San Juan Bautista is a small farming community, located about twenty miles east of the Pacific Ocean, but worlds away from the tourist economy on the coast. It’s not an easy place to make a living, but land is more affordable in San Benito County than in Santa Cruz or Monterey, so farmers make things work through cooperation and sharing knowledge. Through a collaboration with Kitchen Table Advisors, ZFP funded a collaborative grant benefiting 5 San Benito farmers that previously worked as field workers and now that they have their own land.

Jesus from Los Pinos had been working with strawberries for 20 years but took on his own 4-acre farm near San Juan Bautista to “move forward and improve our lives.” The farmers work closely with the Monterey Resource Conservation District on soil and water management and participated in an incubator program for under-resourced organic farmers.