Members
Are you a farmer, farm service provider, funder, lender, advocate, researcher, food systems worker, etc. committed to advancing racial equity in agriculture? We’d love to meet you. Send an email to admin@farmerjustice.com to join our movement.
CFJC’s Governance Committee is made up of Farmers of Color currently farming in California:
Rev. Roosevelt Tarlesson (he/him) and his family, originally from Liberia, are known figures in the African and refugee communities of California. Since arriving in California in the 1970s, Roosevelt has been uplifting farming as a tool to reconnect California-based African refugees with their cultural roots and provide a means of economic development. Roosevelt has been involved in a long list of community projects, and is also politically engaged, participating in United Nations gatherings to advocate for refugee work programs. As an active member of the California Farmer Justice Collaborative, he was instrumental in passing California’s Farmer Equity Act, but like many of us, knows and critiques its limitations. Roosevelt’s priority is to create something that works for poor folks. He sees good intentions in farm incubator programs and wonders whether these programs are “designed for poor people.” He senses that programs like these work best for folks who already have some level of connection, and often some level of capital or farming exposure; participants join to seek more formal training and then start up a farm business for production. This doesn’t work for houseless urban folks, or people who don’t know anything about farming because they have been displaced from their lands or are dealing with historical trauma related to farming and violent systems of oppression. “I’ve seen the refugee crisis,” Roosevelt says, “I’ve seen how the Iraq and Bosnia wars and conflicts have devastated my community’s experiences.”For these reasons and more, Rev. Tarlesson has spearheaded the creation of an autonomous land stewardship project called U-Farm and Home in collaboration with over 80 Black families and individuals.
Roosevelt Tarlesson is a member of CFJC’s Governance Committee
Li Schmidt (she/her) is one of the co-coordinators of the California Farmer Justice Collaborative and is one half of the amazing duo behind Cultural Roots Nursery a South and East Asian women-owned nursery growing heritage vegetable, fruit, and herb plants. Li grew up in Monterey, California and has multicultural roots. Her mom immigrated to the US from Taiwan and she grew up listening to and speaking Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English. Throughout her life she’s had to translate the names of foods she grew up eating and search for ingredients that were often missing from the local food system. As an organic farmer, musician, and recent graduate from the Community Development Masters’ program at UC Davis, her work on community-based food and medicine making is at the intersection of equity, culture, health, and creativity. Li has over five years of experience growing ecologically-produced and culturally relevant food and medicinal plants. She also has over five years of experience with community organizing in regional food systems in California that has helped bring together a diversity of community groups. She hopes to be in service to her community through sharing her knowledge of growing food at a variety of scales and by providing a platform through the nursery for increasing access to cultural foods.
Li Schmidt is CFJC’s Governance Co-coordinator and a member of CFJC’s Governance Committee
Chanowk Yisrael (he/him) is an urban farmer, community activist and husband. Born and raised in Sacramento, he worked & traveled across the country for 10 years on the dime of corporate America before deciding to trade in his frequent flyer miles for seeds and soil. When his hands are not deep in the Earth you can find him working in his community with youth demonstrating the benefits of land ownership and food sovereignty.
Chanowk is a member of CFJC’s Governance Committee and CFJC’s Fundraising and Finance Committee
Brandi Mack (she/her) is a 3rd generation farmer and a California Native. Currently farming in Urban areas of Oakland, San Francisco CA. Brandi is the national director for The Butterfly Movement, which is an organization that mentors African American women and girls about their personal ecology and the land ecology. Brandi is a member of the COOK Alliance Board, The Black Women’s Media Project and several other collectives that are working towards advancing, social justice, and racial equity.
Brandi Mack is a part of CFJC’s Governance Committee
Abel Ruiz (he/him) is a member of CRECE Co-op, CRECE is a cooperatively-run farm committed to bringing food sovereignty and cooperative economy to Orange County, as well as knowledge sharing within the community. CRECE’s market garden grows mixed vegetables year round, which are distributed through a CSA program. “We make life-giving food accessible to low income Mexican immigrant families in Santa Ana,” says Abel. “CRECE’s CSA program offers a sliding scale pricing system and work exchanges. We also grow culturally relevant crops for our target clientele.” “Our farm is not just a farm. It is a gathering space for community members, an educational center, and an organizing space for farmer justice. Since its inception, CRECE’s primary goal has been to end food apartheid in Santa Ana and communities of color throughout Orange County and beyond. We remain committed to building solidarity and capacity within our communities to determine how we grow our food, who grows it, and the way it is grown.”
Abel Ruiz is a member of CFJC’s Governance Committee
Veronica Mazariegos-Anastassiou (she/her) is one of three farmer/operators at Brisa Ranch, a 15-acre diversified fruit and vegetable operation, in Pescadero, CA. She has been involved in agriculture in multiple facets, from working with rice farmers as a Peace Corps volunteer in Togo, to apprenticing and later managing operations and sales at Pie Ranch and earning an MS in Applied Economics and Management focusing on Food & Agriculture from Cornell University. Vero is a Steering Council member of the California Food and Farming Network (CFFN), a 2021 NYFC CA Political Leadership Fellowship Alum, and a 2022 NYFC Land Advocacy Fellow.
Veronica Mazariegos-Anastassiou is a member of CFJC’s Governance Committee
Dorian Payan (they/them) is proudly campesine, a word which lacks true translation in English. It is typically translated to farmworker, or peasant. But these words don’t encompass the relationship to the land held in the vocabulary of the folx who have tended and stewarded for generations. Campesinx is a land steward, a farmer, a dream weaver and life giver. “I have committed my life to abolishing the borders in our lives - both physically and in our heads. I first arrived at this by reconnecting with the land I live on through farming. This became a form of remembrance and relationship building for me. Here lies the irony of the landless generation that I am a part of. In moving north, my family forewent their land in exchange for living with relative purchasing power in an increasingly commodified world. My parents have been paying rent on a small trailer for more than 30 years now. Quite literally, our existence has mostly been suspended in air and unable to root. They see farming as a betrayal to their struggles. When I farm, it becomes an act away from the apprehension and trauma I have inherited from my family in seeking direct sustenance from the land. When I farm, I incite the lineage of land stewards that precede me. To cast labor and love on the land in hopes of receiving your sustenance in return feels radical. It reminds me that this is possible because my ancestors were able to seek fecund land, which brought me here today.. And my very right to live today is predicated on my ancestors’ unhindered determination to live.”
Dorian Payan is a general member of CFJC
Minkah Taharkah is an earth steward, multiplicitous artist and intuitive healer from Leimert Park. She is currently activating resilience by way of supporting Black farmers and intergenerational family networks. Through her work with Sankofa Gardens and Building Youth Tomorrow, Today, she has been supporting the development of urban to rural agricultural connections. Her work is grounded in relearning ancestral knowledge in order to facilitate collective unlearning of traumas held in the body, land, and spirit to promote wellness.
Minkah Taharkah is CFJC’s Coordinator
aubrey pongluelert (she/her) is a Thai-American food grower, artist, community organizer and aspiring seed co-conspirator based in Goudi’ni (Arcata, CA), the ancestral lands and unceded territory of the Wiyot Tribe. Her relationship and commitment to food and farming justice find roots in the backyard garden of her childhood home, where her father continues to grow thriving Southeast Asian heritage vegetables, fruits and medicine. These roots led aubrey to earn a MS in Environmental Studies: Sustainable Food and Farming from the University of Montana, co-found the Missoula Community Free Fridge project, work with a number of farms and food justice organizations, and complete a Fulbright fellowship in Northern Thailand that explored farmer-led seed keeping and exchange networks as sites of resistance to seed privatization and as webs holding and spinning situated knowledges, eco-stories, bio-cultural diversity and food sovereignty. aubrey finds delight in making and sharing soup, gathering earth pigments, running her fingers through bags of seeds, and jumping into alpine lakes.
aubrey pongluelert is CFJC’s Operations Administrator.
CFJC is operated by committees made up of our General Members:
Beth Smoker is a food and agriculture policy consultant focusing on creating and improving policies that promote a healthy, fair, and equitable food and farming system. Equipped with a Master’s degree in Food Systems and Society and a B.S. in Environmental Science, Beth has held contracts with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and currently supports the Sacramento Food Policy Council, Pesticide Action Network, and the California Food & Farming Network.
Beth Smoker is a member of the Farmer Justice Advocacy Committee
Beth Spitler has worked for the last decade as an organic farmer, garden and cooking teacher, farmer outreach coordinator and policy consultant. She works on projects related to the California Food and Farming Network’s engagement with legislators and local food policy councils for Pesticide Action Network and authored the report, “Growing Inclusion at the California Department of Food & Agriculture: Implementation of the Farmer Equity Act” for CFJC.
Beth Spitler is a member of the Farmer Justice Advocacy Committee
Janaki Anagha (she/her) is the creator of the Marigold Society. She has been growing marigolds for seed and sale for over 8 years. For Janaki, the marigold is sacred since it is used in a majority of Hindu ceremonies, as well as to welcome spirits home during Día de los Muertos/ Day of the Dead, and carries significance for many cultural farmers around the world. But perhaps the most incredible unifying factor about this bright orange blossom is its capacity to function as an organic alternative to soil fumigation (it’s highly effective against root-knot nematodes). Before becoming an environmental justice attorney and co-founding the California Farmer Justice Collaborative, she farmed in diversified farms and orchard crops across California.
Janaki Anagha is a member of CFJC’s Fundraising and Finance Committee
Paul Towers is Executive Director at Community Alliance with Family Farmers, a leader of the Sacramento Food Policy Council and of the California Food & Farmer Network, and is an aspiring urban farmer. His roots are in Southern Arizona and considers Sacramento home.
Paul Towers is a member of the Farmer Justice Advocacy Committee
Patricia Carillo is the Executive Director of the Agriculture & Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), a non-profit organization that aims to create economic opportunity for limited-resource and aspiring organic farmers through land-based education in the heart of the Salinas Valley. Patricia is a native of Salinas and comes from a farmworker family.
Patricia Carillo is a general member of CFJC.
Samiha Hamdi (she/they) grew up mostly in Indiana as a first-generation Pakistani immigrant. She began her career in ecological restoration and conservation biology, and relocated to the Bay Area/mostly Miwok and Huichin lands in 2014. Since then, she has worked in various roles within the field of agroecology, land sovereignty, farmer advocacy and support, food justice, climate justice, and labor justice throughout the Bay Area, New York, and beyond. Her passion for agroecology, farmer and food justice, and community organizing was strengthened during her time in Peace Corps Panama, where she served as a Community Agro-Environmental Conservation Agent. In 2022, Samiha graduated with a Masters in International Agricultural and Rural Development and Indigenous Studies from Cornell University. She is grateful to be here!
Samiha Hamdi is a member of CFJC’a Communications Committee
Temu Asyr Bey (he/him) is the director of the Compton Community Garden and plant based chef. He dedicates himself to improving his community though holistic health and farming. Temu is a member of The CA Department of Food and Ag BIPOC advisory committee which CFJC worked to install in 2021, and shares resources and info out to the broader community via our social media platform.
Margaret Reeves joined Pesticide Action Network (PAN) in 1996 after several years of teaching and research in agricultural ecology, primarily in Central America. As senior scientist at PAN, Margaret works on state and federal policy promoting sustainable agriculture. She also continues her decades of advocacy for farmworker rights to a safe and dignified workplace free from exposure to hazardous pesticides. Margaret serves as PAN’s representative on the Board of Directors for the Equitable Food Initiative.
Margaret Reeves is a member of CFJC’s Fundraising and Finance Committee
Rasheed Hislop (he/him) is a Black ag-tivist, father and beginning farmer living on unceded Yokut lands in Madera. Rasheed is a co-founder and co-owner of Black Zocalo, which is a cooperative which aims to uproot racism in the food system through ancestral healing work particularly by, for, with and between Black/Afro-Indigenous and Meso-American Indigenous peoples. Rasheed calls upon his ancestral and familial connections to Trinidad and Tobago (Taino lands) as well as his birthplace of Brooklyn, NY (Lenapé lands) in his pursuit of a truly just and whole food system. His favorite vegetable is the sweet potato and his favorite food from Trinidad is roti - slight pepper.
Rasheed Hislop is a member of CFJC’s Fundraising and Finance Committee
Jessica González (she/her) is a proud indigenous Oaxaqueña raised in the deserts of the Eastern Coachella Valley in Southern CA. She is the daughter of farmworkers and comes from a long lineage of earth stewards. She received a B.A. in Human Geography from UC Berkeley where she studied the intersections of food systems, political geographies, and labor rights. Jessica is a community organizer, food sovereignty advocate, and outdoors lover at heart. She is currently a Policy Advocate with California Certified Organic Farmers.
Jessica is a member of the Farmer Justice Advocacy Committee
Natalia specializes in agroecology as a means to reduce on-farm and global climate risk. Her doctoral research focuses on how California farmers are preparing for, responding to and recovering from wildfires. Natalia partners with community organizations across the state and the Americas who serve structurally disenfranchised farmers. This includes work to serve Latinx farmers and farmworkers in California; organic seed producers in the United States; urban BIPOC farmers; and agroecology more broadly throughout Latin America. She is the co-founder of Farmer Campus, an online school for farmers. Leaning on seven years of experience, she currently writing on effective pedagogies for virtual farmer education. Natalia is a Colombian immigrant and has a background in microbiology, cell biology, microscopy and science education. She has an A.S in Biology and Chemistry from Raritan Valley Community College, a B.S in Conservation and Natural Resources from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in Geography at UC Davis.
Natalia is a general member of CFJC
Jusneet Boparai (she/her) is a 4th year undergrad at UC Davis and the youngest member of the CA Department of Food and Ag’s BIPOC advisory committee. She also farms 500 acres of almonds, table grapes, wine grapes, cherries, peaches, lemons, and oranges with her family. She is born and raised in Fresno, CA.
Jusneet came to CFJC to complete an internship developing a report on CDFA’s advancements on the Farmer Equity Act and maintaining record of the agency’s progress informed by her experiences on the BIPOC advisory committee that meets monthly. She is personally committed to providing the input of the Punjabi Sikh farming community of California of which she and her family are a part. This huge and critically important demographic of farmers have traditions of community ownership, community service, and mass mobilization for justice, not to mention being core to the California food system via farming and trucking of products.
Jusneet Boparai is a general member of CFJC
Héktor Calderón-Victoria (he/him/el) is a farmer, activist and member of his community. Born in Mexico City, he immigrated to California with his family when he was a kid. Héktor operates with his business partner a 5 acre farm called Three Feathers Farm in Morgan Hill which is in Santa Clara County. Hektor has also been involved in agriculture for the last 9 years in various capacities working on multiple diversified vegetable production operations in Northern and Southern California and with orchard trees in residential areas and on small-scale farms. He is the son of immigrants and a protector of racial justice, food justice, and food sovereignty.
Héktor Calderón-Victoria is a general member of CFJC
Ali Anderson is rooted in over a decade of experience in public health, birthwork, and food justice. She is the founder and Executive Director of Feed Black Futures, an organization with a mission to create a world where Black people have access to high-quality fresh food and the means and skills to produce it. As a community organizer and membership co-chair with Black Youth Project 100 NYC, Ali led direct action organizing campaigns for communities facing carceral violence as well as reproductive and environmental injustice. She has been a keynote speaker on topics related to food sovereignty and food justice at Harvard School of Public Health, University of California Los Angeles, and Pitzer College.
Formerly the Director of Capacity Building with the New York City Health Department’s Center for Health Equity, Ali created policies to bring pay equity and social support to community health workers working in food, reproductive, and economic justice. Ali is from Southern California and is the granddaughter of Jamaican immigrants. She holds a Master of Public Health from Emory University. In 2021, she was awarded the Black Women Green Futures Award and in 2022 and was a winner of the Echoing Green Social Innovation Challenge.
Ali has been featured in TIME and People Magazine, is on the Board of Directors of Acta Non Verba Youth Community Farm and SisterSong, and is a 2023 Echoing Green Fellow.
Ali Anderson is a general member of CFJC
Lily Lucero (she/her) grew up in the urban center of San Diego on unceded Kumeyaay land and comes from a long line of farmers and farm workers. She spent her childhood growing food with her parents and neighbors and stewarding a plot that has now become a cornerstone of their community. She watched as her mother, a public health and psychiatric nurse, leveraged small-scale gardening as a tool of empowerment for her patients. Her father approached sustainable, drought tolerant land stewardship to build up their community and to connect his family with his Mexican and Indigenous culture that influenced his love for the land. Lily spent her college years working in immigration advocacy and graduated from UC Berkeley in 2022 with a B.A. in History with a concentration in Indigenous and immigrant histories of the Americas and a B.A. in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture. She began a farm stay traineeship at Common Roots Farm, an accessible space for farmers of all abilities, following her graduation from college and now works as the organization's Volunteer Coordinator. At Common Roots she runs the accessible garden where upwards of fifty individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities gather weekly to grow culturally relevant and nutritious produce. Lily is committed to expanding accessibility to regenerative farming practices and community empowerment through food sovereignty.
Lily Lucero is a general member of CFJC
Claudia Mendoza Chávez (she/her/ella) is a First-generation Mexican immigrant and Anthropology graduate student at UC Santa Barbara. She was born and raised in Michoacán, México but lived in California’s Central Valley for the past 8 years. Her research at UCSB focuses on water policy and community engagement in the Central Valley, specifically focusing on farmer engagement in water policy implementation. Her passions are centered around advocacy, different forms of education, and art-related hobbies.
Claudia Mendoza Chávez is a general member of CFJC
Azhar Khanmohamed is a 1st generation Pakistani activist with roots in Los Angeles, California, Atlanta, Georgia, and San Antonio Texas. After graduating from Emory University, Azhar co-founded an urban farm and food sovereignty project in Atlanta, GA, organized for participatory budgeting in Oakland, CA, facilitated political education as a network weaver with the Regenerative Agriculture Idea Network, and he currently serves as the Director and Network Coordinator with the LA Housing Movement Lab in Los Angeles, a network of 25 housing justice groups working to decommodify 20% of all housing across LA county by 2050. In his organizing, Azhar has focused on supporting movements that seek to dismantle our violent and extractive economic systems, and to cultivate regenerative, community controlled systems of food, housing, energy, and land. He believes in a blended theory of change which includes the frameworks of dual power, mass movement incubation, coordinated direct action, grassroots organizing, and cultural narrative strategy. In his work as a facilitator and educator, he often weaves together popular education, somatics, and eco-literacy to support the critical examination of existing institutions, land and community based healing for frontline communities, and the expansion of the radical imagination within our movements.
Azhar Khanmohamed is a general member of CFJC
Jamie Fanous is the Policy Director at the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) where she focuses on working with farmers to create and advance policies that are rooted in social justice and equity. In her full-time position at CAFF, a California-based non-profit, she is actively working on transformational policy change. She works to create avenues to bring farmers into the policy-making process to collectively tackle some of the biggest barriers our small-scale and BIPOC farmers face, such as land access, drought, infrastructure, and more. She believes the only way we can create true systems-level change is to ensure those most impacted by policy decisions are in the policy-making seat.
Prior to advocacy, Jamie has worked in a range of positions from technical assistance and on-farm research in climate change and soil health, to managing an urban farm actively engaged with the local community. She has had the opportunity to work on farms in various parts of the world from Ghana to Panama which has shaped her views and perspectives on cultural foods, sustainability, and community. She holds an MS in Agriculture, Food, and Environment, and a MA in Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University.
Jamie Fanous is a general member of CFJC
Qi (pronounced as Chee) is the Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Program Manager at California Association of Resource Conservation Districts (CARCD). She has been working closely with farmers, extension agencies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies on agriculture and environmental issues for over 10 years, with a focus on assisting historically underserved farmers and ranchers. Her goal is to ensure all historically underserved land managers have enough resources to utilize all agriculture and conservation programs. Qi received her B.S. degree in Horticulture Science from Hunan Agriculture University, China and M.S. degree in Forestry Science from Huazhong Agriculture University, China. She then received her Ph.D. degree in Plant and Environmental Sciences in Clemson University, Clemson, South Carolina. Qi speaks Mandarin, English, and some Cantonese, and she enjoys playing badminton, dancing, and cooking with her kids when not working.
Qi is a general member of CFJC
