Directed by the Council. Executed by the Staff.

NFU-O Regional Council members are responsible for setting the strategic direction and making high-level decisions about the organization. The NFU-O staff are tasked with implementing and executing the day-to-day operations of the organization.

Max Hansgen and Orlando Martin Lopez Gomez visit an urban farm in Toronto.

Our Staff

Krista Long with basket of seeds in her backyard.

Krista Long

Executive Director

Krista is a passionate advocate for farmland protection, ecologically viable farming practices, and local, equitable food systems. She has over 20 years experience in the not-for-profit sector with a variety of organizations including the Canadian Organic Growers, the Waterloo Region Food System Roundtable, and the Ontario Farmland Trust. She brings her experience in fundraising, policy, research, and program development to her role at the NFU-O.

Briana Vanular holding basket of young onions.

Briana Vanular

MEMBERSHIP and local support coordinator

Briana is an experienced farm worker and researcher with a Master’s degree in Environmental Assessment. She operates a small market garden in Sudbury, ON growing vegetables and flowers. Briana has previously worked with the NFU-O as the Land Access and Protection Coordinator, and is passionate about land access and farmland protection, the shift to environmentally considerate farming practices, supporting diversity in farming, and maintaining strong farming communities and localized food systems across the province. 

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Peachtree Boucaud

regional agridiversity Coordinator

Andrea Boucaud, "PEACHTREE," is an advocate for and supporter within the grassroots organizing and community development spaces. She has worked within the community development and arts spaces for over 20 years. Peachtree advocates for all things "GREEN," focusing on land re-connection, beekeeping/ bee supporting, seed saving, access to land, development of community gardens, farming, farmers markets, green employment, herbal medicines, resource supports for underrepresented peoples and all ways food and land intersect with equity and representation within Black communities. Peachtree is a mother, daughter, social justice advocate, an ancient soul, and an Indigenous African woman in the Diaspora, re-learning how to reconnect with the land and grow good food and medicines every day.

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Jessica Tong

Land Access coordinator

Jess (she/they) is a first-generation, young, queer farmer. She has familial roots in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Scarborough, ON. After studying agriculture, Jess worked on several farms throughout Ontario. Alongside her partner, she started and operated a small market-garden that sold at Farmers’ Markets, a Food Co-op and through a small CSA program. She has experience leasing land, growing via incubatorships as well as purchasing/stewarding (and losing) farmland. Jess comes into this work with the intention of building meaningful relationships with the land, nourishing community connections and uplifting intersectional food sovereignty movements. These intentions are grounded by the past and present work already being done by amazing communities beyond her.

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Krysta-Lee Woodcock

Outreach Coordinator

Krysta-Lee Woodcock is a civic-minded leader deeply passionate about fostering community engagement and sustainable food systems. As the Members Outreach Coordinator for the National Farmers Union, she brings experience in community organizing, municipal governance, farmland protection, and rural agricultural issues. Recently Krysta-Lee was growing vegetables at two urban gardens with Loving Spoonful in Kingston, providing vegetables for three pay-what-you-can markets a week.

Her dedication to community empowerment and environmental stewardship is evident through her advocacy for farmland protection, conservation, and climate action as a municipal councillor.

Krysta-Lee strives to strengthen relationships between NFU members and amplify their voices to build collective power for a more equitable and resilient food system.

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Camille Yu-San Koon

Outreach Coordinator

Camille Yu-San Koon (she/her) is a farm worker on diversified vegetable farms currently growing on unceded, unsurrendered Algonquin Anishnaabe territory, with a keen curiosity in growing Asian crops. She comes to the NFU-O work as a member, farm worker, and committed advocate for just food systems, and dignity for farmers and farmworkers. She brings a diversity of experiences having meandered through many corners of the country working in field biology, environmental programming, education and literacy, community organizing, and equity work, holding relationships at the core of all her work. In her role she is conducting research and compiling tools to support farmers financing their farms, and offering organizing support to locals in eastern Ontario. Outside of work, Camille spends time wandering, birding, enjoying food with friends, and playful art-making.

Lara's Lettuce

Lara Jerome

Outreach Coordinator

Lara has been an ecological farm worker for over 10 years in Perth County, Waterloo Region, and now in the GTA. She studied food security at both UWaterloo and TMU, using every research opportunity to support local food systems, food policy councils, and community food projects. Lara currently farms with friends at County Left Farm in Claremont, ON while working to secure a long-term farmland lease in Rouge National Urban Park to begin her own farm operation!

Our Regional Council

Max Hansgen in front of many potted plants.

Max Hansgen

NFU-O President & Region 3 Coordinator

president@nfuontario.ca

Max works with his wife Shelagh in their market garden called Earth’s Mirth just outside of Lanark Village in eastern Ontario. Earth’s Mirth grows vegetables to sell at the Almonte Farmers’ Market and for a food box program. His first paying job was harvesting and processing garlic on a large organic farm in the area. For two years after high school he worked as a paid intern/apprentice on a bio-dynamic farm. There he found a lifetime interest in sustainable farm practices by helping tend to pigs, goats, diverse vegetable crops, and by working with horses. For the past 15 years Max has worked at Kiwi Gardens where he currently manages production of ornamental perennials, maintenance of display gardens and retail sales at the nursery. Max has been selling Kiwi Gardens’ plants through farmers markets for many years.

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Len Van Hoffen

Vice President / DIRECTOR-at-Large

vp@nfuontario.ca

Len Van Hoffen is the Vineyard Manager at Southbrook Organic Vineyards, a pioneering 57- acre biodynamic, organic, and regenerative organic vineyard in Niagara-on-the-Lake. A lifelong horticulturist, Len has extensive experience growing a variety of crops, including nursery stock, greenhouse plants, athletic turf, and wine grapes. A graduate of Niagara College with a background in Horticulture, Viticulture, and Winemaking, Len combines traditional expertise with innovative sustainable practices. Since joining Southbrook in 2019, he has been dedicated to enhancing biodiversity, improving soil health, and implementing low-impact farming techniques to produce premium wine grapes while preserving the vineyard ecosystem. His initiatives include introducing a wildflower habitat to support beneficial insects, advancing cover cropping strategies, and increasing carbon sequestration through regenerative farming. In his free time, Len can be found in his vegetable garden, and camping with his wife Kelly.

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Sage Barker

youth advisor

youthadvisor@nfuontario.ca

Sage Barker is a first-generation farmer and land tender currently growing a diverse range of annual vegetables, perennial food crops, and native trees just outside Hamilton, ON. She has worked on organic farms in Ontario for the past six years and now runs a small nursery and seed collective committed to regeneration and biodiversity. Sage is passionate about land stewardship and ensuring food security for future generations.

Michael Watson

Michael Watson

National Board Member

nationalrep1@nfuontario.ca

Michael Watson is a University of Guelph Agricultural College graduate and 6th generation farmer who has worked with his wife Sukyi for the last 20 years in the York and Niagara regions. Since 2005, Michael has established farming operations including tender and small fruit, field and greenhouse vegetables, floriculture, and herb production. Michael has a focus on financially viable sustainable agriculture, adopting a pesticide-free strategy in 2015, and introducing biological controls to greenhouse operations in 2022. Michael and Sukyi faced the expropriation of their farm house in 2022, triggering a relocation back to Niagara-on-the-Lake, where they currently reside. The focus now is redeveloping a neglected nursery into a new farm model, coinciding with the 200th year of Watson family farming in Ontario. As a new member of Regional Council, Michael is interested in supporting first-generation farmers who don’t have the same family farming history or mentorships to rely on.

Claire Perttula - Region 3 National Board Member

Claire Perttula

National board Member

nationalrep2@nfuontario.ca

Claire Perttula (she/her) started farming in 2017. She loves growing potatoes and raising grass-fed beef. Right now, Claire is the Food Justice Projects Coordinator at Malvern Family Resource Centre in Scarborough, Ontario, where she manages Malvern Urban Farm and its accompanying farmers' market. Claire works with 40+ community members and a staff team of 3-6 depending on the time of year to cultivate 2 acres of public land with lots of diverse vegetables and a new 1200 cell hydroponic microfarm. Claire is also a PhD student at York University studying food systems planning and policy and the succession crisis.

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Amy Kitchen

Women’s Advisor

womensadvisor@nfuontario.ca

Amy is a first-generation farmer who, alongside her partner Patrick, runs Sideroad Farm in Grey County, Ontario. They grow certified organic vegetables, cut flowers, and raise pasture-raised pork and chicken and focus on direct marketing. Amy's farming journey began in 2009 in British Columbia, where she developed a deep passion for ecological agriculture while starting a farm with a couple of friends. Amy is passionate about building a resilient local food system and ensuring that future generations have access to opportunities in agriculture in our communities.

Orlando Martin Lopez Gomez in an apron.

Orlando Martín López Gómez

BIPOC Advisor

bipocadvisor@nfuontario.ca

Orlando oversees FoodShare’s food growing projects across the city – turning under utilized schoolyards, hydro corridors, and parks into vibrant and productive urban farms and community gardens. Orlando is passionate about food justice, and community leadership, and provides lots of resources and support for communities to design, implement, and run their own growing and composting projects. He is a trained agronomist with an incredible depth of knowledge in all aspects of growing food.

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Dave Kranenburg

Treasurer / DIRECTOR-at-Large

treasurer@nfuontario.ca

Dave (he/him) is a farmer, entrepreneur & sustainable food systems advocate .  On Kendal Hills Farm he looks after 70 acres of forest, orchard and pasture by cultivating specialty mushrooms and raising pastured poultry and pork.  In 2020  he founded the Green Circle Food Hub, publicly known as Graze & Gather, as a distribution and sales channel for food from 100+ small producers to reach thousands of customers across the GTA.  Previously he served as the Executive Director of Meal Exchange, a national food security charity, and as the Director of Programming for the Centre for Social Innovation, a nonprofit that provides coworking and programs for social purpose enterprises.  Dave was part of the inaugural 'Getting to Maybe' Social Innovation residency at the Banff Centre and has received the Queen's Diamond Jubilee award for his work on food security in Canada.

NFU Ontario Accredited Farm Organization Drawing Woman with Chickens - Flat Edge

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NFU Ontario Accredited Farm Organization Drawing Woman with Chickens - Flat Edge