When the uprooted put down roots

Among the regular customers at the New Roots farm stand are Congolese women in flowing dresses,Somali Muslims in headscarves,Latino men wearing broad-brimmed hats and Burundian mothers in brightly patterned textiles.

New Roots,with 85 growers from 12 countries,is one of more than 50 community farms dedicated to refugee agriculture,an entrepreneurial movement spreading across the country. American agriculture has historically been forged by newcomers,like the Scandinavians who helped settle the Great Plains; today’s growers are more likely to be rural subsistence farmers from Africa and Asia.

Programmes like New Roots,which provide training in soil,irrigation techniques and climate,“help refugees make the leap from community gardens to independent farms,” said Hugh Joseph,an assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition at Tufts,which advises 28 “incubator” farms representing hundreds of small-scale producers.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement in Washington formed a sustainable farming programme in 1998,financing 14 refugee farms and gardens,including one in Boise,Idaho,where sub-Saharan African farmers have gradually learned to cope with unpredictable frosts.

Larry Laverentz,the programme manager for refugee agriculture with the Office of Refugee Resettlement,said inspiration came from the Hmong,Mien and Lao refugee farmers of Fresno County,Calif.,who settled in the late 1970s and now have 1,300 growers specializing in Asian crops.

These small plots of land can become significant sources of income for refugees,with most farmers able to earn from $5,000 to more than $50,000 annually,as the Liberian refugees James and Jawn Golo do on their 20-acre organic farm outside Phoenix,including sales to five farmers’ markets,restaurants and chefs.

New Roots in City Heights is a model for today’s micro-enterprise. It was started at the request of his Somali Bantu community,said Bilali Muya,the effervescent trainer-in-chief. “The people were put in apartments,missing activity,community. They were bored.”

They were also homesick for traditional food. In City Heights,one can hear 15 different languages there,amid the neat rows of kale,rape and banana plants — but body language is the lingua franca.

“If I see a weed,I pull it,shaking my head,” said Musame,the Somali farmer. “We understand each other.”

From 1980 through 1990,the population almost doubled with immigrants and refugees (most recently from Iraq). The changing demographics of the neighborhood resemble an electrocardiogram of international conflict.

But the exquisite fruits and vegetables for sale,lovingly grown,belie the life experiences of the growers. Salie,the Liberian,was raped by rebels and hid for two years in the bush after reporting the crime,she said. And Muya said Somalis had taken his father and tortured him. Many hours later, Muya said,the villagers were told: “Come pick up your dogs.”

“As a Somali Bantu,you don’t go to sleep really deep,” Muya continued. “You sleep awake.”

The country’s pioneering refugee farm programme,in Lowell,Mass.,was founded by Tufts University and continues to thrive.

Visoth Kim,a Khmer refugee from Cambodia,now 63,farms land in Dracut,Mass.,owned by the widow of John Ogonowski,the pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. Kim,who witnessed mass starvation in Cambodia,losing a brother,refers to his two-acre plot as “my plenty.” His fellow farmer Sinikiwe Makarutsa grew up in Zimbabwe and now grows maize on land rented.

Makarutsa was inspired to farm,she said,after tasting supermarket tomatoes. She uses the Zimbabwean phrase “Pamuzinda” to describe her seven-acre plot.

Roughly translated,she said,“It means ‘where you belong’.”