Immigrant Farmers: Resources and Accessibility

There are over twenty established and developing immigrant farming projects in the U.S. that provide resources to farmers. Many of the organizations work together in such a manner that they are not recreating the wheel but creating total new initiates or improving existing ones. Individual programs or organizations can be found under umbrella organizations listed at the end of this article so be sure to check them out. In this article I focus on the NFDP program.

New Farmer Development Program
The New Farmer Development Program (NFDP) under the City Council on the Environment of New York City has been instrumental in helping farmers from Latin America (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay) get started. This program was created in 2000 as a partnership between Greenmarket and Cornell Cooperative Extension’s NYC Program and is based in New York City. As such it supports farmers within the city, Hudson Valley, the Catskill Regions, New Jersey and northeastern Pennsylvania. The USDA Risk Management Agency made a large sum of money available to train immigrant farmers in 2000. After the 9/11/2001 attack some people wondered aloud about the security of our major highways as it related to food transportation. If one or two of our major highways in the northeast was put out of commission our access to food would be severely impacted. Thus preserving local farmland and strengthening our regional food security is really important and now with the cost of oil an economic issue too.

La Nueva Siembra (“a New Season”) is the NFDP’s comprehensive spring training course consisting of twelve three-hour classes offered weekly from June through August. The course introduces participants to regional farming conditions, sustainable agricultural practices, local marketing opportunities, land, equipment, and federal and state agricultural support programs for new and socially disadvantaged farmers. In addition to La Nueva Siembra, the NFDP offers workshops each year at local farms where project participants gain hands-on technical experience on topics identified by the farmers themselves.

Over the past five years, NFDP have been able to focus their training curriculum on the topics that are most critical to new immigrant farmers, such as local production schedules and techniques, basic equipment and machinery for new farmers, integrated pest management and organic standards, and direct marketing standards.

When new participants graduate from La Nueva Siembra, training farms in the city and neighboring counties provide an intermediate step as they move toward independent farming. The NFDP also facilitates mentorship’s for project participants with established local farmers. A mentorship provides participants with an opportunity to partner with an experienced local farmer and benefit from their expertise. Once they are ready to start their own farm business, NFDP helps them identify appropriate farmland for lease or sale through their broad partner base, introduce them to local farmers markets, provide access to NFDP participant-managed microcredit funds, and offer intensive technical support.

Funding sources to support this effort come from the USDA Risk Management Agency, the USDA Cooperative State Research, Extension, and Education Service; Heifer International, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, J.M. Kaplan Foundation, Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation, and The City of New York

The NFDP has graduated 130 members since its inception and 17 individuals and their families have started their own farming businesses. These farmers come from countries such as Columbia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Mexico. Out of the 130 people that have graduated 30% have gone on to farm in some way on project training sites, established local farms with mentor farmers, or their own independent farms. The remaining 70% have gone on to work with community gardening organizations or have started their own gardens, while others have simply decided that farming or gardening was not the right decision for them.

Once farmers graduate and begin farming they tend to raise traditional ethnic produce in addition to the more usual fruits and vegetables. Mexican specialty crops such as papalo, pipicha, alache, epazote, huazontle, and squash blossoms are particularly popular with farmers and their customers. However, as these products are largely unfamiliar to most customers they won’t buy them in any kind of quantity, and thus farmers tend to only sell these products in neighborhoods with a large Mexican community.

Even though the farmers’ were taught basic book keeping and finance it is felt that very few of them actually keep records. For those that don’t, they learn very quickly through their own experience and the experience of other farmers what sells and what doesn’t. Also, as farmers build a steady and loyal clientele, customers will ask for specific products that they can’t find anywhere else.

For the immigrant farmers’ in this program only about 25% of them manage to make 100%of their income from farming and the rest hold down winter jobs. This is most likely because they have to rent land from other farmers. All the farmers own and operate their own, independent farm business, so they invest their own money, labor, and time into building that business. The NFDP simply provides access to information and resources, and serves as an advocate for the farmer when necessary. Since the inception of the program, one NFDP farmer has been able to purchase his land, and two more are hoping to do so in 2008.


Tello’s Green Farm
Walking around the village looking for somewhere not crowded to eat lunch I came up a Quartino, an organic and vegetarian restaurant on Bleecker Street that had a statement on the window menu that all their egg dishes where made from local eggs. This looked like a very promising sign of a good restaurant so I walked in and indeed I was not disappointed. I asked the waitress where the eggs came from and she said Tello’s green Farm, another plus for the resturant; the staff knew the sources of the produce. After lunch, I procedured to Greenmarket to interview folks for this piece and low and behold there was Tello’s farm stand at the market.

Nestor Tello was part of the first batch of farmers to graduate from the program in 2001. In Columbia he had worked with relatives on farms before he decided to become a veterinarian. Then in 1992 he moved to Brooklyn, NY. In 2000 he had the good fortune to read about the NFDP farming program in a Spanish-language newspaper El Diario and applied.

Nestor and Alejandra started off with 400 hens on land that was several hours away from where they lived in Brooklyn. So each day they had to travel from their home in Brooklyn to the farm where they were trying to get established and juggle full-time jobs. By the second year however, they were able to move to a closer farm site in the Hudson Valley and quit their jobs and take on farming full-time. Nestor rents his land but does have an advantage of a long term agreement with his landlord. In 2002, their chicken coop collapsed under the weight of heavy winter snows and they lost everything. They were devastated after so much hard work and things looked very bleak. However, the NFDP had been working with its participants to create a small loan program for its farmers based on the Heifer “Passing on the Gift” model. The Tellos’ received a “loan” of 2,000 laying hens.

Today they have 4,000 which are raised on 5-acres of land with another two acres reserved for growing vegetables. The hens are raised the way nature intended; on pasture. Every noontime they are let out of their chicken house until dusk and peck around eating grass and whatever else they can find on the ground along with corn. When I met Nestor at the Union Sq. market he told me that, “When I have my hens free, I don’t need to give them extra vitamins, antibiotics or hormones because they already have that support naturally.” Most of Nestor’s flock is Rhode Island Reds with some Araucana which are very popular because of their blue egg shells. He manages his farm with his wife and two Central American workers.

Making the connections
Connections were initially made when Nestor met chefs who were coming to the farmers markets (especially Union Square) to buy produce for their restaurants. He got started with a few chefs this way. Then, as chefs or other restaurant staff members moved to new restaurants or started their own restaurants, he maintained the connection and was able to develop new buyers through his old relationships. .

Resources
USDA Risk Management Agency –
rma.usda.gov/aboutrma/agreements/
USDA Cooperative State Research, Extension, and Education Service; - csrees.usda.gov/fo/funding.cfm
Heifer International –
heifer.org/site/c.ededJRKQNiFiG/b.485969
Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation –
noyes.org
J.M. Kaplan Foundation –
jmkfund.org

Louis and Anne Abrons Foundation,
The City of New York