The project's focus is to recognize the inequities in california's food and farm system, while acknowledging the importance of creating opportunities for small and historically disadvantaged farmers…

The Community Alliance With Family Farmers (CAFF) will provide cooperative aggregation and sales coordination services to small and socially disadvantaged farmers in Central California through a $723,740 Project Grant from the United States Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service.

Under the grant, CAFF will activate multilingual partnerships to help farmers collectively aggregate and sell produce to diverse buyers through a farmer-led aggregation model. Technical assistance, staffing, trainings and regional gatherings will expand farmers' capacity to access new market opportunities and build resilience in historically oppressed communities. Buyers will receive support and brokered connections. CAFF will also share the successful farmer-led aggregation approach nationally to facilitate model replication under the Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program. The three-year grant period runs from September 2021 through September 2024.

The project's focus is to recognize the inequities in california's food and farm system, while acknowledging the importance of creating opportunities for small and historically disadvantaged farmers to participate in food and agricultural systems. This project will activate broad, multilingual partnerships in central california to help small and socially disadvantaged farmers collaboratively aggregate and sell produce to diverse buyers. The farmer-led aggregation model is akin to an informal food hub and has been highly successful throughout the pandemic aiding small and socially disadvantaged producers with lower volumes to access markets. Immigrants and farmers of color comprise over 25% of all california farms yet these farmers face greater barriers to market access. This can be attributed to linguistic and cultural barriers, technological limitations, and lack of adequate access to technical assistance. We will respond by expanding farmer's capacity to access market opportunities through cooperative aggregation and sales coordination that results in long-term supply and demand relationships. Multilingual and culturally appropriate technical assistance, staffing and trainings will help the farmer-aggregators identify, plan, cooperate and collectively respond to market opportunities. Regional gatherings will create farmer-to-farmer learning and relationships that bolster resilience in historically oppressed, socially disadvantaged communities. Buyers will receive support and brokered connections. Finally, through conference presentations, video case studies, and outreach, we will share the model across state and national networks to ease model replication and scale our project. Farmer-led aggregation is a viable strategy that enables farmers to not only participate in new market opportunities but to proudly lead them.