On a rainy, windy Sunday morning in late June, a group of more than 30 volunteers dug into the soil of 30 acres in Medina.
The group was from Farm Buds, which organizes volunteers to help farmers across Minnesota and Wisconsin. They tackle tasks such as weeding, planting and preparing for the harvest. On this weekend, they were supporting four farming sisters originally from Kenya.
Margaret Momanyi, Jane Onchiri, Pamella Onyambu and Callin Bosire were born into a farming tradition that shaped every aspect of their lives growing up in Kenya. Momanyi was the first of the four to arrive in the United States in the year 2000; her sisters followed. All of the siblings have now been together here for more than 15 years, Momanyi says.
“Our parents were farmers and that’s how we grew up,” said Momanyi, who goes by the nickname Maggie. She recalls waking up while young and working on the farm before breakfast and school. And once classes were over, heading back out to the fields before homework and sleep.
“I came to realize that farming is the thing to do … I enjoy growing food,” said Onyambu, the youngest sister.
The sisters run the farm on their own full-time. Their husbands and children support them in addition to their day jobs.
They began renting the Medina farm last year, operating it through the Emerging Women Immigrant Farmers (EWIF) cooperative they formed.
The sisters have been connected to the Farm Buds group for about three years, they say they wish more farmers knew about them and the help they offer.
“People leaving their work, coming out to help and in large numbers to volunteer — it is awesome and [we are] grateful, especially for us when labor is really a problem right now. I really appreciate what they are doing. I won’t stop raving about them,” Momanyi said.
Funding cuts and rising costs
Twin Cities residents may not know EWIF by name, but those who have been to the Kingfield Farmer’s Market, may have come across the sisters’ booth called Lisaviole. They sell an assortment of vegetables, including collard greens, potatoes, radishes, spinach, kale, purple cabbage, green peppers, tomatoes, kohlrabi, eggplant, lettuce, onions, cucumbers and cowpeas.
Their produce can also be found in the Minneapolis Public Schools, Hutchinson School District, North Point Health and Wellness, and food hubs like Second Harvest.
Customers have had to scale back due to funding cuts from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the federal government, Momanyi said. Dwindling buyers has left a surplus of food, an unexpected problem.
“We have a lot of food but we don’t know where to take it,” Momanyi says.
It pains the sisters to see their vegetables go to waste. Over the past few months they have shared excess foods with partners they currently contract with and local Kenyan churches.
Andrea Vaubel, deputy commissioner at MDA says that local food funding has been strained over the past few years in large part due to funding cuts that have taken place under the Trump administration.
The Biden administration’s Local Food Purchasing Assistance Program (LFPA) worked with local producers to build relationships and infrastructure within area food shelves, Vaubel said. While another market for producers, it also fed hungry neighbors in the community.
The LFPA grant funding was cut at the beginning of the Trump administration.
“Which was devastating for what we had built, what we were planning to do and what we knew we could further accomplish with those dollars,” Vaubel said. “LFPA programming took a really big hit and has had reverberations across the whole food system within the state.”
MDA was able to secure funding at the Legislature to provide a similar program called the Farm to Food Security Program. Though it is a fraction of what LFPA provided, the state is trying to keep afloat the sustainability of the local food ecosystem. MDA will soon announce the program’s first round of recipients for aid, Vaubel said.
The sisters report they have lost nearly two-thirds of the contracts they had last year. They don’t anticipate the landscape for farm-to-table produce will significantly improve in the year ahead, so they’ll plan accordingly and downsize their efforts.
The challenges farmers face are steep in nearly every aspect of their work, said Matt Barthelemy, the founder of Farm Buds and a Whittier neighborhood resident. The aim of the volunteer-led group is to connect local farmers with the support they need and disrupt feelings of isolation.
“We usually work with folks that are under-resourced. They don’t have generational wealth a lot of times. They [may] have to rent from some place that they’re not familiar with,” Barthelemy said. “They don’t know the neighbors, they don’t look like their neighbors, their neighbors aren’t familiar with folks who don’t look like them.”
Last year, the sisters had the support of three to four contracted employees to maintain the farm, but due to lingering fears from Operation Metro Surge and the heavy presence of Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) agents, the labor force for the farm has decreased. Tasks like managing weeds have become increasingly difficult for the sisters to do on their own.
“Last year we had people coming out to help us, but now they say ‘I can’t come out because I’m scared of ICE,’” Momanyi said.
Dreams of ownership
The sisters rent their farm. They hope to someday own one. The costs have not made it easy.
Farmers like the four sisters are critical to our local food ecosystem, said Sean Hurdle, a Farm Buds board member who recently bought some land with the nonprofit’s help.
“I really want to hit home how fragile the food system is and that’s why Farm Buds is trying to engage more people,” Hurdle says.
One of EWIF’s customers is Myriel, a French, Swedish, and American farm-to-table restaurant in St. Paul. Chef Kazu Kim recently visited the sisters’ farm to learn more about the origins of the vegetables he cooks with.
“I’ve been privileged to be able to work with some really good food, and I want to make sure that I can fully appreciate every part of the food system that I work with,” Kim said.
Positive feedback from those that receive EWIF’s vegetables fuels the sisters’ love of farming.
“There’s nothing like [it,]” Momanyi said. “I’ve made somebody happy. A family is going to have food tonight — that’s really fulfilling.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify the organizational structure of Farm Buds, a volunteer-led community group.
