Leticia Landa, La Cocina

Leticia Landa, Executive Director at La Cocina, a nonprofit that supports immigrant and women entrepreneurs gain financial security through building food businesses and creating an innovative, vibrant and inclusive economic landscape. Passionate about food and the daughter of Mexican immigrant small business owners, Leticia has worn many hats in her 12+ years at La Cocina: working directly with business owners, developing the incubator program, writing grants, managing volunteers, consulting with other incubators, and now guiding vision and strategy for the organization's tremendous growth (which has led to the organization's international recognition).

María Ana Reyes, Narci Organic Farms

At just fourteen-years-old, María Ana Reyes arrived in the U.S. 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, María 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. María 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 farm business that would provide for her family.

Maria Ana’s graduation from the PEPA program led her to KTA as a client in 2019. In light of challenges around land security and insufficient labor, María Ana’s focus has been on diversifying her market channels while building soil health as a long-term investment in her operation.

Javier Cruz, Cruz Martinez Farm

As a child, Javier Cruz helped his parents — Teodora and Melecio Cruz — in the fields, before pursuing a career in technology as Teodora and Melecio started their own farm business, Cruz Martinez Farm. While their agricultural wisdom led to thriving production, the two experienced challenges in running the business-side of the operation. In 2016, Javier took an active role in the farm business to support his parents in building a livelihood for their family.

Javier, Teodora, and Melecio joined KTA as clients in 2017. With KTA’s support, they have been able to purchase the land they farm in Madera, setting a stable course for the future.

Esperanza Pallana, Wildseeds Fund

Esperanza Pallana was raised in California where she spent her childhood in the Bay Area, the Central Valley and the Tuolumne mountains. She is an Indigenous descendant of the Caxcan of the Nahua Nation of Northern Mexico and Southwest U.S. She has worked with nonprofits for over 20 years with an emphasis in leadership, systemic change, and policy advocacy. Her priority is to use the power of movement-led investments, cultural organizing and storytelling to strengthen the network of land-based practitioners who are fostering political leadership and community economic power through the lens of ancestral ecological practice. As Executive Director of Wildseeds Fund, a movement-led participatory grantmaker, Esperanza is committed to community-controlled capital structures, narrative shift and emboldening transformative food and agricultural systems change.

Nicole Mason, Veritable Vegetable

Nicole Mason, Director of Marketing and Community Engagement at Veritable Vegetable (VV), a women-owned and led business in San Francisco that is the oldest organic produce distribution company west of the Mississippi. She has more than 15 years of experience in sustainable food and ag working at VV, Roots of Change and California Environment Associates as well as serving on boards and advisory committees of Ag Innovations Network and the SF Food Industry Cluster. She is a bridge builder between farmers and distributors, business and nonprofits and government, and on the ground work and policy.

Marni Rosen, Colibri

Marni Rosen, principal and philanthropy advisor at Colibri, bridges philanthropic individuals and families with grassroots and on the ground leaders pointing towards environmental, economic and social justice. She brings 17 years of experience leading the Jennifer Altman Foundation, as well as board service with Environmental Grantmakers Association and Health and Environmental Funders Network, and participation in the California Foodshed Funders group. Marni balances a heart-centered, pragmatic, movement-led, and strategic approach to her work.

Bertha Magaña, Magaña Farms

Bertha Magaña spent years working as a farmworker after immigrating to the U.S. from Mexico before she decided to begin her own farm business. Her dream was to build a farm that could provide a livelihood for her family, where she could work alongside her husband, Heriberto, and their three children. Bertha’s experience as a farmworker further inspired her passion for sustainable agriculture, shaping her interest in practices -- water conservation as well as planting hedgerow varieties to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects -- that would be just as kind to the planet as to her family.

Bertha joined KTA as a client in 2016. Her goal upon joining the advising program was to achieve her family’s dream of owning farmland. In 2017, Magaña Farms purchased the nine acres in Aromas where they grow mixed vegetables and berries.