{"id":11916,"date":"2019-11-18T13:29:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T21:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calcanstaging.kinsta.cloud\/?p=11916"},"modified":"2019-11-18T13:33:28","modified_gmt":"2019-11-18T21:33:28","slug":"catalyzing-climate-leadership-in-farmers-of-color-in-fresno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calclimateag.org\/es\/catalyzing-climate-leadership-in-farmers-of-color-in-fresno\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalyzing Climate Leadership in Farmers of Color in Fresno"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a large population of at least 900 Hmong farmers in Fresno County who produce a dizzying array of tropical and subtropical fruits and vegetables for California\u2019s Southeast Asian population, often on very diversified and relatively small plots of land. Many of these farmers rent their land and many struggle to stay in business in the face of water scarcity, dropping groundwater tables, regulatory burdens and increased input costs.<\/p>\n

A small team of UC Cooperative Extension staff<\/a> has become a critical source of technical support for this community in the past several years. Ruth Dalquist-Willard<\/a> is one of California\u2019s four Small Farm Advisors and she conducts research on small-scale farming operations and specialty crops relevant to Hmong, Latino and African American farmers in Fresno and Tulare Counties. Michael Yang<\/a>, a Hmong-speaking agricultural assistant, and Jacob Roberson who specializes in food safety work closely with Ruth at Cooperative Extension to support farmers with technical assistance on a wide range of practical needs.<\/p>\n

In 2017, they began helping farmers to apply for grants under the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program (SWEEP) and to install irrigation improvements and well upgrades. CalCAN has written previously<\/a> about the many benefits these grants provided to farmers.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Ruth and her team also extended their services to farmers interested in the new Programa de suelos sanos<\/a>. In June, she learned that all 16 of the Healthy Soils Program applications they assisted were funded as well as 23 SWEEP applications. This tremendous success, however, created a problem for the small team who didn\u2019t have enough capacity to support the farmers through the process of completing contracts with CDFA, let alone assisting them with installing new equipment, learning how to apply compost, finding funds to pay for a compost spreader, and doing soil sampling. Though CDFA provided $400 per farmer for the application assistance, she had no funding for anything else, and she came to CalCAN to ask for help.<\/p>\n

In 2018, CalCAN sponsored a bill (AB 2377<\/a>) that addressed this lack of technical assistance funding. Starting this fall, more than $1 million will be awarded to technical assistance providers to support farmers with all aspects of securing grants, completing funded projects and doing reports. But that funding will come too late for Ruth\u2019s team to support the group of 39 farmers who won awards earlier in the year.<\/p>\n

Ruth developed a $100,000 budget to pay for a community education specialist to work closely with the farmers on paperwork requirements and to provide guidance on practices such as irrigation scheduling, pump monitoring, and compost application procedures. The budget also included the purchase of a compost spreader that will be available to any farmer in the area, and the cost of transporting compost to the farms.<\/p>\n

At the time of this writing, four of CalCAN\u2019s funders have generously contributed a total of $80,000 to fund the effort. The many benefits of the project include the following:<\/p>\n