Rafika Momin is an Economics major at the University of Minnesota, currently enrolled in HECUA's part-time Agriculture and Justice program. Rafika chose to add the optional internship component to this off-campus study program, and when the semester ends, she'll have completed more than 160 hours of work at local non-profit African Economic Development Solutions. Her work with AEDS has led her to powerful conclusions about the potential for economic development in immigrant farming communities. Read on for Rafika's take on how increased demand for communty-specific "specialty crops" could be a boon for immigrant farmers in Minnesota.
Since HECUA’s Agriculture and Justice program addresses themes of race, class, and gender, I framed my learning at African Economic Development Solutions around this. Looking (anecdotally) at demographics, women seem to participate in AEDS more then men, so far as I have observed. Female empowerment is vital since studies have proven that channeling financial resources to women leads to bigger impacts in a community. Overall, AEDS works mainly with the lower class folks who need help in kick-starting their sources of income. I find these immigrants extremely independent and courageous for being willing to start their own businesses.
I initiated research on diving deeper into immigrants’ potential in farming, and AEDS provided a great context for conducting this research. I’ve uncovered some fascinating facts about immigrants’ relationship with food systems.
Immigrants have a huge economic potential in the Twin Cities, and in fact make up 5.7% of the wealth generated in the Twin Cities, and have $1.4 billion in buying power.
Many African immigrants, primarily Somalis, live in more rural parts of the state where they’re employed by meat-processing plants. These firms have implemented a strategy that entails new immigrants relocating to rural areas, closing unionized plants, re-opening non-union plants and lowering wages to a level that attracts only immigrant workers. This is discriminatory on employers’ part and unfair on the workers’ part. There is an effort to limit flexibility in handling workers’ rights.
Many Hmong and Latino immigrants come from farming backgrounds and are excited to contribute their abilities to the Minnesota agriculture. On the other hand, many East African immigrants work with food processing manufacturers, but not in the primary means of production such as farming. Start-up costs are too high for immigrant families to enter the farming business. This has huge implications. The agriculture of the middle has been disappearing while large, corporate-connected commodity production and small-scale farmers markets have been increasing. Mid-level farms in agriculture are important because they’re the only kind that can support biodiversity on the fields while still maintaining a large output.
With approximately 20 percent of the jobs in Minnesota tied to agriculture, immigrant-owned farms have a growing presence in the state. In particular, immigrant farmers are more likely than native-born farmers to grow and sell specialty crops. This contributes to biodiversity and favorable ecological effects. With most of the world on the bandwagon of massively producing a monoculture of corn and soybeans commodity products, more crop diversity in any niche is essential for countering previously incurred damages.
Minnesota’s immigrants provide knowledge capital of diverse crops that cannot go unused. The University of Minnesota reported in 2011 that Hmong farmers in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul produced 23 specialty crops not included in the state crop table. As demand for such specialty items grows, there is a growing opportunity for immigrant entrepreneurs in farming. However, immigrants might have a demand for particular crops, but there’s a lack of capital and wealth that prevents immigrants from pursuing a new business. Possible solutions include either lowering start-up costs or providing means of producing wealth for immigrants, which is AEDS’ mission.
AEDS must recognize immigrants’ positions in agriculture in rural and urban areas. The next step would be to help immigrants start up in niche markets and eventually help them expand to maintaining bigger operations. The nonprofit could provide business and networking training that is specialized towards agricultural markets. Other strategies should include helping immigrants cope with language barriers such as creating and sharing farming publications that are not written in English. AEDS already helps immigrants increase their credit score and make them more recognizable by banks. The current structure of AEDS is a good starting point for creating wealth but could eventually expand to cater to sector–related services.