Hoping to give Hmong food growers a leg up, a St. Paul-based organization called the Hmong American Farmers Association is helping farmers find new ways of selling their fresh produce and new paths to economically fruitful farming.
South of the urban core, past the suburbs and out into the lesser-known land of Vermillion Township, a group of Hmong farmers, many of them East Siders, are hard at work as many as seven days a week during the growing season.
They work on land leased to them at bargain rates through the Hmong American Farmers Association. Some use farming techniques they've known since they lived in Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and China, where they were nomadic and relied on farming to sustain themselves.