Honcoop family furthers farming tradition Farming on family land

from Who's Who 2023

Retirement Centers, Adult Family Homes, In-home Care & Assisted Living

By Elisa Claassen For the Tribune

LYNDEN — Long-time Lyndenite Dillon Honcoop hosts the Real Food Real People Podcast. Honcoop has combined his love of growing up on a family farm and his broadcasting career.

Honcoop also works in communications for a local farming non-profit which has branches for educational outreach locally as well as statewide and works in a building alongside other agricultural groups.

“Real Food Real People is a brand new effort to create community and awareness by connecting farmers and eaters, rural and urban dwellers, and everyone in between,” its website says. “We believe who our food comes from is as important as where it comes from, and now more than ever it’s vital to hear from the people who grow our food.”

In 2017, Honcoop left KGMI of Cascade Radio Group where he had moved up from entry level broadcaster to show host and management. Honcoop left because he found a way to share the stories of farmers, tackle issues associated with food production, and also move back to live on his maternal grandparents’ farm not far from the Canadian border on Northwood Road in 2018.

At the same time, his wife Tiffany “Tiff” (White) has been able to find her own place using the family farm’s facilities.

While the couple is not using the buildings and property for full-scale dairy or berry farming operations, they are introducing their daughters to a love of the land and sharing that love with others.

Dillon grew up with his parents, Randy and Leslie, farming 55 acres of red raspberries which they started in 1986 after custom farming and dirtwork. Eventually, his father stopped berry farming but has continued truck driving.

Tiff grew up in a city suburbs setting in North Delta, B.C. Canada with parents who may not have farmed but certainly conveyed a love of plants and gardens.

Dillon and Tiff met as communication students at Trinity Western University in nearby Langley, British Columbia. With a bit of paperwork, including a permanent resident green card for Tiff, they were able to marry and move into the states to start their family. Until the pandemic, they were continuing to regularly go back and forth across the border to the church Tiff’s family helped found and where she was also working in a multifold capacity using her graphic arts, web design, and musical skills until 2016 when the children started to be born. Once the pandemic hit, the involvement there stopped entirely.

It also became more dif -

Whatcom Old Settlers Assoc.

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