Jacklyn Polaco is a CCOF Future Organic Farmers Grantee.
Jacklyn Polaco began training with the beginner farmer training program GoFarm Hawaii in Waimānalo, Oahu in 2024 with support from the CCOF Foundation.
“Reconnecting to food and our role in nature as humans has been a source of passion and inspiration for almost 10 years of my life,” Polaco says. “I’m ecstatic to be realizing my dreams and working to start my own diversified, small-scale, organic vegetable farm to contribute to Hawai’i’s local food system—an urgent and deeply-rooted cause.”
Polaco is currently farming one-eighth of an acre while she builds her CSA clientele of families and restaurants in the community. Within the next three years, she hopes to apply her business and marketing experience to establish a farm business that will grow into a full-time career.
By 2027, she aspires to acquire a long-term lease to begin a natural growing system complete with an array of fruit and flower trees, vegetables, herbs, cut and lei flowers, and starter plants.
Polaco says, “This is possible with help from my partner, who is ready for a similar time and labor commitment to the farm; GoFarm Hawaii; and the CCOF Foundation.”
The CCOF Foundation’s Future Organic Farmer program provides $5,000 scholarships to students and professionals studying organic agriculture across the United States. Since we began granting Future Organic Farmers in 2014, the CCOF Foundation has granted more than $1 million dollars in educational scholarship funding to beginning organic farmers.
Applications for the Future Organic Farmers grant are open March 17 – April 18, 2025. Visit our website to learn more.
If you would like to contribute to the success of Future Organic Farmers grantees like Jacklyn Polaco, please reach out to the CCOF Foundation’s Donor Relations Manager Shawna Rodgers, srodgers@ccof.org to learn more.