As the Missouri Coordinator for the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE), Garcia tries to “keep the discussion on the table that Latino farmers (and other minority farmers) need to be more exposed to sustainable agriculture,” and he helps people better understand the need to reach out to those audiences. Garcia also serves on the steering committee for the National Immigrant Farming Initiative, a network of organizations across the country working with immigrant and refugee farmers (in Missouri that means Latino and Hmong workers).

Garcia has been conducting research on Latino farmers and their access to financial services, an extension project that became integrated with a research project.