Latinos are learning to farm Minnesota-style

*Aging farmers? No problem, Latinos are ready to step in. I’m not sure what’s meant by Minnesota-style farming. Co-ops and agriculture techniques go back for centuries in Latin America. It’s good to see Latino field workers getting the opportunity to become farm owners. VL

By Tom Meersman, Star Tribune

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 2012 Census of Agriculture shows that only 316 farms in Minnesota have owner-operators who are of Spanish, Hispanic or Latino origin, out of 69,020 total farms. That report also shows that the average age of Minnesota farmers is 56.6 years, continuing a steady, long-term trend upward.

The aging demographics and the growing numbers of Latinos in rural Minnesota got Ramon Leon thinking. He is CEO and president of the Latino Economic Development Center in Minneapolis, which has a track record of helping Latinos who started out as dishwashers and delivery truck drivers to become successful owners of restaurants, groceries and shops. But for all that success in cities, Leon said, the same could not be said of farming.

“There are a lot of Latino workers in agriculture that aspire to be farm owners if they had a chance,” said John Flory, special projects director for the Latino Center. “The question is what model can we use to bring them from being low-wage agricultural workers to having an opportunity to be a farm owner.”

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