A Stellar Partnership: Kitchen Table Advisors
Kitchen Table Advisors 2021 Cohort
Photos taken by Jacque Rupp
“Sustainable land management and generational farmers go hand in hand with the wisdom they bring. KTA works to uplift who they are fundamentally and wholeheartedly.”
-Gianna Banducci, KTA Staff
There is more to sustainable farming than working the land:
You may have heard the term “ Sustainable Farming,” but what does that exactly mean? Sustainable Agriculture, or farming, refers to the practices that promote stewardship of natural resources, economic viability of farms, and quality of life for farmers and society as a whole. When Mike Thorp and his two sons, Sam and Nick, embarked on a journey to start a farm in Santa Clara County, they wanted to make a notable change in the way their farm operates. Mike, with decades of agricultural experience led productions while Sam and Nick developed a sustainable business model. Five years of steady business growth, Spade & Plow is now tackling one of the unseen business struggles of owning a growing business: organizing finances across all sales channels. That is where Kitchen Table Advisors (KTA) comes in. They’re an organization that assists in advancing the economic viability of small farms.
Who is KTA?
According to the USDA, 50% of small farms do not survive beyond their first five years. With a 50/50 chance of survival, new entrants in the agricultural realm are dwindling. The impetus to start an organization that helps local farmers and their businesses originated from KTA founding group's recognition of a trend around farms disappearing from markets. KTA's desire to build a stronger ecosystem around farmers is the DNA of the organization.
Kitchen Table Advisors was founded in 2013 with a meaningful mission to aid in the prosperity of farmers and ranchers through professional guidance. The founding staff behind the organization heard that smaller-scale farmers were struggling to maintain their financial stability. While organizations that focused on land access existed, there was a greater need for other business aspects such as accounting, legal, marketing, and sales. Today, Kitchen Table Advisors work to support farmers, ranchers, minority-owned businesses, and women-owned businesses that use regenerative agriculture practices and strive to lead social and environmental change within the food system. By making their voices heard and centering their leadership, KTA actively listens to what farmers truly need. The KTA cohort is concerned with investing in businesses through a compassionate lens, one that takes the humans running those businesses in to account. All with dynamic, unique, and faceted paths & trajectories. The resources funneled to small farm businesses is significant, in order to ensure that business is driven forward to positively shape our local food system.
Farmer Nick selling Spade & Plow’s bounty to the people of Santa Clara County!
Spade & Plow becomes a KTA client:
Kitchen Table Advisors came up in a handful of conversations with fellow vendors over the years at the farmers markets. Our friends at Oya Organics and Happy Acre Farms both spoke highly of KTA’s mentorship, their personable and resourceful nature, and the improvements and shifts that they had made to their businesses under KTA’s guidance. Eventually, we crossed paths with KTA director, Anthony Chang, at the Mountain View Farmers Market. Over time, simple “Hellos” and “Good mornings” became shared tidbits and offerings here and there. We began to develop a truer understanding of just how valuable KTA’s work is, and we wanted in!
Spade & Plow applied in 2019 for the 2020 cohort. Though we weren’t accepted, it gave fuel to the fire to try again the next year! Looking back, it was kind of meant to be. As with many farms, the quickly-changing landscape of the global pandemic and shelter-in-place orders left our CSA program overflowing with sign-ups. This was both exhilarating and frightening. We were left with a burning question: “How can we support our community at our current capacity?” The truth was, we needed to grow from a small farm to a medium-sized one (nearly) overnight for this to all be feasible. And finding organic farmland takes time.
The silver lining: acceptance to the 2021 cohort came at the perfect time, as we need their guidance now, more than ever. We saw so much growth this past year with our CSA membership. A gift, no doubt. But it left us with a lot of learning and level-setting to do, very quickly. With just a few short months together under our belts, we have already begun to see the value in KTA’s guidance, through our improved record-keeping systems and streamlining operations so that they may become more efficient and structured over time.
The organization and maintenance of business finances is an important process that requires many decisions along the way. Kitchen Table Advisors specializes in business finance and operational management within the agricultural industry. The need to cultivate the land in a timely manner is just as important as keeping track of how we’re going about spending to get those crops to your table. While we have worked to structure our finances, we would not be able to make business progress or important business decisions without the support of Kitchen Table Advisors. They have a genuine outsiders’ perspective that highlights the needs of our business without pressing our small-ish farm. We are grateful that we have the opportunity to be involved in the 2021 cohort, and we can not express how amazing it is to connect with other farmers and small business owners in California.
A Call to Action!
Are you interested in learning more or becoming a part of the dream team that Kitchen Table Advisors has built?
If so, visit KTA’s Get Involved Page to connect with the important people who help keep us fed.