Growing Good: Viva Farms Report

To kick off the Co-op’s 50th Anniversary year we donated $100,000 to Viva Farms through the Co-op’s Growing Good Fund. As part of this partnership, Viva has provided a mid-year report (summarized below) and hosted two interactive tours at their Burlington site with Co-op members in July and September along with two private tours for Co-op staff. Over the course of the tours, members and staff had the chance to walk the farm, learn more about Viva’s transformational farm incubator programs, and how Viva works with its practicum students to give them the tools and skills, both on the farm and in the office, to succeed on their own piece of farmland.

Viva Farms Report Summary

2023 marks the 13th farming season of Viva supporting beginning farmers. This season, Viva has 33 farm businesses (55 farm owners) in the incubator program, including 9 new farms. All available farmable acreage of its 119-acre land base is being leased to beginning farmers for the 6th consecutive year. All the farmers in the program can sell though Viva Farms’ sales program which holds an umbrella certified organic certification; and Viva has also provided technical assistance to support eight farms to obtain their independent organic certifications, expanding direct sales market opportunities. Viva recently supported its second farm in obtaining their own Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) certification.

Three incubating farms sell directly to the Co-op (Cabrera Farms, Silva Family Farm, and The Crows Farm), as well as two alumni farms, Boldly Grown Farm and Grass Becomes a Wave. The produce department also occasionally purchases from Viva’s sales program that aggregates produce from all incubating farmers. Anticipated farmer sales in 2023 are approximately $2 million. Five farms launched from the incubator this year, including Bumblebee Farm, Reconnecting Roots, Root & Rabbit Farm, Dear Table Farm, and Grass Becomes a Wave. And of course, alumni Amy Frye and Jacob Slosberg at Boldly Grown Farm are continuing to expand their production acreage and farmstand on the land they purchased in Bow in 2021. Each of these farms secured sustainable land tenure to grow their businesses; and they are thriving on their new land.

Viva continues to upgrade equipment and infrastructure, including the construction of a 7,500 square-foot AgPark Market Center that will improve incubating farmers’ ability to conduct post-harvest activities safely and efficiently. The Market Center will feature a GAP-certified wash/pack facility, extensive cold and dry storage, and accessible loading from the field and for distribution. It will also provide a learning environment for Viva Farms staff to provide hands-on technical assistance. The project is on track to be completed by Spring of 2024. Viva was recertified organic through Oregon Tilth for the 9th year in a row and renewed its Salmon Safe certification. Viva kicked off on-farm trials via the USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service in partnership with soil scientists, an agricultural economist, and the Immigrants and BIPOC in Agriculture program team at WSU to support eleven farmers in the incubator to trial a variety of conservation practices. Viva is also partnering with the University of Washington on a newly funded project, Blue Carbon, Green Fields, which will pilot a novel and mutually beneficial collaboration between aquatic farms and small-scale diversified crop farms in its incubator, focused on the removal and reconveyance of nuisance seaweed for application as a carbon sequestering soil amendment.

The Co-op and Viva will continue to share updates.

To learn more about Viva Farms, visit vivafarms.org.