This Organic Month, we’re celebrating the farmers, professionals, and communities who make organic agriculture possible. The CCOF Foundation advances organic by supporting the people and communities who care for the land. We offer intentional education, financial support, and growth opportunities for organic professionals, assistance for transitioning farmland to organic, and financial relief for farms struck by natural disasters.
Here’s how your support of the CCOF Foundation creates lasting change:
Together, we can empower farmers to grow organic agriculture, which in turn creates a more prosperous, resilient world. Your donation to the CCOF Foundation ensures that organic farmers have the resources and support they need to grow organic.
With your help, we can continue to support the farmers who are making an impact in organic agriculture. By investing in organic farmers this Organic Month, you are supporting healthy soil, clean water, and thriving rural economies. Join us in building that future—farm by farm, community by community.
Donate today to help the CCOF Foundation keep building a world where sustainable and wholesome organic is not the alternative—but the everyday way we grow, eat, and live.
From scholarships to disaster relief, CCOF Foundation grants meet farmers exactly where they are. Get to know a few of the people your support has helped along the way:
Future Organic Farmers
(Yunuen Silva, CCOF Future Organic Farmers Grantee)Future Organic Farmers provides $5,000 scholarships to students and early career farmers for organic-focused studies in college or vocational programs. Since 2014, when the CCOF Foundation was formed, it has provided nearly $1.2 million to students working toward futures in organic agriculture.
With the CCOF Foundation’s Future Organic Farmers grant, Yunuen Silva has a clear vision for success: “The goal of Silva Family Farm is to use regenerative and rotational grazing methods…to increase our soil health and make an overall impact on the land. I will be involved with setting up the farm, from helping set up production systems to becoming our Director of Marketing and Communications.”
Silva enrolled in ALBA’s Farmer Education Course (a year-long, college-accredited program designed to help aspiring farmers gain the skills to start organic farm businesses), where she consistently ranked among the top students in the course.
She also co-founded a 501(c)3 organization called Ayudantes de la Tierra, which aims to lessen the struggles of migrant fieldwork by providing tools and aid to farmworkers and their families. “It is such a blessing that [my father and I] get to contribute to the organic sector as part of the 4% of Latinos with landownership throughout the entire United States,” she says. “This farm is generational wealth.”
Organic Transition
(Joanna Vargas, Organic Transition Grantee)The Organic Transition program provides three-year grants of $10,000 per year to farmers transitioning their land to organic production. Grantees receive multi-year funding, peer-to-peer support, and technical assistance with agronomy, business, financial literacy, marketing, and market development. Since its formation in 2014, the CCOF Foundation has provided more than $1.8 million to farmers transitioning land to organic.
As a third-generation farmer, Joanna Vargas’s roots run deep. Originating in Michoacán, Mexico, her family has cultivated farmland for decades. Driven by the desire to uphold and advance her family’s organic legacy, Vargas established Monarca Farms in Bakersfield, CA, where she produces livestock, pears, avocados, vegetables, and agave. She is inspired by her grandparents, from whom she learned traditional farming wisdom.
Vargas now seeks to transition all of her farm’s acreage to organic production, with the assistance of the CCOF Foundation’s Organic Transition grant. “By integrating traditional practices with modern techniques, I aim to honor my ancestors’ legacy while contributing to a healthier, more sustainable future,” Vargas says. “This grant enables me to further my knowledge and implement organic practices more effectively, ensuring that our family’s farming tradition thrives for generations to come.”
Hardship Assistance
The CCOF Foundation offers organic farmers and ranchers direct financial disaster assistance grants, ranging from $5,000 to $20,000, for hardship related to extreme weather or climate impacts. It has provided more than $5.4 million to organic producers facing hard times since its founding.
“We are so deeply grateful for this grant! It will be a key factor in our farm’s survival. Blessings to all of you who made this possible.”
- Patricia Rockwell, CCOF Grantee
“Our dairy means everything to us, and we vow to keep it going even in the hard times. The past few years have been hard, this last year especially so. The grant we were awarded…came at exactly the right time, giving us much needed relief.”
- Marissa Silva, CCOF Grantee
Your donation to the CCOF Foundation ensures that organic farmers have the resources, training, and financial support they need to grow and stay organic.
