'We really need some help': Drought hits Minnesota's Hmong farmers hard

When farmer Judy Yang went to harvest her sweet potatoes in late July, none had grown. Row after row yielded nothing but tangled roots and dry dirt.

Organic farmers Mhonpaj Lee and husband Phanat Vang have so few harvestable tomatoes that they can't even fulfill their 80 Community Supported Agriculture subscriptions.

"It was really depressing at one point where we really thought we might not make it for this season," said Lee, who with her husband owns Mhonpaj's Garden. "Everything was literally yellow."

Farmers across Minnesota, to different extents, are suffering effects of this year's drought. And consumers are, too. If you have been to a farmers market lately, you have found a smaller selection of produce, fewer farmers and higher-than-usual prices.

The realities have devastated many Hmong farmers, who make up 50% of the growers at Twin Cities metro farmers markets. Some farmers who usually sell at farmers markets six days a week only have enough produce to sell two days each week, said Janssen Hang, co-founder and executive director of the Hmong American Farmers Association (HAFA).

Most Hmong farmers run smaller operations and have disproportionate access to resources such as affordable, high-quality land, water, loans and reliable markets, Hang said. Not speaking fluent English also puts them at a disadvantage, as it's harder to find out about and apply for grants and aid.

Particularly consequential this summer is the fact that most Hmong farmers don't have access to irrigation on their farms and are at the mercy of the weather, Hang said. Even farmers who do have wells and sprinkler systems have to spend extra hours watering each day, which usually involves laying down and picking up hundreds of feet of hoses. It's grueling work.

More than 35% of the state currently suffers from "extreme drought" and nearly 79% from "severe drought," including most of the Twin Cities metro area, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

Just off Hwy. 52 near Vermillion Township in Dakota County, nestled among fields of cash crops such as corn and soybeans, you will find HAFA's 155-acre produce farm. The farm, established in 2011, embodies HAFA's larger mission to overcome historic barriers to Hmong farmers by providing farmers with access to land, water and cold storage.

HAFA currently leases land to 13 member farms. On a recent visit, Yang and her husband, Doua Vang, harvested cucumbers and tomatoes to sell at the St. Paul Farmers Market on Saturdays and Sundays.

Even with some 16-hour days — which leaves little time to see their eight grown children — they are still losing plants. Besides the sweet potatoes, a row that held 200 ginger-root plants is now dominated by knee-high weeds that Yang doesn't have time to pull. Three rows of sugar snap pea plants also died, and the couple had to till the soil and start over with all new plants.

The couple usually brings in about $40,000 each year, with a profit of $10,000. This year, Yang estimates they have already lost about $10,000 between the bad crops and lost sales. Whether they break even for the year depends on how the crops fare in the final weeks of summer.

Yang and her husband have lived in the U.S. for 40 years, but the hard reality this year makes Yang remember a simpler economic life in Laos, her homeland, where there weren't so many bills.

"In this country, you have to work," she said. "If you don't have money, you don't stay free."

Lee and Phanat Vang don't even want to think about their losses this year.

"We just want to stay positive through the rest of the season," Phanat said.

But they hope for a better 2022 and 2023 because when they took over her parents' farm in the spring, they took out three loans to cover the costs of a new tractor, four high tunnels and their land. The drought also meant an unexpected $3,000 cost to equip their fields in Hugo with drip irrigation. This year sets them back on their repayment plans.

In addition to the lack of rain, the dramatic swing from cold to hot temperatures early in the season increased pests such as potato beetles, root maggots and aphids. Organic farms, like Mhonpaj's Garden, do not use chemicals to combat pests, so Lee said she and her family members have to physically remove the bugs from plants by vigorously shaking the plant or picking them off by hand.

"We chose the wrong year to try and take over the farm," Phanat said.

Last week, Yang spent hours watering in her new sugar snap pea shoots — replacements for the ones that died earlier in the summer.

For farmers who don't have easy access to water, like Yang does, the drought has been especially damaging.

Song Thao, who sells at the St. Paul Farmers Market on Sundays, and her family bring buckets and jugs of water to their Afton farm and walk up and down crop rows watering by hand. It's the only way to give their young seedlings and transplants a chance to survive. Still, Thao and her family are scrambling to replant fields.

"We've had fields die, like our whole field of eggplants died, and ground cherries," Thao said. "It's been really tough this year."

Leng Xiong, who runs a produce stand at the Hmong Village market in St. Paul, runs a 5-acre farm in Blaine with his sister. They rely completely on rainfall. No rain has meant no growth, and no growth means no produce to sell. When he has nothing of his own to sell, Xiong purchases produce from other farmers or from a wholesaler, often at a higher price than it would cost him to grow it himself.

"Our customers come by and complain, 'Hey, why do your vegetables look old?' " Xiong said. "They're not old," he tells them, "they just don't have water!"

Many of the Hmong farmers who rent their land do not have access to nearby wells or water spigots. For those who rent on a season-by-season basis, it's usually not worth investing in digging their own well onsite, said Natalie Hoidal, an educator with the University of Minnesota Extension who specializes in food system agriculture and horticulture.

"They need really consistent moisture, or we start to see a lot of physiological problems — like vegetables that are just kind of funky-looking," Hoidal said. "Don't be afraid to go to the farmers market and support local farmers … If things look a little funky, that's just part of the drought, and there's nothing wrong with that produce."

Still, Xiong doubts he will make a profit this year with his Hmong Village stand. In 2020, he made between $20,000 and $25,000.

"We really need some help," he said.

For farmers associated with organizations such as HAFA, resources and education can make it a bit easier.

"If you speak to any other farmer that's not associated with somebody [like HAFA] that is able to help them navigate resources, they struggle," said Phanat Vang. He said he believes that for farmers who don't speak English and who don't have someone to serve as their advocate, it's a "tremendous challenge" to navigate the available resources and build up a support system as a farmer.

At first, Lee was not enthusiastic about taking over Mhonpaj's Garden. "It's named after me, so I'm kind of stuck with the family business," she once told her mom.

But the couple now see an opportunity to uplift others in the Hmong farming community. They both teach courses at Big River Farms, the program that helped Lee's family launch their business, and which offers land access and organic farming education to minority farmers.

By sharing their experiences, they hope others can take advantage of the resources they've discovered.

The couple knows they will have to make up for this year's losses next season, but right now, they are taking the long view and staying hopeful.

Said Phanat Vang, "If this is the worst it gets in the next 20 to 30 years that we continue to run this business, then we'll have it under control."

Star Tribune writer Jessie Van Berkel contributed to this report.