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From Maine Soil, Opportunity Springs for Somali Refugees

Patty Wight

Finding meaningful work can be tough in today's job market. And finding it as a refugee with language and cultural barriers is even tougher. One Maine program is working to connect refugees to work that they already know: farming. And one farm in Lisbon has proved to be crucial training ground to help refugees become self-sufficient.

Nearly every day, Batula Ismail tends to her one-acre plot on the Packard-Littlefield Farm in Lisbon. Hers is at the end of a number of plots that stretch alongside the road. Ismail walks past a long row of onion greens that bolt toward the sun, then turns a corner to check on one of her prized vegetables - carrots. And she starts to weed.

Ismail used to grow carrots and other vegetables in Somalia. When she came to Maine eight years ago and found out there was a program to help her grow vegetables here, she was thrilled.

"Happy. I was so happy! I love it," she says. "Before, I did it."

"Love it because you did it before?" I ask.

"Yeah," she says.

Ismail farms a plot of land through the New American Sustainable Agriculture Program, or NASAP, which is part of the organization Cultivating Community. The goal, says Cultivating Community Farm Manager Sarah Marshall, is to teach refugees how to apply their existing farming skills in Maine.

"And it was an expressed need from the community," Marshall says. "So when people came into Lewiston, they were looking for farmland. Some of the farmers who graduated from the program last year came to Maine because there was farmland."
 

Credit Patty Wight
Hussein Muktar spreads the word about the Cultivating Community program to Somalis living in Maine.

That farmland is available because of one couple in Lisbon.

"I'm Ella Mae Packard. This is the farm where I grew up."

"And I'm Bob Packard, her husband."

The Packards retired to Ella Mae's family farm in 2004 and created an easement to preserve their 437 acres. Soon after, Bob says, NASAP made a proposition: "That we might be interested in leasing six acres for 12 refugees, and we said, 'Fine.'"

Now, there are 22 families who farm about 17 acres. Federal grants and private foundations cover the costs to lease the land. To get a plot, refugees take winter classes on farming and marketing. In the spring, they get a quarter acre, seeds, and shared tools.

They sell their produce directly to customers through farm shares and farmers markets, and also to food pantries. Each year after, the farmers invest more of their own money and work toward the goal of becoming independent.
 
"We graduated our first set of farmers last year," says Cultivating Community's Sarah Marshall. She says the graduates are still on Packard-Littlefield Farm, but run their own businesses. The program, she says, is empowering.

"If you're living in a space where there are lots of different agencies that take control of your life, when you can come out to a farm and you choose where the carrots go, you choose who's going to weed them, how they're going to be planted - that gives you some sort of confidence and power that you're able to then go back to your life and the city, and just feel a little bit lighter," Marhsall says.

"I grow beets, carrot, radishes, onion, potato, cabbage, lettuce, arugula, salad mix, mesclun and corn, so it's a lot," says Hussein Muktar. Muktar helped his parents farm in Somalia as a child, but honed his skills in Maine. He wants to have his own farm someday. As Outreach Coordinator for Cultivating Community, he says there is a huge need to expand the program for more refugees.

"They don't have a job, since they're sitting home, you know, it's good for them to be out with their children and teaching their children also growing food, because that is our future generation," Muktar says.

Farmers on the Packard Littlefield Farm got a recent visit from Methodist Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, who drove up from Massachusetts after hearing about the program, which he views as a sanctuary.

"Many times, people do not understand the challenges and the frustration and the pain the refugees are going through," Bishop Devadhar says.

Farmer Batula Ismail says she tried unsuccessfully to find a job as a housekeeper when she came to the U.S. Now, the single mother of nine works for herself, selling her vegetables at farmers' markets in Lewiston, Damariscotta, and Kennebunk. "Easy job. My favorite!" she says.

When she's tending to her farm, Ismail says she feels happy, and strong.