Abel Ruiz

Abel Ruiz is the Project Director and co-founder of CRECE Urban Farms. Abel's connection and passion for agriculture was cultivated early in his life in his home community of Tlachichila, Zacatecas (Mex.) where his family cultivated the land as a form of subsistence; growing predominantly Corn, Beans, and Squash. In 1996, Abel's family migrated to Santa Ana and it wasn't until 2013 that Abel found himself re-connecting with like minded community members when he started getting involved in the urban agriculture movement. Since then, Abel has contributed to various projects and organizations— coordinating a youth composting program, providing technical support to new and emerging farmers, developing community governance processes, and more— all of which have informed the creation of CRECE Urban Farms. Abel envisions neighborhoods organized around food and land and is proud to contribute to building this community self-governance movement by fighting the bad, by building the new.