Farm Equity Homepage
Farm Equity Office Background
The Farm Equity Office (FEO) was created in 2018 and it is within the Executive Office at the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The FEO focuses on implementation of the Farmer Equity Act. Beginning with the passage of AB 1348, the Farm Equity office has worked steadily across all of CDFA's programs and in partnership and collaboration with historically underserved producers, organizations and communities, to make steady progress towards achieving the agencies' goals of ensuring all Californian's have access to programs, benefit from programs and funding and have a voice in policies, regulations and programs that impact the most underserved agricultural communities statewide.
The CDFA acknowledges that the history of California's agricultural industry was shaped by discrimination and racism and remnants and iterations of that history persist. The Farmer Equity Act, passed in 2017, acknowledged this history and the need to change programs and policies that are still creating barriers for socially disadvantaged producers who would like to enter or stay in agriculture. CDFA, which has a mission to protect and promote California agriculture, has taken the tenets of this legislation and begun the long-term process of addressing systemic racism at the roots.
