Farmer Conservation Leader Subawardee Resources

Mackenize Martinez is a native of the southeastern United States and currently resides on her tribe’s ancestral lands in rural northwest Louisiana. Over the span of her professional career, Mackenize has held the roles of student, advocate, intern, and young professional in both the nonprofit sector and the federal government. Mackenize is passionate about positive and progressive societal change driven by collective agriculture, food sovereignty, and racial equity advocacy.

Mackenize currently serves as the Southeastern Region Technical Assistance Specialist for the Intertribal Agriculture Council, which over the last three decades, has become recognized as the most respected voice within the Native American community and government circles on agricultural policies and programs in Indian country. In her role, Mackenize provides direct assistance to Native American producers with USDA program access and works to leverage partnerships, support project development, government-to-government relations, and focus on resource identification to meet individual producer and tribal community priorities related to agriculture, land management, and community development.

Brennan Washington is a farmer and co-owner of Phoenix Gardens along with his wife, Gwendolyn. Phoenix Gardens is a small, diversified farm that grows produce and raises laying hens and broiler chickens. He is a graduate of the Southern University Small Farm Agricultural Leadership Institute and the University of Georgia’s Advancing Georgia Leaders in Agriculture leadership program.

Brennan has served as a board member of Southern SARE, the sustainable research and education arm of the USDA, Georgia Organics, and the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (SSAWG) and is the founder and former board chair of the Georgia Farmers Market Association and has recently been selected as a fellow in the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). He regularly serves as a grant reviewer for several agricultural grant programs reviewing some $20-$50 million in grants annually.

Mr. Washington had a long career in information technology management prior to starting his farming career.

Pakou Hang is the daughter of Hmong American farmers and has spent the last 36 years growing and selling mixed vegetables with her family at the Saint Paul Farmers Market in Minnesota. She was a founding member, and the inaugural Executive Director of the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA), a statewide nonprofit that builds the capacity and intergenerational wealth of Hmong farmers in the state. While at HAFA, she helped secure long-term access to a 155-acre farm; launched a food hub; started a microlending program that included a matched savings account component for farmers; and developed a bi-lingual and bi-cultural beginning farmer training curriculum.

Pakou also served on the Minnesota Good Food Access Advisory Committee, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency Citizens’ Board, and the Minneapolis Food Council. She has reviewed grants and served as an advisor for multiple federal programs including the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development (BFRD) Program and the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentive (FINI) Program and helped design and launch the Growing Justice Fund, a pooled fund committed to supporting farmers of color and making the current food system more equitable.

Pakou received her master’s degree in political science from the University of Minnesota and her bachelor’s degree from Yale University where she concentrated her studies on revolutions in Latin America. Her expertise includes program design and budget management, conducting community centered research and evaluation, and designing train the trainer curriculum.

Felicia Bell has worked as a Sustainable Agriculture Specialist at the National Center for Appropriate Technology Gulf States regional office in Jackson, Mississippi since 2013. Bell, a fourth-generation farmer and founding member of RD&S Farm, LLC, is fascinated by traditional agriculture strategies of all cultures, especially African farming methods and techniques. She was born into agriculture, and what most people today would refer to as homesteading. Her family sustained themselves from the land with food and by-products.

Bell’s deep-rooted values in helping others as a producer have been the driving force in her assisting communities. Over many years, she has learned several appropriate technologies (i.e., methods and practices) to assist small-scale producers with resourceful and inexpensive solutions to lessen cost burdens and increase the viability of farm enterprises. These experiences have warranted Bell rewarding opportunities through sustainable agriculture project development, Board of Directors’ assignments, and contractual agreements. Bell believes that everyone deserves the right to access healthy foods, and with the collective effort of small sustainable farmers across the country, this can become a reality.