How can Hispanic farmworkers become farm owners? For Mexican immigrant Javier Zamora, the sunup to sundown work ethic was already there—he just needed some support from his community.
Hispanic people make up the majority of US farmworkers, yet only 4% of farm owners are Hispanic.
Javier Zamora immigrated to the US from Mexico when he was a young man, worked in restaurants and bought a house for his family. When he lost the house and his job during the housing crisis, he decided to complete his high school education and go back to his farming roots. But at 43 years old, the prospect of owning his own farm seemed out of reach. With the support of his family, community and a farmer advocacy organization called ALBA, Zamora set out to defy the odds.
Follow Zamora’s journey and learn more about the Agriculture and Land-Based Training Association (ALBA), a nonprofit in California’s Salinas Valley that provides economic opportunities and training for limited-resource and aspiring organic farmers on a 100-acre farm.