Dear NCAT supporter,

On a chilly November morning last year, I boarded a bus in Marina, California, and sat down next to a man who introduced himself as Jose. We’d both come for NCAT’s 10th annual Latino Farmers Conference, and on that first day of the conference we spent the day touring Latino-owned farms in the Salinas Valley. Jose owns a small farm in the Sierra foothills, and he excitedly told me that this was his 10th conference. “Well actually,” he clarified, “I didn’t go when the conference moved online during Covid, but I’ve been to all the others.”

The Latino Farmer Conference is a yearly highlight for Jose, he told me. The conference is held entirely in Spanish, is designed with input from farmers like himself, and gives him a network of other producers who face similar hurdles of access to markets, land tenure, or technical challenges.

Think of Jose’s story, multiply it by three hundred, and you have a sense of the impact this conference has on participants.

Over the next two days, I witnessed hundreds of Latino farmers like Jose experiencing the joy of sharing knowledge, building professional networks, and gaining access to the kind of knowledge many other farmers take for granted.

These kinds of relational, peer-to-peer gatherings and workshops are what NCAT is known for, along with so many other educational offerings. Yet as I write, that important work is under threat. The federal funding freeze remains in effect. Which means that NCAT is in limbo with regards to its multiple grants from the federal government.

What has not changed is NCAT’s commitment to farmers like Jose. With staff in 15 states, we support growers across the country, and we’ll work with anyone who might benefit from our services. As our new mission and vision state, NCAT “advances solutions in regenerative agriculture and clean energy so that both people and the land can flourish. We envision vibrant, economically strong communities that provide all people with healthy food and clean energy, soil, and water.”

Our work takes time to come to fruition, but we are a nimble organization. We know how to respond quickly to changing conditions. As we approach our 50th anniversary in 2026, we are not stopping now. NCAT is in this work for the long haul. And we invite you to partner with us.

Fred Bahnson
CEO