One of the groups targeted for a 2021 Northeast SARE Partnership Grant project awarded to UMES Extension is Asian Americans, primarily Bhutanese Americans living in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Lila Karki, an assistant professor of agricultural economics and program evaluation specialist for UMES Extension is the grantee for the project, titled, “Increasing Efficiency and Decision-Making Capability of Small, Socially Disadvantaged and Minority Farmers.”
“The goal is to educate this group of minority farmers on farm production economics and management to help strengthen their capacity,” Karki said. “Through grant underwritten extension activities, support is given to promote sustainable agricultural practices, improving productivity, reducing production costs and increasing net farm income. Ultimately, helping to improve quality of life is the desirable outcome.”
Maryland is among the states that typically receive ethnically Nepali Bhutanese refugees who have migrated to the United States since 1990, when they were forced to leave their ancestral home in Bhutan. According to a 2017 Pew Research report, 33.3 percent of the Bhutanese American community live under the poverty line, which is more than twice the U.S. average of 16 percent (Economic Policy Institute, 2011).
Karki is working with 15 farmers who are engaged in urban gardening, especially growing specialty and Asian ethnic crops. Most of the farmers (pictured below, bottom right) have around 12, a couple have as many as 20, different crops growing on a single piece of land. Some of the common crops they grow are chili and bell peppers, okra, tomatoes, corn, soybeans, spinach, stinging nettle, pointed melon/gourd, bitter melon/gourd, beans, cowpeas, mustard greens, colocasia, chayote, pumpkins, cucumber, squash, ash gourd, snake gourd, carrots, and potatoes. A few also have fruit trees such as apple, pomegranate, American pear, Asian pear, peach, banana, fig, aronia berry and mulberry.
Gail Stephens, agricultural communications, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences, gcstephens@umes.edu., 410-621-3850.
