Featuring Agnes, a farmer in The Food Group’s Incubator Program
For over 5,000 years, garlic was prescribed as a medicinal treatment for various ailments. Greek and Roman physicians even prescribed garlic for respiratory illness and digestive issues. Today, garlic is a savory staple in many cultural cuisines, making it a high-demand, easy-to-market food.
This is one of the reasons that Agnes, a farmer in The Food Group’s Farm Incubator Program, chose to fill her Big River Farms plot with row after row of fragrant garlic. Agnes is in her second year at Big River Farms, but she’s been farming for over ten. Her organic vegetable business, Blessings Farm, is rooted in a love for farming and a commitment to bringing families closer to their source of food.
Over the past four years, Agnes has been focused on channeling her passion for growing into a successful business model. The Incubator Program at Big River Farms has been a powerful catalyst toward her goal. The program is designed to support emerging farmers, including immigrant and historically underserved farmers with special focus on language access. It offers growers an opportunity to access land, resources, and support to grow their farm business.
A Farming Heritage
Farming is in Agnes’ blood. Long before she enrolled in the Incubator Program, she had an innate understanding of how to work the land. As a child, Agnes learned to grow her own food alongside her family:
“I grew up as a farming kid. My dad was a farmer. My mom was a farmer. I grew up knowing farming… and family educated me.”
– Agnes
When Agnes immigrated to the US, she continued her family’s tradition, growing food in a small backyard garden in Atlanta before eventually moving to Minnesota.
Overcoming Challenges
Agnes found that many of her favorite African foods were readily available in Minnesota, but she noticed they were grown with a lot of fertilizer. Wanting to cook food free of harmful pesticides and fertilizer, Agnes decided to grow her own.
But she faced several obstacles as she embarked on the next stage of her farming journey in a new state. The move to Minnesota brought fresh climate challenges, and she needed to learn to grow in different weather. She also needed to find space to farm. Agnes began by growing food in her backyard and she also rented a communal space in Forest Lake.
A Turning Point
At that time, she was only growing food for herself and her family. Then, one hard day, everything changed:
“I had an incident in my life, and I went to my backyard, and I farmed my entire backyard… I had no seeds planted to farm. But when I finished, I felt so much peace. I felt different—ready to go the next day and to face what I was supposed to face.”
– Agnes
That day, Agnes realized that it wasn’t just the food she grew that was good medicine, it was farming itself:
“I felt it was a therapy, a peace, and it just stopped all my problems. I was ready to go fight the world after that.”
Agnes knew she wanted to farm on a larger scale and devote herself more fully to growing. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she managed to secure another space in Hugo. Agnes was thrilled to have more space to grow, but her crops were soon overrun by weeds.
A Twist of Fate
Then, a twist of fate brought Agnes to The Food Group’s Emerging Farmer’s Conference. A friend gave Agnes a flyer promoting the conference, and Agnes decided to attend.
The Emerging Farmer’s Conference is an annual gathering hosted by The Food Group designed to support farmers who face barriers to accessing the education and resources necessary to build profitable agricultural businesses. Agnes recalled, “At the Emerging Farmer’s Conference, I went to a talk and happened to find one of the farmers here talking about the [Big River Farms] project.”
She remembers saying to her family, “we have to get into this program.” Through the program, Agnes learned how to plant her crops more efficiently for maximum yield and easier weeding access. She added, “It’s a tremendous help for me. They teach us how to farm correctly and it’s organic… and they teach us how to manage pest control.”
But for Agnes, a working mom of three, the program’s greatest value lies in market connection and infrastructure support:
“I work full time and I’m a single mom, so I don’t have time for marketing. I love to farm and the only way I can sell is wholesale. The Food Group has the whole package included so I get marketing, connections, and conferences where you meet people.”
– Agnes
Growing Toward A Dream
One of the primary goals of the Incubator Program is to help growers transition into the next stage of a farming business and eventually purchase their own land.
My end goal is to retire as a farmer,” which is why “joining Big River is the best thing that ever happened to me.”
– Agnes
The Emerging Farmer’s Conference also helped Agnes settle on her strategy of growing solely garlic in her space at Big River Farms. After hearing a conference speaker talk about the process, she realized it was a good fit for her capacity as a busy mom. Garlic also had predictable market demand Agnes needed. She explained:
“I’m trying to grow something that has a demand for it and that I can eat and that I can sell without really looking for a market.”
Agnes sells her produce at multiple markets in the metro. She also sells to The Food Group, which we distribute to partner food shelves and community through our affordable grocery programs, Twin Cities Mobile Market and Fare for All.
The Power of Farming
For Agnes, farming is a family affair. She and her daughter were recently out in the field tending the garlic together—and she hopes to pass on some of her farming knowledge to both her daughter and her two sons. Specifically, Agnes wants her children to know where their food comes from, how it’s grown, and why organic food matters.
The Blessings Farm Team believes in going beyond “organic” farming to nurture the soil, promote biodiversity, and minimize their environmental impact. Regenerative farming is rooted in the idea that growing is cyclical, so we give to the land and the land gives to us. Beyond the bounty of garlic she will harvest at season’s end, Agnes enjoys the gifts of catharsis and healing that the earth offers back to her:
“This is therapy for me. If you have stress, you just put that in the soil and think everything through. If you don’t have a solution by the time you’re done, you come back the next day.”
– Agnes
Seeds of Change for Tomorrow
The Food Group is honored to partner with farmers like Agnes in building a sustainable local food system and bringing more fresh food to our neighbors. Through these partnerships, we are not only producing food for today, but we are planting seeds of change that can be harvested for decades to come.
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