Kitchen Table Advisors

Kitchen Table Advisors' Farm Viability Project

Model and Strategy

Kitchen Table Advisors (KTA) fuels the economic viability of sustainable small farms and ranches through practical business advising and trusted relationships. Working at the intersection of regenerative agriculture and environmental justice, KTA centers equity and ecological stewardship in all its work. It aims to empower farmers of color, immigrant farmers, and women farmers who face the most barriers to implementing and maintaining regenerative agriculture practices. KTA’s Farm Viability Program has two complementary programmatic pillars. Its Business Advising program creates change on an individual level by working 1:1 with organic and regenerative farmers and ranchers to provide them with three years of cost-free, bilingual, personalized business coaching, financial management training, and technical assistance to ensure they have the skills and resources to build thriving, resilient businesses. This work includes connecting them with support and resources outside of KTA including land, financing, and sales channels that can help stabilize and grow their businesses. After three years KTA provides ongoing long-term support, the intensity of which varies as clients’ needs and businesses change. The second program, Ecosystem Building, aims to shape institutions and systems in ways that will give disadvantaged farmers more control and influence in the marketplace. Ecosystem Building projects focus on increasing access to and ownership of market channels, land, and capital. This work evolved in response to the needs expressed by KTA clients, and the challenges they faced that business advising could not solve: namely, that in a food system not designed with them in mind, many face similar structural barriers to accessing critical resources that can accelerate their success. KTA currently advises 99 farm and ranch businesses across 17 counties in Northern and Central California. All its clients operate small or mid-scale businesses with a history of strong production practices and whose net incomes are low, or whose businesses are at an inflection point where they need support to take the next step toward viability.

Impact

KTA’s long term goals are to increase economic viability for its farmer and rancher clients, enabling them to stay in business long-term; to increase farmers’ access to, and ownership and governance of, sales channels; and to enable more small producers to own land or secure long-term leases. In nine years, KTA has advised a total of 111 farms and ranches, and 99 of them (89%) are still in business today. This is a strong survival rate for the industry: according to the USDA, half of small farms don’t survive beyond their first five years. KTA plans to increase the number of clients it serves by 10-25% in the next 3 years, a more modest pace of growth than recent years: KTA has doubled its client roster since 2018. Clients who have completed three years of business advising increase their take home pay by an average of 58% and their food sales by 112%. In 2021, KTA clients were stewards of 14,100+ acres of land, and sold $26.8 million in organic and sustainably-produced food, flowers, and herbs into our communities. Clients have accessed $12.8 million in financing while in our program. Access to land is one of the biggest and most important hurdles to successful farm ownership. Secure, long-term land stability enables farmers and ranchers to make investments in the soil and the farm ecosystem, improve carbon capture, create wildlife corridors, and establish habitat for pollinators. KTA has helped 11 farm and ranch clients purchase plots of land – a total of 590 acres altogether – by working closely with each of them to find available land and financing partners, understand their cash flows and how much debt they can afford, complete successful loan applications, and manage their loan payments.
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Leadership

  • Thomas

    Thomas Nelson

    Director, Yolo | Solano | Sacramento

  • Sarah

    Sarah Gearen

    Director, San Mateo Coast | East Bay

  • Pei-Yee

    Pei-Yee Woo

    Director, Fundraising

  • Paige

    Paige Phinney

    Director, North Bay

  • Marilyn

    Marilyn Martinez

    Director, Central Coast

  • Maclovia

    Maclovia Quintana

    Director, People & Culture

  • Lauren

    Lauren Schneider

    Director, Operations

  • Gianna

    Gianna Banducci

    Director, Communications

  • David

    David Mancera

    Director, Ecosystem Building