IWF is very excited to have received funding from the National Institute for Food and Agriculture (NIFA) for a three year project entitled “Building Latino Farmers”. The project features a comprehensive, training and technical assistance program that will provide Latino farmers throughout the State of Washington access to the resources, skills, financial credit, business and marketing information, and other support that new farm and ranch enterprises require.

The grant from NIFA is the result of collaboration and relationship building in our rural communities over the past four years.  Much of this work has taken place in Yakima County and one of the key partners in the program will be Cooperativa de Productores  Organicos del Valle Alto (CPOVA), an  organization rooted in the Latino farm worker community from Yakima that IWF has partnered with since 2007.   This grant represents the culmination of much good work and the beginning of an opportunity to leverage the partnerships and relationships we have forged toward real economic development in Yakima County and to expand that development to other rural counties in the State of Washington.