At a half-acre community garden in New Hope, Sudanese families share authentic meals every Sunday, made with vegetables they spent months cultivating together including okra, purslane (an edible succulent) and molokhia (a leafy green).
Khalid Elhassan said he was inspired to start the Sudanese Farming Group — which also runs a 6.5-acre farm in Northfield where they raise sheep — after hearing an MPR interview with the head of a Somali farmers group in 2021.
“Back then, I didn’t know there were other Black, immigrant farmers here,” Elhassan said.
He reached out to The Food Group, which helped his group find and rent land, source rare seeds and develop technical knowledge.
Executive Director Sophia Lenarz-Coy said The Food Group’s targeted programming is meant to level the playing field by providing better access to farming resources.
“We believe that anybody who wants to farm should be able to,” she said.
But a recent federal change could jeopardize the future of Elhassan’s farm and others like it.
‘A shock in the community’
As of July 10, the U.S. Department of Agriculture no longer acknowledges the “socially disadvantaged farmer” designation. Farmers who have been historically disadvantaged based on race or gender will no longer be eligible for specific USDA benefits and grants. The announcement did not specify which awards will be cancelled.
The USDA stated “past discrimination has been sufficiently addressed.”
In 2024, only 61 of Minnesota’s farmers were Black, which is less than 1%, according to the 2024 Census of Agriculture. Sixty-nine percent of farmers are male, and the average age of farmers is 57.
Elhassan does not get direct funding from the federal government, but the nonprofits that support his farm rely on federal grants.
The Food Group helped the Sudanese Farming Group get started. Their mission is to provide healthy, culturally connected food to communities in need, buying food from local farmers to distribute to food shelves.
The Food Group oversees Big River Farms, an incubator farm near Marine on St. Croix where farmers can learn about cultivating crops and starting a business. Big River Farms provides land and resources to emerging farmers.
The Food Group relies on two key federal grants to support underserved farmers, according to Lenarz-Coy. Through the Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP), the Food Group buys locally grown produce from emerging farmers and distributes it to community members at affordable prices. The USDA American Rescue Plan Act Technical Assistance Grant is a federal grant that funds The Food Group’s educational programs at Big River Farms.
The Food Group is currently able to access these funds, but its leaders are unsure if these funds will remain available given the recent USDA announcement, which inhibits them from expanding their programs and planning for the future, according to Lenarz-Coy. She said the organization would continue working to serve its clients even if funding is lost.
“In this political climate, things are changing pretty rapidly to make this work that’s already been hard, harder,” Lenarz-Coy said.
Lenarz-Coy said the Food Group is lucky to have diversified revenue and could still function with less federal funding. In 2024, 36.9% of The Food Group’s revenue came from government grants, according to its annual report.
Elhassan said the Sudanese Farming Group does not get federal funding directly, but the new policy could cut down on the resources, such as farming tools and educational mentoring, they get from nonprofit organizations that rely on federal funding, including The Food Group and Sharing Our Roots. He said that his own farm is stable and can survive the federal change, but new farmers who want to get started will face more barriers.
Funwi Tita, originally from Cameroon, is a member of the Minnesota African Immigrant Farmers Association, a coalition of about 60 African farmers. He said members of MAIFA are facing a lot of fear and uncertainty about the future of their farms.
“I think some of us are resilient enough to try and ride the storm, and hopefully we survive and come out on the other side,” Tita said.
Tita also founded Better Greens, which is a farm with two locations totalling 11 acres in Monticello and Otsego where he cultivates African vegetables, including ugu (pumpkin leaves), kunde (a type of bean) and African spinach. His mission is for everyone to have access to culturally specific vegetables.
This year, Tita added 5 acres to his farm to accommodate growing demand because he sold out of produce last season.
“We are in demand, and we are a need,” Tita said.
Tita distributes his food with the help of nonprofit food shelves, including The Food Group and Second Harvest Heartland, and a nonprofit food hub, The Good Acre. Tita will soon sell his produce at the Seward Co-op, which will be the first mainstream grocery store to sell his vegetables.
Tita said the appeal for many farmers to begin growing food is the prospect of selling, and farmers rely on nonprofit organizations, including The Food Group, to buy and distribute their crops. If nonprofit organizations lose funding, farmers may not be able to sell produce.
Tita said community members will be disappointed if the supply of culturally specific crops drops as a result of the federal change.
MAIFA’s message to farmers during this uncertain time is “we’re here,” Tita said.
He said members of the community are pooling their resources and working together to continue surviving. Tita purchased a 40-foot cooler which he plans to share with other farmers to prevent food from rotting when they struggle to sell their produce.
“It’s really a shock in the community,” Tita said. “And I know that shock is still trickling down, but just understanding the impact is just really frightening for most farmers.”
Minnesota Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said in an email statement the reversal of the federal policy will add to the many uncertainties farmers face, including weather, tariffs, market access and access to resources.
“We remain committed to ensuring that Minnesota agriculture thrives, now and in the future,” Petersen wrote.
‘The spirit of farmers’
Elhassan had been dreaming of starting a farm for five or six years before he started working with The Food Group in 2021. Most of the people in his group were pretty new to farming, he said.
“We inherited the farmer culture and work ethic and way of thinking,” Elhassan said. “So in a way, we didn’t have the technical farming skills, but we had the spirit of farmers.”
Elhassan said his organization is a family effort, with members ages 3 to 90 helping out on the farm.
Although the Sudanese Farming group sells some excess produce, Elhassan’s main goal when founding his farm was to share a taste of home with his community in exchange for their hard work on the farm.
“The type of food that you plant, and how you harvest it and how you cook it, how you consume it, goes a long way in defining or preserving traditions that are thousands of years old,” Elhassan said.
Tita said many members of MAIFA are interested in farming to access the vegetables from Africa that are not sold at grocery stores and to grow their own food locally and sustainably. MAIFA began as a collective of about 15 farmers in 2022 and has now quadrupled in size.
“Our shared vision is to just help each other grow,” Tita said.
Lenarz-Coy said The Food Group’s targeted programming is meant to level the playing field by providing better access to farming resources.
“We believe that anybody who wants to farm should be able to,” she said.
Eighty-five percent of farmers nationwide rely on other jobs to support their livelihoods, according to a 2023 U.S. Department of Agriculture report.
Ka Zoua Berry, who oversees Big River Farms, said language is an additional barrier to entry for immigrant farmers. She said The Food Group offers interpretations in six to 10 languages, including Swahili and Somali, for farmers at their training programs.
Berry said it is very important for immigrant farmers to have resources to grow foods from their homeland.
“Cultural foods heal your families,” she said.
Climate change causes longer growing seasons, which has allowed farmers in Minnesota to grow a wider variety of foods, according to Berry.
Elhassan, who has a background in engineering, now works full-time in farming and other community projects.
“I just got into a phase in my life where I realized the importance of community and legacy and honestly, I just rediscovered the awesomeness of my culture, of my community and our traditions,” Elhassan said.
Elhassan still brings his engineering background into his farm. The Sudanese Farming Group started projects for college students studying engineering, who were not interested in farming, to participate in the community project by building a solar electric vehicle and an irrigation controller.
“Farming is not an easy job, and persevering and going through this together as a community, that’s strengthening the bonds tremendously,” Elhassan said.
