This month Blong Yang wraps up his six months as RIFPC’s seasonal outreach coordinator. He concentrated his work on building relationships among farmers of color in Rhode Island, especially Cambodian, African, and Hmong communities. Blong’s background includes work in engineering, commercial fishing, insurance, and financial advising. He serves as community gardens associate for the Southside Community Land Trust.
“I’ve made some inroads,” Blong says of his efforts to inform BIPOC farmers about technical assistance resources and other support. He was especially impressed with Johnston’s Bami Farm, operated by the Rhode Island African Alliance and its founder, Julius Kolawole. “Julius’s ability to fundraise and reach out to many different people has helped them add a lot of infrastructure. Since their start in 2018 they have dug a well, have a pond for extra water, added a portable bathroom, irrigation, and three high tunnels. They have about 10 farmers and one section for beginning farmers with smaller pieces of land.”
Blong says he made the greatest impact among the Hmong community, where he has decades-long ties among farmers. “I passed along information from FarmFresh and others on how to create farmers markets, letting them know the requirements for things such as insurance and permits.” He is working to build a relationship between the African Alliance and Hmong farmers, possibly including a collaboration on pop-up farmer’s markets around the state. “It would be good for the two communities to help each other and support each other’s markets,” he says.
While Blong’s position is ending, “there is still plenty to do” to assist farmers, he says. “This is just the beginning. We have so many other alliances to build with Hispanic farmers, Cambodian farmers, and others.” Blong also worked with Josh Daly to build the new business support resource hub on the RIFPC website. “We’ve heard a lot of feedback and seen lots of people trying out the page,” Blong says. “I can see that farmers struggle to find information beyond just Googling. In talking to various farmers, these are the things they’re always looking for—training, funding, land access. Our website can be very helpful as we keep adding resources.”