On a recent winter Monday in the meeting room of a local church, the farmers in the Refugee Agricultural Program of Middle Tennessee stood under fluorescent light rather than rays of sunshine. But with their training task of the day choosing seeds for planting, the room buzzed with the energy of hope and promise for a new season.

In the cooler months when the gardens offer more brown patches than green, growth continues in the form of preparation, training and relationship building. But beyond learning ways to market and work together—and hearing how the growing seasons differ in Tennessee than their native countries—the trainings help make deeper connections.

Participants build stronger relationships with one another; they learn with neighbors and members of their community and with other communities through selling their food.

“Sometimes farmers come to us with other issues that they are facing in life, such as the complicated nature of obtaining citizenship,” says Lauren Bailey, the Agricultural Programs Director at Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee. “In these moments, we’re faced with the opportunity to listen and to find ways to connect and advocate with our farmers. As our relationships grow, our understanding of our farmers’ lives grows.”

In March, the trainings move outside to the one-and-a-half acre Market Garden off Haywood Lane.

 

Each of the 11 farmers in the Refugee Agricultural Program’s Market Garden will have a plot measuring 12 feet by 120 feet (and 24 feet by 120 feet for second-year farmers).

The communal activity of growing food together hopefully helps participants assimilate to life here more naturally.

“Growing food brings us into contact with the earth we all share, with the traditions of agriculture that have kept our species alive, and spirit of abundance that pervades all well-cared for gardens,” says Christina Bentrup of The Nashville Food Project, CRIT’s partner in the Refugee Agricultural Program. “Participants build stronger relationships with each other, with the physical land, with neighbors and members of their community and with other communities through selling their food.”

Indeed, the farmers will be raising crops for their families and communities. But this year, they also will sell to restaurants, and they will offer their produce for purchase at a local farmers’ market. From this foundation of growing with the seasons, farmers can build upon their lives here to thrive even more independently.

“In five to ten years, our hope is that Nashville will be bustling with more community gardens made up of many different nationalities,” Lauren says. “We recognize the need for adapted resources to meet community members where they are and the need for land access. So really, our aim is to provide this for a small number of interested community members in hopes to strengthen this access for future community members.”

I’m Jessica and I’m the intern. I love cross-cultural agricultural development as a sustainable way to engage multiple cultures, needs, and skills for good. After two summers in East Africa I decided that I wanted to get some hands on experience with development in Nashville, my hometown. Thanks to a quick Google search I found CRIT, loved what they were doing, and asked if they would be interested in taking on an intern. I convinced them to say yes, so I’ve been learning and working alongside them ever since. Every day is an opportunity to learn how to use a new tool to grow a new plant in a new way for a new purpose. Beyond that I have developed a new appreciation for the value of food, the value of partnership, and the value of home.

 

The Value of Food

 Y’all – this gardening stuff is no joke. It is hard. As a college student I have spent many hours in the grocery store thinking, “Wowza, that’s an expensive apple!” Now I look at the greens that the CRIT gardeners are selling and think, “They shouldn’t charge a cent under $100 per leaf.” Growing healthy and sustainable food takes so much time, effort, sweat, dirt, and occasionally blood. And who knows when you could lose it all to a beetle! In a society that often feels separated from agrarian life it is easy to get a false sense of the worth of our food. Going to the garden to pull weeds, prepare soil, seed new plants, twine tomatoes, pull weeds, dig holes, squish bugs, mulch raised beds, pull weeds, and watch the other gardeners do the same and more has helped me to see food as a worthwhile investment in my health and community rather than an incessant expenditure.

 

The Value of Partnership

Partnership in the development sphere is often easier to talk about than it is to practice, but the CRIT gardens have shown me an incredible image of what partnership should look like. CRIT offers land and training to refugees who have recently moved to Nashville and in turn these people diligently work to grow food that strengthens their family, stimulates the local economy, and benefits Nashville restaurants with sustainable and healthy foods. Even people who can barely speak English are enabled to positively impact their new community with the resources that the community offers. From exotic foods sold to local restaurants to resourceful ideas on how to trellis tomatoes to sharing a laugh about how hot it is in the garden, everyone involved is empowered to learn, share, and grow.

 

The Value of Home

When I started looking for something to do this summer I had just one qualification: it had to be at home. After spending several summers away it has been so great to spend time with my friends and family. The saying still holds true: there’s no place like home. But finding home is not so simple for a refugee who has been forcibly removed from their home. That’s why these gardens exist. They’re pieces of Burma and Nepal. They’re places where refugees can go out and farm like they did at home, grow bitter gourds and noodle beans like they did at home, speak like they did at home, and build community like they did at home. The CRIT gardens aren’t mere income generators or a means of integrating cultures. The gardens are a place for people to come home.

by Sarah Risely, Assistant Program Director

Reflecting on last season as we prepare for this season!

It is 8 a.m. on a Saturday and you can already smell the sticky August heat—today is going to be another hot one. Like clockwork everyone drives up and parks or strolls in across the field, armed with sunhats to beat the heat and laundry baskets for harvesting. Morning greetings come in English and Burmese, and then everyone gets to work.

We start our day by walking among the rows of roselle, bitter gourd, mustard, and long beans—hunting for (and squishing) pests and making plans for daily projects. Lifting up a row cover, Lu Lu spots tiny green sprouts and shouts out “Look! Oh look they grew!” Ree Lay and Than Tin valiantly yank out Bermuda grass, while Mu Mu cuts mustards and discovers a softball-sized watermelon beneath the leaves—“We will wait until Wednesday to harvest,” she says. In the next plot Ma Ree Yar skillfully sharpens bamboo into trellises and then cuts a bunch of zinnias to bring home to her daughter.

      

This garden is a special place. The gardeners are a long way from home: refugees from Burma who have arrived at this piece of earth thanks to the Center for Refugees and Immigrants of Tennessee, but more importantly thanks to their own love for growing and a desire to begin again in a new place. The garden is a place for them to come and be with friends and to share with their families and children. Refugees can make a big impact on their own families and communities by bringing fresh produce to the table, while at the same time strengthening their own health and wellbeing. In the often tumultuous and challenging time of resettlement, the garden is a place of consistency and growth.

With the heat we all rest in the shade of the two willow trees on the property. Removing hats and wiping shining brows, the gardeners talk about their day and sort through the fruits from their garden plots. “I am going to make kimchi!” exclaims Ja Sam.  Saying goodbye, they help each other load up and then drive off with baskets of fresh vegetables to take home and share with family and friends.

 

 

By Zoe Yim, Social Media Intern

A green chaos before my eyes, last Friday, I felt overwhelmed by what seemed to be a micro-jungle at Wedgewood Gardens. But to some, it appears that this greenery is more like an organized pattern of abundance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Look tomato!” calls Christina Bentrup, garden coordinator for Nashville Food project.

Eggplant, tomato, squash, red noodle bean, and - the plant that gardeners were most excited about – bitter gourd are ready to pick.

The Nepalese speaking Bhutanese dexterously pick their crops from their designated plots. Carrying plastic and vinyl totes, colorful, lush vegetables go from bush to bag.

It all seems so natural to them. In those moments, when I’m taking pictures of the Nepalese Bhutanese immigrants, I forget that I’m in Nashville, Tennessee. It seems like we could be anywhere – even Nepal.

 

This gardener proudly shows his red noodle beans.

Badri Adhikari hoes the ground before he transfer a tree to this plot.

 

Leela Rai picks her tomatoes.

 

I think it’s symbolic of what we’re trying to do – creating a place that feels like home, says Lauren Bailey, director of agricultural programs.

Many of these gardeners had an agrarian lifestyle before coming to the U.S. Allowing them to build upon the skills that they already have, empowers them.

At the garden off of Blackman Road, refugees from Burma also seem to be at home. This morning, they were looking for pests, making trellises and mulching by layering hay to keep weeds out and moisture in the soil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Zoe Yim, Social Media Intern

 

Our Agricutlural Training class is off to a great start! With a room full of enthusiastic and curious students and our passionate guest  teachers, we’ve covered a lot of material in our first six weeks together.

Most recently, Nashville Foodscapes’, Jeremy Lekich and Chris Childs came to share with our students about composting and cover cropping. Students learned the basics of three different kinds of composting operations: vermicomposting, small scale composting and large-scale composting. They got to see up close what a vermicompost system looked and felt like, and then, they got the chance to work in some compost using a broadfork. All new experiences for many of our students!

         

As the winter months and lack of sunlight slow the pace of the growers of our region, our new agricultural programs are just beginning. On December 23rd, our agricultural training class, attended by over twenty refugees from Burma, traveled to a local farm in Joelton, TN to learn about greenhouses and starting seeds.

As we were driving on our journey to Eaton’s Creek Organics, several of the students mentioned how the farmlands that we drove past looked similar to their villages in Burma.

All of the students attending our agricultural training class have grown fruits and vegetables before moving to the United States. Our classes are structured to build on students’ skills and knowledge and introduce them to growing practices in Middle Tennessee.

        

Our farm teachers, Tana Comer and Julia Thompson-Reynolds educated students on the basics of starting seeds in a greenhouse. Most of the students had not used a greenhouse in their farming practices before, and for some of our students this was the first time that they started seeds in trays, not directly in the ground.

After learning about making potting soil and taking care of seedlings, students started beets, swiss chard and lettuce. Eaton’s Creek was kind enough to send home lettuce starts with all the students!