PCC Community Markets gives grants to local organic producers

Seattle-based PCC Community Markets awarded $25,000 in organic producer grants to six small-to-midsized farms across Washington state.

Organic production helps protect local ecosystems and farmworkers, Aimee Simpson, PCC director advocacy and environmental, social and governance, said in a news release.

“That said, we also recognize how labor and cost intensive it can be to achieve and maintain organic certification,” she said. “That’s why we believe it’s so important to support small farms as well as larger businesses in Washington state with their mission to feed our local communities with organic food.”

The recipients are:

• Clover Mountain Dairy, Chewelah;
• Alluvial Farms, Everson;
• Silva Family Farm, Oak Harbor;
• Royal Produce Farm, Royal City;
• Long Hearing Farm, Rockport; and
• Rent’s Due Ranch, Stanwood.

PCC first introduced the cooperative’s Organic Producer Grants in 2019 to assist local farms with projects such as transitioning a conventional, non-organic farm to organic certification. Recipients can use this funding to improve soil health and soil carbon sequestration, as well as improve sustainability, efficiency, effectiveness or performance through the purchase of equipment, tools and facility improvements.

When reviewing applications, PCC’s grant committee also looked to benefit historically marginalized or underserved communities and people, according to the release.

“I was raised in an agricultural family in Mexico and when I moved here and took my first job, I was frustrated by all the chemicals I saw being sprayed on the plants,” Pablo Silva of Silva Family Farms, Oak Harbor, Wash., said in the release.

Silva plans to use his grant to add a cultivator to control weeds without the need for plastic mulch, which increases yield by limiting the need for weeding by hand.

Founded in 1953, PCC Community Markets  is a certified organic retailer and a community-owned food market with more than 100,000 members. PCC operates 16 stores in the Puget Sound area, including the cities of Bellevue, Bothell, Burien, Edmonds, Issaquah, Kirkland, Redmond and Seattle. Seattle stores are in the neighborhoods of Ballard, Central District, Columbia City, Downtown, Fremont, Green Lake, View Ridge and West Seattle. The co-op also plans to open a new store in Madison Valley.