About Friends of the Fields

Our mission: To preserve and protect sustainable agriculture in Clallam County, Washington, ensuring the availability of local food and the quality of life that our rural setting provides.

Specific Areas of Focus:

• Protect as many productive farms as possible in Clallam County.

• Support the sustainable enterprise of farming and the farming culture.

• Educate the public and advocate for agriculture in Clallam County.

• Support agritourism.

Friends of the Fields believes that farms add an immeasurable element of quality to Clallam County, and positively impact our quality of life. In addition to offering picturesque landscapes:

• Farms provide locally grown food and other local products.

• Farms enrich our economy, providing local jobs and increasing local income through individual sales, exports of products, and tourists who are attracted to the community.

• Operated sustainably, farms contribute significantly fewer pollutants in surface waters than residential development.

• Farms serve as a refuge for the unique species of plants and animals that live in our relatively dry microclimate.

• Farms produce more tax revenue than they cost for community services, in contrast to residential developments, which produce less tax revenue than they cost for community services.

Why Clallam Farmland Needs to be Protected

Three quarters of Clallam County's original 76,000 acres of farmland has been sold for housing and commercial building projects, and each year another 1,000 acres is lost to development. 

Friends of the Fields was founded in 1999 to give farmers who are ready to retire another option, to keep Clallam's productive farmlands producing good quality, local food. 

We raise and coordinate funds to purchase the  development rights of farmland, ensuring that the farms can continue to be operational through a lease to new farmers; and that the farmland owner can retire comfortably without having to sell his productive acreage. 

 The bottom line is that lifelong farmers can retire, new farmers have access to farmland, and Clallam County residents can purchase locally grown food.

Organizational Status

Friends of the Fields is a division of North Olympic Land Trust, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 1990. Copies of the Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, and IRS Tax Exempt Status are available upon request.