Somali Farmers Find a New Home in Maine
In the fertile soil of Maine, a community of Somali refugees builds a new life.
By Laura McCandlish on November 20, 2013
Photography by Amy Temple
When a persistent infection put farmer Batula Ismail in and out of the hospital this summer, her rows of carrots became consumed with weeds. In another town, her plot might have stayed that way. But Ismail farms collectively with more than a dozen recent Somali Bantu immigrants in Lewiston, Maine. And her colleagues put off their own needy fields to crouch down together and hand-weed until Ismail’s frilly carrot tops emerged that uncharacteristically wet June. As Ismail convalesced, her eldest daughter, a new mother herself, assumed daily farm tasks while Ismail’s eldest son delivered her CSA shares and manned her farmers’ market booths.
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/11/subsistence-sustenance-somali-refugees-farming-maine/
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this is great. Refugees producing rather than consuming.. Work and creating food for themselves and others is the best way of helping refugees.
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