Valeria Velazquez Duenas

Valeria Velazquez Duenas brings over 17 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, working with organizations that aim to increase access to fundamental human needs. She and her team run and develop the LA Food Policy Council’s Healthy Retail initiatives and Cultivating Farmers program which have collectively provided training for over 190 food retailers and urban growers. Just prior to joining the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, Valeria led efforts to increase access to fresh, locally grown foods through Food Access Los Angeles’ Market Match program. This included a coalition based effort which led to the LA County wide ARP funded Market Match expansion program. She also oversaw the launch and growth of the Seasoned Accelerator program for micro and small food enterprises. Additionally, she co-founded Across Our Kitchen Tables in 2017 to build systems of support for women working in food in Los Angeles. Her interest in food systems was sparked by witnessing manufactured scarcity and high food prices in Haiti while volunteering in 2011, along with her mother’s experiences growing up around her father’s farm, and her father’s experiences of urban poverty and lack of food. She received a BA in Communication Studies with a Minor in Political Science, and a Masters Degree in Social Entrepreneurship. She was born in Orange, California, to immigrant parents and has called the Southern California area home ever since.