In the mountains of Laos, the soil is rich enough to grow vegetables without adding fertilizer,

In Minnesota, Vang and other Hmong immigrants have discovered vegetables won’t grow without a little help. Many have experimented with fertilizers. But without prior experience with chemicals or being able to read the English language labels, using the inputs has risks.

“I know a lot of immigrants don’t know how to use chemicals and they will harm themselves and the environment,” he warns, without proper instruction.

Vang came to Minnesota in 1994 and immediately started subsistence farming on a half acre parcels rented from other Hmong families who, in turn, were renting from established Caucasian farmers. Not owning land made for a transient lifestyle and the Yangs found themselves farming on a new patch of land each season. It was an education for Vang, who taught himself in those years how to farm in northern climes.

Now he’s spreading his knowledge to other immigrants. As director of the University of Minnesota’s New Immigrant Farmer Program, Vang helps the Hmong and newcomers from Africa, Asia and Latin America transfer their farming skills to their new home in Minnesota.

Vang teaches a variety of topics related to vegetable production, including business planning, finding land, getting a loan, applying chemical inputs and using organic compost and natural pest control methods. Students enroll in the program for a three-year period, during which they are invited to rent land from the university at a reduced annual rate of $240 per acre.

Helping other immigrants to farm is a natural to Vang. As a speaker of four languages, he has a certain cultural versatility enabling him to conduit between people new to Minnesota and the established institutions they need access to in order to succeed. Furthermore, he has been farming all his life, even now on weekends and evenings, and has no intention of leaving a life on the land.

Vang’s family lives in St. Paul, but in 2003 Vang, his brother Ninzong and sister Youa bought 116 acres of flat farmland 45 minutes south of the city.

A creek cuts through the northeast corner of their land, providing a place to wash produce boxes and fill jugs with water for cut flowers. The private watering hole, sheltered beneath a buffer of cottonwood trees and tall grasses, also proves a fabulous spot to play, swim and build campfires. On summer nights, the Yang’s camp out on their land in a small wooden shed with a tin roof. They raise red and black chickens for their own consumption and to slaughter for good luck at weddings and births.

Vang’s and Ninzong’s families grow peas, peanuts, tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, watermelon, corn, pumpkins, squash, green beans, beets, sunflowers and several other varieties of flowers and vegetables. They are experimenting this year for the first time with growing rice. If it flourishes, they will sell the grain at the farmers’ market to Asian customers looking for fresher, more aromatic and nutritious rice.

The Yang farm is not certified organic, but they don’t apply pesticides and use chemical fertilizer only for the flowers.

“I like to keep people safe, that’s why I use organic [methods],” Ninzong stated. Both families sell at a couple St. Paul metro area farmers’ markets several days a week. After a few years of producing for the market, they have settled on a crop selection matching the products their culturally diverse clientele of Hmong, African American and white customers seek.

Vang and Va’s 15-year-old daughter handles one stand while Va and her younger children run another. All the Yang children help with everything from harvesting to selling, and earn as much as $3,000 a year from their parents. While Vang and Ninzong both graduated from Minnesota colleges, members of the younger generation vow they will surpass their parents by getting doctorate degrees.

Vang doesn’t expect his kids to keep farming into adulthood, but it’s important to him and Va that their children grow up on the land. Vang relishes the time his family spends together and the skills and values his kids learn through farming. And his satisfaction from carrying out the traditions of his people only makes the humanitarian anxious to help other Hmong refugees realize the same opportunity.

That’s why, in anticipation of the university’s plan to end the New Immigrant Farmer Program because of a funding shortfall, Vang has written a grant to turn his own land into a demonstration farm for up to 200 new immigrant farmers. He would continue teaching students in the ways of making it as a Minnesota farmer, and would rent out parcels to aspiring immigrant farmers.

As for making personal dreams come true, the brothers purchased 369 acres in rural Georgia where a third brother now lives. The purchase was partly a financial investment, and also Step One in a long-term plan to make the South their home one day. The Yangs see themselves easing into their retirement years tending fruit trees in a warm lush climate akin to land where they were born.

Key Resources:

• U.S. Department of Agriculture
• Minnesota Department of Agriculture
• University of Minnesota Extension Service