Meet the Farmer
Narci Organic Farms
Maria Ana Reyes
Established In 2016
Location San Juan Bautista, CA
Acreage 10
What they sell Mixed vegetables & strawberries
When they began working with KTA 2019
Advising focus Market access; operational tools & technology; resource conservation
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At just fourteen-years-old, Maria Ana Reyes arrived in the US from Mexico after the loss of her parents. She began working as a fieldworker, finding ways to supplement her income by also selling various items. As migrant workers, Maria Ana, her husband, and their four children followed the seasons by moving from one harvest to the next in search of work. Eventually, she learned about the Farmer Education Program (PEPA) at the Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association (ALBA); however, she was initially hesitant to apply owing to her elementary level education. Maria Ana’s experience and intuition endowed her with knowledge and instinct that no formal education could convey, prompting her to go after the ALBA opportunity and realize her ambition to own a farming business that provides for her family.
Maria Ana’s graduation from the PEPA program led her to Kitchen Table Advisors in 2019. In light of challenges around land security and insufficient labor, Maria Ana’s focus has been on diversifying her market channels while building soil health as a long-term investment in her operation.
Where to Find
Farm to My Neighborhood (various Bay Area locations)
AIM Farmer’s Market Incubator (St. Clement, Oakland, Hayward)
Advising Snapshot: 2020
Farming is an incredibly hard road to travel--especially for womxn, BIPOC and immigrants in the US--and although Maria Ana has felt discouraged along the way, she’s persevered. When her wholesale accounts began to dwindle during the pandemic, Farm Business Advisor Tania Zuñiga supported Maria Ana with pivoting her sales strategy. Based on the lack of control over volume and price point, Maria Ana had previously understood the precariousness of selling wholesale; however, the pandemic made the need to diversify a reality. Maria Ana and Tania worked to secure a new account with Tera Farm’s Farm to My Neighborhood program, reducing her wholesale business to just 15-20% of her overall sales and creating new opportunities like collaborating with Fresh Approach to provide produce boxes to food insecure families. Tania continues to advise Maria Ana on operational tools and technology that complement her natural intuition as a business woman.
