Lucia Possehl with Sharing Our Roots, left, and co-op farmer Moffatt Odwere, right, analyze the damage to his crops due to recent and ongoing flooding in Northfield, Minnesota, on Tuesday, July 2, 2024. NORTHFIELD, Minnesota — The tomatillos hang in small-green balls from the vine, water-logged. The chilis sprouting up in a mucky row are puny. The garbanzo: Finished.
Gomez said in Spanish through a translator that one day last year, she and her partner picked 600 pounds of produce to sell at local markets. But now, with a wave of her hand, “It’s gone.” That’s because U.S. agriculture policy, historically, hasn’t protected this category of growers the same as row-crop farmers who feed animals and power biofuels.
This week at Sharing Our Roots, a non-profit, incubator farm on 163 acres of an old slough north of Northfield, growers are still coming to terms with a lost season. The farm’s administration said some growers have lost up to $40,000 this summer. A 2023 report by a group of small farmer advocates in Minnesota, including the MFMA, suggested changes to a USDA insurance program for smaller farmers, including improving incentives for growers and insurers. Other groups are eyeing the still-stalled Farm Bill before Congress to give smaller vegetable farmers a leg-up.
At the packing shed, a neighbor, Samuel Nyarige, cleaned zucchinis he’d picked that morning. He called the crop “terrible.” The ground was soggy. Black mud caked to his boots. Still, he removed a hose and rinsed the crop. Any bounty helps now.