Time, Money Run Out for Refugee Farm Project : Producing More Pride Than Profit

An experimental farm designed to teach Southeast Asian refugees American farming self-sufficiency has failed to reach its economic goals, but the refugees and directors of the experiment say that--more important than profits--the program has produced a bumper crop of pride.

“My biggest satisfaction is that my people are willing to work as long as they have to to get the order filled,” said Xang Vang, a former lieutenant in the Laotian military who now serves as manager and co-administrator of the Hmong Farming Cooperative.

“They are willing to work even though they get less money than they received from public assistance,” he said. “They have in their heart that being self-supportive is much better, and they have more dignity and honor than to just go to the public welfare department every month.”

Adapting to American society has been especially difficult for Hmongs, members of a preliterate culture who grew up practicing slash-and-burn farming on hilltops, attributing disease to evil spirits and relying on the stories of their parents and grandparents for their education.

Hmongs were recruited as American allies during the secret war in Laos in the early 1970s and worked for the U.S. government by rescuing American pilots and sabotaging Communist war supplies.

California, Minnesota

Since the war, more than 50,000 have fled to the United States. About 10,000 have settled in St. Paul and Minneapolis, making Minnesota second only to California in Hmong population.

More than 60% of Minnesota’s Hmong are on welfare this year, compared to 6% for all people statewide.

The University of Minnesota’s Agricultural Extension Service started the Minnesota Agricultural Enterprise for New Americans in 1982. The premise was that the refugees could better earn a living by running their own farm than by working in factories or businesses, where their inability to understand English would be a bigger obstacle.

At the co-op, situated 20 miles south of St. Paul, refugees are trained on 80 acres of rented land. In addition, they receive instruction at the university campus in English and math skills, crop science, farm machinery and marketing.

At the end of the 18-month training program, families decide whether to continue as co-op members, making their living growing such vegetables as cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.

Of the 26 families who graduated from the training program last spring, eight have joined the co-op. About half are back on welfare and the others are farming on their own or working at part-time jobs.

Now, however, the university is ending its involvement with the program a year earlier than originally planned. The federal government’s Office of Refugee Resettlement, after investing $420,000 through May, has decided not to fund the program for a fourth year, and the university is having problems expanding its own $53,000 investment.

About $378,000 came from grants from the McKnight Foundation, St. Paul Companies, Bigelow Foundation, Land O’Lakes and other foundations.

Ambitious Goal Set

“The ultimate goal was a very ambitious one,” program director Roger Sitkin said as he watched a group of refugees clean and box tomatoes for delivery to area supermarkets. “It was to get 80 families off of welfare and involved in cooperative farming of 500 acres. It was also hoped that the project could demonstrate the viability of fresh vegetable production as an alternative to basic crop production in Minnesota.

“Thirdly, and probably most importantly, it was hoped that the project would help assimilate the refugees into a very different culture.

“As far as helping the refugees become more comfortable in Minnesota, it’s been a 100% success. Their language skills have improved tremendously, their comfort in the culture has improved a lot and they’ve had a chance to feel productive. And, in the process, we’ve generated nearly $400,000 worth of produce.”

Unfortunately, that is still less than half the amount that project directors had envisioned. The planned 500 acres shrunk to 160 acres last year and 80 acres this year.

Sitkin said that organizers had failed to recognize the problem of marketing the produce. Although the refugees have had little trouble learning to produce quality vegetables, he said, finding buyers has been more difficult.

Competing With California

“We expected that there would be more flexibility among buyers to shift from a shipped-in product to a locally produced product,” Sitkin said. “When you ask buyers if they’d be willing to buy more Minnesota-grown products, they’ll all say yes. But, when it comes right down to it, it may be a different story. They can buy their products from California or Florida almost year-round and, traditionally, products from California are more uniform and dependable.”

Because the cooperative is government-subsidized, Sitkin said, directors believed it would be unfair competition to undercut the prices of independent growers. That means buyers have little incentive to switch from growers they have dealt with for years to a group with no established reputation.

As a result, many refugees have been earning less than they would have received on welfare. Sitkin and Vang said that each family is taking in about $600 a month from the goods the co-op sells, compared to an average public assistance payment of $1,000 a month.

University Pulling Out

With the university preparing to pull out of the project, the co-op’s future is uncertain. Sitkin said that the refugees may have to hire a private consultant or seek volunteer help to find buyers for their produce.

Although that will not be easy, Sitkin said, he believes the co-op can survive, if only on a part-time basis.