Where Our Food Comes From: The Magic of Skagit Valley

An intimate, informative, and emotionally moving journey about how and where our food comes from.

We all eat. By the time food gets to your plate it has been on a journey. Open this book to the start of that journey, where much of your food (and flowers) comes from.

Some of the best soil in the world lies north of Seattle in the fertile Skagit River Valley. More than 90 crops are grown by farmers who immigrated from Europe, Japan, and Mexico. Farming is labor intensive and repetitive throughout the seasons, and daily tasks are required to keep the crops thriving. Wanting to show the unique mechanics of farming and who is involved in tending and harvesting the foods we eat, Craig J. Barber has spent years visiting and photography land and life on small mostly organic farms. He interviewed farmers, many of them third and fourth generation, whose stories are featured in these pages. He spent time with the field workers; not taking photos right away but gaining their trust. As a result of his persistence, Barber captures the physical demands and artistry of farming—field workers tossing cabbages up to another crew member in the back of a truck, a crew walking bent over behind a planter-tractor to make sure the seedlings are set correctly, the care and tenderness of those caring for livestock, the beauty of a kale field in the snow, and the drama of harvesting leeks on a winter night under a spotlight.

Where Your Food Comes From is a book with many facets. Look at and savor the rich photographs. Read the farmers’ stories. Study the facts and figures to expand your knowledge about farmland, food, and farmers. The “magical” Skagit River Valley is unique in producing so much of the nation’s and world’s food (and flowers), but it is also a microcosm of the universal and worthy occupation of raising food. In Craig Barber’s unforgettable book, we see how hard work, careful planning, and a love of the land combine to feed the world.

Craig J. Barber is a Northwest-based photographer documenting farmers and their work―growing our food. For more than 30 years he has focused on cultural landscapes in rapid transition, some fading from memory. His work has explored Viet Nam, Havana, Tuscany, and farmers in the Finger Lakes and Catskill Mountain regions of New York State and now the Skagit Valley in Washington State. He has taught photo workshops and lectured about photography throughout the United States, Ireland, Central Europe, and Mexico, using alternative cameras and antiquarian processes. Barber has been awarded grants and residencies from the Seattle Arts Commission, Polaroid Corporation, New York Foundation for the Arts, MacDowell Fellowship, Light Work, Glacier National Park, and the Constance Saltonstall Foundation. His work is represented in more than 50 public and private collections, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Carnegie Museum of Art, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Chrysler Museum of Art, George Eastman Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Museum of Art, Houston, and Victoria & Albert Museum, among others. Barber’s photographs have been exhibited in both group exhibitions and more than 80 solo exhibitions in Europe, South America, and North America. His previous book is Ghosts in the Landscape: Viet Nam Revisited (Umbrage Editions, 2006).

John Seibert Farnsworth joined the faculty of Santa Clara University (SCU) in 2005, where his teaching and research focused on environmental writing and literature. He retired as Senior Lecturer in Environmental Studies and Sciences, Emeritus, in 2018. His books include Reading Nature: The Evolution of American Nature Writing (Michigan State University Press, 2025), Nature beyond Solitude: Notes from the Field (Cornell University Press, 2020), and Coves of Departure: Field Notes from the Sea of Cortes (Cornell University Press, 2018). Dr. Farnsworth lives in Skagit County, Washington, with his wonderful wife, Carol, to whom all of his books are dedicated.