On Thursday, August 24th, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) announced that they will be restructuring or canceling up to 334 Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP) contracts with working landowners across the state beginning October 1, 2023. Whatcom Family Farmers, together with a coalition of farmers and environmental advocates, are ...
‘Massive’ bacterial counts–as much as 260 times the allowable limit–threaten shellfish, endangered salmon despite Whatcom farmers’ efforts to protect water quality in Nooksack River, tributaries (LYNDEN, Wash.) In a new letter to Washington state, tribal and Canadian officials, farmers in Whatcom County are shedding light on a troubling trend of ...
Whatcom Family Farmers, Whatcom County Farm Bureau issue joint statement voicing local farming community’s concerns with Whatcom County’s recently-proposed Food System Plan. April 20, 2023 Food Systems Report Comments County Council members and Food System Committee: Whatcom Family Farmers is a non-profit organization representing many farmers and farm-related businesses in ...
Washington state lawmakers in both the Senate and the House will be holding executive sessions and recommending whether or not to pass two important bills, SB 5353 and HB 1421, that consider re-opening enrollment and adding funding to the Voluntary Stewardship Program (VSP). We are asking you to contact ...
Countering Ecology’s focus on adjudication in Whatcom, leaders in the Yakima Integrated Water Plan explain cooperation and trust are essential to resolving water issues and show how litigation “stymied” progress on solving Yakima Basin issues for decades (LYNDEN, Wash.) The State Department of Ecology sponsored a “Solutions Showcase” on ...
We’re fortunate that spring rains and snowpack this year have kept streams from dropping to the record low levels we saw during last year’s drought. But the reality is that stream flows still aren’t where they could be if our community came together to get desperately-needed infrastructure ...
Farming community joins other local leaders’ calls to reinvigorate county-wide collaboration on flooding, water access solutions (LYNDEN, Wash.) Whatcom Family Farmers agrees with the mayors of five Whatcom cities, who are expressing their concerns about the Washington Department of Ecology’s troubling efforts to promote a harmful legal action against local ...
Whatcom Family Farmers is encouraged by Whatcom County's support for a collaborative approach to the Nooksack River Basin's ongoing water crisis. Last year's drought closely followed by record-setting flooding only a couple of months later clearly demonstrated the basin's water crisis results from a failure of water management, not ...
Whatcom County routinely experiences widespread flooding in the winter months. But this past late fall and winter was one of the worst on record and caused an estimated $1 billion in damages in nearby Abbotsford, BC and about $100 million in damages and one death in Whatcom County. Loss ...
The Harold VanBerkum Memorial Scholarship will be awarded for the first time this April to a graduating high school student in Whatcom County who plans to pursue a career in agriculture Lynden, WA – Whatcom Family Farmers has endowed a permanent scholarship with the Whatcom Dollars for Scholars, a program ...
