On a sunny March morning at Food Bank Farm in southwest Snohomish County, a group of workers were constructing a new hoop house that will be used to grow tomatoes and peppers. They were replacing nine greenhouses crushed by floodwaters during December's storms.
Father John Eichner, who runs the farm through the Episcopal Church in Redmond, said the mangled frames of the hoop houses looked like “little spider legs — they just broke to bits.”
This is just one of the farms still recovering after large swaths of land were submerged during the historic flooding.
Food Bank Farm grows crops for foodbanks across the state, but it is a small operation. It has turned to volunteers to help clean up and has had to raise money to rebuild.
“We did a lot of fundraising, and we had some neighbors that gave us some leftover greenhouse parts,” Eichner said. “We repurposed everything we could that was smashed down to see if we could reuse it.”
Food Bank Farm is now installing special plastic film it received from the county’s Ag Tech Program that will help control the temperature of the greenhouse. This material is being distributed to some farms in the area, which officials hope will increase the productivity of their greenhouses and help agricultural producers get back on their feet.
The severe storms forced thousands of people across Western Washington to evacuate and caused over $182 millions of dollars in damage to public infrastructure. Flooding in Snohomish County caused an estimated $5.5 million in damage to homes and private property.
The full impact of flooding on the local agricultural industry is not clear, but Snohomish County Agriculture Coordinator Linda Neunzig expects farmers’ crop production to be down this year.
Floodwaters were diverted to farmland throughout the region during the storms. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that in 2022, the county was home to more than 1,400 farms — many located in low-lying areas.
Chinook Farms was also hit hard by the flood.
“The December flood was nearly catastrophic,” said owner Eric Fritch, recalling the turmoil caused by the storms. “Where we're standing here: water above our heads — solid 8 feet of water.”
Fritch raises cattle and pigs on his land, and also leases land to Food Bank Farm. The flood swept away bales of hay, damaged equipment and covered fields with debris, including a pair of cast-iron bathtubs. He said the work it takes to clean up fields and repair equipment can be overwhelming. Fritch estimates his property sustained around $200,000 in flood damage.
“It just knocks you back a long way,” he said. “It's going to pretty much empty out the farm piggy bank to be back in order.”
Recovery aid for farmers affected by the flooding is limited, according to Snohomish County's Neunzig. The USDA has emergency resources for agricultural producers, but she said some programs are not available to farmers in Washington state because a federal disaster declaration is required.
Earlier this year, Gov. Bob Ferguson requested that the Trump administration release additional flood relief for individuals and to help repair public infrastructure — aid that has yet to be approved.
Neunzig said farmers are largely left to shoulder most of the recovery costs.
“There's not an insurance program that comes in and covers this,” she said. “This is directly out of the farmer's pocket, so the economic loss every time there's a flood is huge.”
The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low interest rate disaster loans to small agricultural cooperatives, nurseries and farms with side businesses, such as a farm stand. However, most agricultural producers are not eligible for that type of aid.
At this point, Neunzig said, farmers are focused on doing what they can to continue feeding people.
“These farmers are out here, they're cleaning up, they're getting ready to plant," she said. "They're doing what they can to produce food this year."
