Bitter melon was for sale at the Ohio City Farm in Cleveland for the first time this year. There was a woman from Burma, a trainee at the The Refugee Response’s Refugee Empowerment Agricultural Program, on hand to give shoppers suggestions for preparing the pungent cousin of squash and cucumbers. (Chopped and sauteed with onion, she advised.) But for the immigrant and refugee shoppers at the farm, cooking bitter melon and foods such as okra, mustard greens, long beans and red roselle is second nature. They just wanted a place to find them.
There are now agricultural programs across the country — many of which have been bolstered by federal Refugee Agricultural Partnership Program grants — aimed at transitioning people into their new lives in the United States by focusing on the agrarian background shared by many refugees. But these garden plots are also meeting the demand for niche produce, such as bitter melon, providing a local market for vegetables that are staples in a refugee’s country of origin but are harder to find in the United States and are often sold for a premium Read more…
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A Taste of Home: Agriculture Programs Help Refugees Adjust
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