Bennington Place challenge grant matched for a total of $70,000

(August 2004)

• Bennington Place campaign update
• “From blossoms” (from In Praise of Fertile Land)
• Sierra Nevada gives 50¢ per six-pack purchased at PCC during August
• Donor Roster for June 1 — 30, 2004

Bennington Place campaign update

The Farmland Fund saved another farm — 174 acres in the Walla Walla Valley called The Bennington Place. Now we’re raising $250,000 to repay the loan for the down payment, with $135,000 to go.

In March, Leona Bronstein and the Quixote Foundation pledged a combined challenge grant of $35,000, to be matched dollar for dollar. Thanks to Shipley Fields donors who redirected their gifts to the Bennington Place. We’ve raised the match — a combined total of $70,000.

For more information, visit the The Farmland Fund steps over the mountains to save a new farm, Sound Consumer, March 2004.

From blossoms

From blossoms comes
   this brown paper bag of peaches
   we bought from the boy
   at the bend in the road where we turned toward
   signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
   from sweet fellowship in the bins,
   comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
   peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
   comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
   to carry within us an orchard, to eat
   not only the skin, but the shade,
   not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
   the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
   the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
   as if death were nowhere
   in the background, from joy
   to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
   from blossom to blossom to
   impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

— Li-Young Lee

From In Praise of Fertile Land, winner of the 2003 Bumbershoot Literary Award. Special thanks go to the non-profit Whit Press for creating this anthology to benefit the Farmland Fund. All proceeds from sales of the book in PCC stores go to the Bennington Place. Poetry saves farmland!

Sierra Nevada gives 50¢ per six-pack purchased at PCC during August

Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was immediately attracted to the Farmland Fund because the crisis of diminishing farmland affects us all. Beer is an agricultural product. Our hops come from the Yakima Valley, and our malt comes from sources throughout the Northwest and Canada. Both of these vital commodities are being affected by urban sprawl, unwanted genetic engineering and markets that are manipulated and sometimes crushed by mega-brewers.

The lessons learned from our addiction to foreign oil are just as profound for our food sources. We cannot win the cycle of turning farmland into soulless tract housing while expecting the world to grow our food for us. Our rich American agricultural heritage must be saved. On this road there is no going back. Tract housing doesn’t get turned back into profitable farmland.

Sierra Nevada is involved in many environmental issues, from proactive wastewater treatment to organic beef production from our spent grain. Our newest initiative is the installation of a cutting-edge fuel cell to power the brewery. By using fuel

cell technology, we will make our power usage three times as efficient, while cutting NO2 emissions by 99.96 percent, SO2 emissions by 99.99 percent, and CO2 emissions by 59 percent.

Sierra Nevada will donate 50 cents per six-pack during the month of August to the Farmland Fund. Our Pale Ale is delicious. Our Summerfest is a luscious Munich-style quaffing lager, great for those hot days. We encourage you to help the Farmland Fund yourselves, through your donations and actions.
— Doug Mills, www.sierra-nevada.com

The PCC Farmland Fund works to secure and preserve threatened farmland in Washington State and move it into organic production. For more information, see the PCC Farmland Fund web pages.