2020-2021 Impact Report
Dear KTA Supporter,
Thank you for your interest in diving deeper into what our client farmers and ranchers, as well as our own team, have been up to this past year.
As we reflect on this time, we acknowledge the incredible frontline work of farmers and ranchers within KTA’s advising program and across the globe. They, along with other workers across our food system, ensure that our communities remain nourished amidst the threats to their own health and safety due to COVID-19, social upheaval, and the climate crisis.
Since Kitchen Table Advisors’ early days, we’ve focused on working with farmers and ranchers who are at an inflection point in their businesses -- a time when they are looking to make significant changes to support their long-term viability. KTA, too, is at an exciting inflection point in the growth of our organization.
KTA has now been advising farmers and ranchers for nearly nine years, guided by our purpose to support their long-term economic viability. In that time, we looked to conversations with our client farmers and ranchers to inform how our work has evolved. We moved to a regional model, where our programmatic staff is based in the same geographic communities as our clients. We expanded our programs to include ecosystem building projects that focus on addressing some of the institutional challenges our clients face in the areas of land, markets and capital. And, in the last 18 months, we learned to navigate all of this during a global pandemic, ongoing wildfires and a worsening drought. We will keep leveraging conversations with our clients and team as we continue to refine what long-term economic viability means for the individuals and their businesses that we support, as well as what it means for Kitchen Table Advisors to have an impact towards that goal; we look forward to sharing progress with you down the road.
Now, we are thrilled to share what our clients and the KTA team have been up to this year. This work is made possible by client farmers and ranchers’ commitment to nourishing their communities, and by you -- our partners and supporters.
We hope you will join us in celebration of farmers and ranchers, of what we’ve achieved together, and all that is yet to come.
In community,
Angie, Anthony, Crystal, Daniella, David, Erika, Favio, Federica, Gianna, James, Lily, Liz, Marilyn, Melina, Noelle, Paige, Pei-Yee, Sarah, Sumi, Tania, Thomas & Wendy
Kitchen Table Advisors
Kitchen Table Advisors fuels the economic viability of sustainable small farms and ranches through practical business advising and relationship building.
We believe in a vibrant food system based in community, justice and ecological responsibility, where all farmers and ranchers can thrive.
OUR WORK
Kitchen Table Advisors’ work aims to both directly support farmers and ranchers, as well as shift the ecosystem in which they operate to be more supportive of their agricultural practices and their lived experiences. We focus our efforts on land, markets and capital, which we see as key levers of change as small sustainable farms and ranches strive towards long-term economic viability.
One-on-One Business Advising
Kitchen Table Advisors (KTA) helps producers build their business infrastructure, just as they need to build the physical infrastructure on their farm or ranch. Our business advising program is rooted in a personalized, in-depth approach, meeting farmers and ranchers where they are, often at the kitchen table. We are committed to asking questions, building trust and walking alongside each of the producers we support as they navigate the challenges facing farm and ranch businesses.
Ecosystem Building
KTA recognizes that in order to transform our food system and enable farmers and ranchers to thrive, we also need to shape the institutions that control land, markets, and capital. In 2018, KTA launched an additional programmatic area, Ecosystem Building, to complement our one-on-one business advising, working in partnership with other organizations in the regions where our clients are based.
Farmers & Ranchers at the Table
KTA works with farmers and ranchers who are committed to ecologically responsible practices and who take on leadership roles within their communities. Their values are deeply ingrained throughout their daily lives and profoundly affect the way they run their businesses, which is often challenging to balance with profitability in our current industrialized food system. We work with them to develop skills, knowledge and tools so their businesses -- and their families’ livelihood -- have a better chance of surviving within a system that is not designed for them to thrive. In recognition of the historical disparity in access to resources and visibility these communities face, KTA prioritizes working with women, and with people from communities of color -- the majority of whom are Latinx farmers within California’s Central Coast.
92
farm & ranch businesses advised to date
128
business owners advised to date
Cruz Martinez Farm
Javier Cruz, Teodora Martinez & Melecio Cruz
What We’ve Been Doing
KTA is excited to share some of what our client farmers and ranchers have been up to this past year. These updates are first and foremost theirs to celebrate. We extend our appreciation for the KTA community behind them, including: the now seven business advisors on staff at KTA who are based in the same regional communities as our clients and provide them with personalized, in-depth advising, the team of four regional directors and two cross-regional program staff who support the advising team, lead ecosystem building projects and manage program development, and the seven team members who lead the generation of financial resources and storytelling that support the organization and our clients. And of course, you, our community, who invest in our clients and our team in myriad ways.
The following section reflects 2013-2020 aggregated data for all clients who responded to our annual business assessment in 2021.
Economic Viability
KTA’s advising program is designed to support our clients in reaching their business goals via training around tools to support more informed business decisions, providing thought partnership, and facilitating access to resources -- specifically land, capital and markets. When we begin working with client farmers and ranchers, most are grappling with anxiety around how they will support their families by farming. Our nation’s food and economic systems do not support small family farms as they once did. Thankfully these individuals continue to feed us, nonetheless, out of a passion for environmental stewardship and, many times, out of their own financial necessity. Farmers and ranchers struggle to eke out a living, and often supplement their income with off-farm employment to support their families. KTA's vision is the inverse of this: a food system where farmers and ranchers can not only earn a livelihood but truly thrive.
73% growth in take home pay
On average, clients began our program with $20,800 in take home pay per business owner from their farm or ranch business, and grew to an average of $36,000 after 3 years. This number does not account for inflation.
91% clients feel they improved their ability to make better business decisions in the past year
8% increase in average gross sales
On average, our clients’ food sales grew 8% from 2019 to 2020 amidst the pandemic
Root Down Farm
Dede Boies
Ecological Stewardship
KTA prioritizes working with producers who are driven by a deep sense of responsibility for their environment because we believe this approach is the only way to build long-term resilience for our food system and the planet. Many of our clients go beyond the requirements of existing certifications, focusing on regenerative practices that build soil health, reverse climate change and nurture the ecology of where they farm. This nourishment of the land cannot be accomplished in the short-term; it takes careful cultivation over time and is only possible when farmers and ranchers are in stable land situations. Land security is vital to a producer’s ability to deeply invest in building the health of the land from the soil up, and is inextricably linked to the economic viability of a farm or ranch business.
90% actively use practices that can reduce adverse agricultural impacts on the land and ecosystem
Self-reported. Practices include no-till farming, rotational grazing, cover cropping, native hedgerow planting, dry farming, and more
11,755
acres
Land that KTA client farms & ranches stewarded in 2020
Little Moon Farm
Rachel Kohn Obut
Community Leadership
Small-scale farmers and ranchers are uniquely able to nourish their communities in ways that are not reflected in the price of their food: they create job opportunities; distribute their product through food access programs; and are first responders during crisis relief efforts. This last example has never been more evident than in 2020 and 2021. Farmers, ranchers, and other food workers worldwide continuously showed up to keep our communities fed while so much else remained uncertain amidst a global pandemic, and wildfires and drought across California.
Thank you, to our clients, their staff and the countless others within our foodshed for their ongoing leadership.
73% of clients provided benefits to their employees
Benefits included health benefits, paid vacation and sick time, food from the farm, room and board, subsidized rent, professional development stipends, and more
$14.72 per hour
Average client pay rate in 2020, compared to the California minimum wage of $12 per hour*
44% of clients contributed products to programs designed to increase food access to low income communities
Programs included Market Match, Fresh Approach’s Mobile Farmers’ Market, donations to local food pantries and community farm stands, and more
317
Total of individuals KTA clients employed through part-time, seasonal and year-round work in 2020
*Per SB 3 (Leno, Chapter 4, Statutes of 2016), from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, the minimum wage for employers with 25 employees or less (which applies to all but two businesses who responded to KTA’s survey) was $12 per hour.
Yolo Food Hub
Ecosystem Building Project
Where We’re Going
KTA began with an observation that many of the small-scale organic farmers we loved to buy from at the farmers’ market were closing up shop, even though outwardly business seemed to be thriving. Our purpose from day one has been to provide personalized, in-depth business advising to support the economic viability of small-scale, sustainable farm and ranch businesses like those we saw disappear. Oftentimes, that advising has looked like working with the farm or ranch owner to take stock of everything they are doing, assess whether their current operations are helping them achieve their goals, and either adjust where needed or let go of what is not serving their economic viability or their wellbeing as humans.
One of many lessons the ongoing pandemic imparted on us here at KTA is the need to slow down, reflect, and prioritize the type of internal assessment we advise our clients around. This lesson is not new and not exclusive to KTA; it is one that we see each day out in the fields and grasslands that our farmers steward, or in the natural world that surrounds us. Nature is a master of rest, resilience and renewal. It is in this spirit that KTA approaches this moment in our organization’s journey: reflecting on our early days, taking stock of how we’ve grown, and strategizing how we move forward to support our client farmers and ranchers more effectively.
We are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead, and we extend the invitation to you, our community, to join us in this period of reflection and renewal in the hopes that this resonates with you.
Organizational Change
As we move into our next phase of organizational development, Anthony Chang, our original Executive Director and one of several Directors that has co-led the organization over the last 2+ years, will be transitioning out of Kitchen Table Advisors to spin out a new venture -- one born from KTA’s ecosystem building work -- that is aligned with the world that we want to help create. His new venture will focus on the redistribution of capital and land resources to farmers of color, indigenous land stewards, and food, land and agriculture justice activists. As with many transitions, this is bittersweet for Kitchen Table Advisors. Our whole team and board is moving forward with gratitude for Anthony’s contributions over the last 9 years, with the knowledge and confidence that we are doing so with a group of experienced, relationship-driven leaders committed to advancing our purpose.
Investing in Us
The past few years have marked a period of rapid growth for KTA. We doubled our staff in just two years, and increased the number of farmers and ranchers we advise by 50% in the same time frame. While this growth was driven by a desire to meet the needs of local farmers and ranchers, it also occurred during a time of profound uncertainty for our team and community. KTA plans to spend the next year building our internal capacity to support this growth. It will include: building operational systems to work more effectively as a team of 20+ staff; refining our program evaluation and data tracking tools to improve access to information and more effectively assess our work, especially as we surpass our goal of advising 100 farm and ranch businesses by 2024 (with the addition of 19 new clients in 2022); investing in practices that support the wellbeing of our staff and clients; and knitting together our shared learnings after two years of co-creating a consensus-based organizational structure and regional model. Much like the advice we often offer our clients, we’re investing in ourselves to support KTA’s long-term viability.
Get Involved
Transforming our food system is an enormous effort that requires collaborative work and a broad, deeply committed community of support invested in long-term change. We invite you to join the movement of over 1,000 individuals, families, companies, and partner organizations who are helping shape the future of agriculture with KTA by making a donation, joining our monthly giving program, spreading the word, or seeking out ways to support our clients directly.
Thank you for joining us at the Kitchen Table!
Photo credits: Bryan Patrick, Jacque Rupp, Jayson Carpenter Photography, Jonathan Fong, Natalie N Photography, Nicola Parisi, Paige Green, Sarah Trent, & Yvette Goenaga