Director of Farm Initiatives and Communications
nikki@persimmoncollective.org

Nikki Pressley is a grower, designer and creator based in the North Carolina Piedmont region. She has been growing food over the past 10 years and stewarding land in North Carolina for the past 4 years. Nikki has nurtured her commitment to supporting and connecting to small farmers, particularly farmers of color, through her own farming project, working in communities of farmers and more recently working at farm-focused non-profits. Nikki runs a small farm located north of Durham near Hurdle Mills. She is also a seasoned designer and has served in various Communications roles for a number of for- and non-profit organizations. Nikki spends her down time being a mama , a partner, cooking, hiking and wandering outside.

Director of Operations & Farmer Relations
laketa@persimmoncollective.org

Laketa Smith is an agricultural social worker rooted in southwest Georgia and living in eastern North Carolina. Her work of the last several years has been connecting farmers of color in the southeast region of the US to communities, markets, public & private resources, and to each other - while uplifting southern agrarian culture and ancestral contributions to agriculture. Because farming is so deeply contextual, Laketa’s work seeks to fortify the physio-psycho-social well being of farmers and land stewards, in addition to bolstering their economic success. Prior to working in the agricultural sector, Laketa worked in city government organizing stakeholder groups to advance fair housing, and later in benefits administration with the US’s largest healthcare workers labor-management fund. Laketa spends a big chunk of her time in her backyard vegetable, herb, & perennial flower garden and striving to become one of those people who dance beautifully on quad roller skates.

Director of Farm and Land Initiatives
tahz@persimmoncollective.org

Tahz Rufus Walker lives in Durham, NC. He spent the last 20 years managing and supporting land projects across the southeast, working on small diversified organic farms, food co-op's, and community-based urban and rural food projects in North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. Tahz is co-founder of Earthseed Land Collective, a people of color led 48-acre farm/land base in Durham County that hopes to be a model for reimagining land conservation and community resilience through cooperative ownership of land and resources. Tahz also co-manages Tierra Negra Farm with his partner Cristina Rivera Chapman that helps to facilitate a community food sovereignty strategy called Farmshare. Tahz also is the co-founder of the Persimmon Collective Fund, which is a farmer directed mutual aid fund that works with BIPOC farmers across North and South Carolina, Southern VA, and the Central Savannah River Area in Georgia. He also plays banjo, drums, and is the proud papa of two amazing kiddos, Amaru and Kala.