This weekend a group of 10 Latino farmers and orchardists met to organize a cooperative, CPOVA, that will assist them to develop new farming-related business opportunities together.  It is a mix of women and men, established businesspeople and newcomers, who have decided that they can best take advantage of new and innovative ideas related to agriculture working as a group.  They met at a Firehouse in the upper Yakima Valley, one of the most fertile fruit-growing regions of the country as well as one of the poorest areas in Washington State.

The group has met together before, with the assistance of organizers Rosalinda Guillen and Fernando Ortiz from Community-to-Community Development, our partner organization, who support Latino farm-workers and farmers.  They had talked about what they might do amongst themselves with facilitator Rogelio Montes.  On Sunday, they elected a president, Hipolito Martinez, and discussed the legal structure they will work out with attorneys from Columbia Legal Services.  The Institute for Washington's Future, our group, shared information about other partners we are working with in the area on their behalf and grants we are writing or thinking about writing that will provide seed money for them to get into new but related businesses - businesses like developing Latino-themed farmers markets in the Valley, building a community kitchen that will allow them to make and sell value-added products like tamales and salsa and jams, harvesting biofuel crops and making their own biodiesel for fuel, and developing a farmer-incubation program to provide tools and teach skills to new farmers. 

The room was electric with ideas and hope.  C-2-C and IWF have worked together for several years to assist Latino farmers to pull together innovative projects that will enable them to stay on the land.  Farmers across the state are leaving the land, especially younger farmers.  If we are to have a viable agriculture, much of it will come from Latino farmers and orchardists.  This is one of the building blocks of making that happen.