opportunity for producers of those products. As new restaurants, food trucks, and food businesses come to Lopez , new retail opportunities inevitably present themselves to farmers given the culture of prioritizing local food procurement.
The processing opportunities have been an active area of progress for the past several years, leading to the establishment of two commercial kitchens on the island. One is privately owned and accessible to island growers who sell their products commercially, and another is available for public use. There is a strong community desire to consume local foods year-round, supporting the expansion of the processing and preparation sector, and abundant local knowledge of creative processing techniques that could be taught or shared in community workshops. Additional cold storage is required to allow for local fruits in particular to be consumed six months out of the year, rather than just two. Food safety certification and training is required for all users of commercial kitchens and for the kitchen itself, which is time-consuming and expensive.Waste management is already fairly streamlined on Lopez due to the expense of transporting waste products off the island, and the organization of the award-winning solid waste facility . Current opportunities for improvement include the local biochar production and co-composting effort, as well as maximizing food waste recovery from all island retail stores and restaurants to be returned to local farms for composting. Food recovery from the fields and orchards occurs through a volunteer-run gleaning program, which could be scaled up with further support or participation incentives. A significant challenge for farmers is to reduce all plastic use and substitute with alternative materials, as plastic is no longer accepted at the Dump for recycling and must be paid for at time of disposal.In order to build a climate-themed farmer training program on Lopez, fundraising and/or grant-writing is needed to bring together land and human resources to execute such a program. Hiring a skilled farm-based education and other staff to support educational efforts is a challenge that must be worked out before this opportunity can be realized. Improving upon the K-12 food and climate education efforts at the school is a more easily accomplished opportunity through partnership and participation of more farms and educated adults on the island. Additionally, recognizing that several young people on Lopez are already actively farming and interested in doing so in the future presents an opportunity to strengthen countywide Young Farmer leadership programs in order to expose these aspiring young farmers to new practices and skills needed to create successful farm operations.Using data gathered from interviews and observations of current farmland operations on Lopez and referring back to Ostrom’s ten variables, it becomes clear that farmer self organization to sustain the local food system is very likely . Nevertheless, the propensity for farmers to self-organize does not guarantee that the more complex and overarching political and economic challenges will be resolved through grassroots self-organizing; farmers must integrate and collaborate with other circles of the polycentric governance structure in which they are nested to adopt necessary reforms. The ARC, for example, is a Citizen Advisory Committee tasked with advising the County Council on issues affecting the Agricultural environment comprised of 15 voting seats, at least 50% of which must be farmers. 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.