2024 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit

Rodrigo Cala grew up in a farm family near Mexico City which grew broccoli and cauliflower. The family operated a vending booth at the Centro de Abastos in Mexico City, which is a huge wholesale market. He moved from Mexico to Minnesota in 1996.

After graduating from the Minnesota Food Association three-year training program for immigrant farmers near Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, Rodrigo and his brother purchased their own farm. The training included classroom sessions and three years of growing experience on the incubator farm.

At LEDC, Rodrigo is responsible for developing and delivering an agricultural training program for beginning Latino farmers. He provides the technical steps in raising a broad variety of vegetables to guide beginning farmers as they launch farm incubator cooperatives. He also delivers classroom training sessions to new group seven farm farmer cooperatives. In addition, Rodrigo provides on-site consulting to each group in the initial year of production ongoing support in succeeding years. He has also provided guidance to co-op members in the management of a cooperative organization in collaboration with LEDC.