As Clark County continues to lose farmland to rapid growth, a 24-acre organic farm near Ridgefield has become the first agricultural property permanently protected through the county's Legacy Lands program, preserving it for farming for generations to come.
Washington Farmland Trust announced on Tuesday, July 21, that it has placed a conservation easement on April Joy Farm, ensuring the land can never be converted to nonagricultural development. The project marks the nonprofit's first conservation easement in Clark County, the first partnership between Washington Farmland Trust and Clark County's Legacy Lands program and the first farmland conservation project funded through Legacy Lands.
For Washington Farmland Trust Senior Conservation Manager Nate Lewis, the significance extends well beyond a single farm.
"Ultimately we're excited any time a farm is protected forever," Lewis said. "What's exciting about Clark County for us is that, like you mentioned, it's rapidly developing. Its farmland is extremely fragmented. Clark County is losing its big tracks of uninterrupted farm landscape because development's happening."
Founded by April Thatcher in 2006, April Joy Farm is a certified organic diversified crop and livestock operation managed by Thatcher and her partner, Brad. The farm also operates Farm to Heart, a food equity initiative that connects local farmers with families experiencing food insecurity.
The conservation easement permanently limits future development while allowing the property to remain privately owned and actively farmed. According to Washington Farmland Trust, Clark County has lost nearly 40% of its agricultural acreage since 2017 as development has accelerated, particularly around Ridgefield.
"Every acre of Clark County's rich soil is a miracle centuries in the making," Thatcher said in a news release.
"We simply can't replace this high quality soil. Protecting farmland isn't about preserving a nostalgic way of life; it's about making sure that 50 years from now, this region can feed itself."
Lewis said the conservation easement was made possible through public funding used to purchase the property's development rights.
"The Washington Farmland Trust's core mission is to protect Washington state's most threatened farmland and preserve it through a variety of legal mechanisms,” Lewis said. “But ultimately the bread and butter of the trust is the acquisition of conservation easements on working farmland, which protects the farmland from conversion to non-ag uses like development or other non-farming uses. What we did down in Clark County with the April Joy Farm is we get public dollars through competitive grants and use those dollars to purchase the development rights from landowners at appraised value."
The funding came through Clark County's Legacy Lands program, which has traditionally focused on protecting fish and wildlife habitat, forests and natural areas.
Legacy Lands Program Coordinator Denielle Cowley said the April Joy Farm project represents a milestone more than seven years in the making.
"I think it's a huge milestone. They've been talking about doing this farm protection since 2017," Cowley said. "And we worked with Washington Farmland Trust because we hadn't ever done it before and they have done it before. So we used them as a facilitator to understand how to do these types of things in Clark County.”
Cowley said the Washington Farmland Trust provided a lot of knowledge in the process, adding that the Legacy Lands program learned a lot from the experience in protecting the April Joy Farm.
Cowley said the county hopes the project becomes the first of many as Clark County balances continued growth with preserving its agricultural heritage.
"We anticipate seeing more of these types of opportunities with farmers and maybe even foresters, forest lands," Cowley said. "It is done in other counties throughout the state. So we're hoping that this is where we start that process."
Unlike a public park, the conservation easement does not transfer ownership of the property or open it to public access. Instead, the deed restriction remains attached to the land regardless of future ownership, ensuring it continues to meet the easement's agricultural requirements.
"So it's a recorded deed against the title of the property. It's in perpetuity," Cowley said. "It would transfer with the ownership no matter what. They will do a yearly inspection of the property to confirm that it is still maintaining the easement requirements."
Cowley added that participation is entirely voluntary.
"So I would say that it is a willing seller, willing buyer. Farmers would need to come to us if they're interested," she said. "We're hoping to do more of these throughout the county. It would still be their property. It's just a covenant, a deed restriction."
Lewis said the project provides a blueprint for future farmland preservation efforts across Clark County.
"This isn't a one-off where we want to be present. We want to support those community goals, and we want to do it in a way that works for Clark County," Lewis said. "Now that we have a proof-of-concept that we can do this in Clark County, it lets us develop a strategy to keep farms farming and farms in production."
Washington Farmland Trust has now permanently conserved more than 4,000 acres on 38 farms across Washington. Clark County's Legacy Lands program, funded through the Conservation Futures levy, has protected more than 5,600 acres of forests, wetlands, wildlife habitat and now agricultural land since its creation.
