The Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance established the Good Farmer Fund to help our market farmers with direct access to emergency funding in the event of farm loss, crop loss or personal hardship due to flooding, storms and other disastrous events. 

To donate to the Good Farmer Fund, you can click in the donation box (upper right on this page), or make your check out to Good Farmer Fund and mail it to NFMA, 3919 Latona Ave NE, ste. C-1, Seattle, WA 98105.  100% of your contribution goes to the fund - we do not take any portion of it for administrative costs. 

As of 2010, seven family farms have recieved over $25,000 in emergency relief funds, helping provide assistance on the occasion of severe flooding, a disastorous house fire, and extreme wind storms. 

For example, our most recent beneficiary, Rama Farm, had 40% of their crop damaged last summer due to an extremely high wind storm. This would have been a devastating financial loss to the farm; the fruit was un-saleable yet still edible.  Rama was granted $3,000 from the fund to buy dehydrating equipment to create fruit roll-ups with the damaged fruit - a value-added product which they sold with great success to customers at the markets this fall.  They will also now be able to develop other delicious value-added products from their farm produce with this equipment.

In another example, Alm Hill Gardens farmers Ben and Gretchen suffered a devastating house fire in 2010, which destroyed not only their home (hand-built) but a significant portion of their possessions.  The Good Farmer Fund helped offset some of the financial hardship of this very challenging loss.

On behalf of all our farmers, we wish to express our deep gratitude to everyone who has helped make the Good Farmer Fund possible.

See also: Washington Farm Bureau: www.wsfb.com for more information on helping farmers.