Brewster Street Farm

The Brewster Street Farm will continue to offer nutritious, locally grown produce at low cost to community members and Journey’s End clients. They offer CSA shares, seedlings and a weekly farm stand in the Tri-Main Center lobby.

Farming is a familiar livelihood that offers New Americans some measure of self-determination and self-sufficiency, healthy food for their families, extra income, and a context for settling into their new communities.

The ultimate goal is to teach each participant agricultural, business, and marketing skills. Each farmer will participate in a series of workshops then continue their education by assisting with all aspects of the training farm.

New friends and the vibrant colors from the vegetables and flowers are two reasons Suha Taha continues to work with the program.

Bir Rai has been working on the Brewster Street Farm refugee agriculture program since it began in 2015. Like many of the program participants, Bir Rai was a subsistence farmer in his home country, Bhutan, where he raised goats and cows, and grew rice and vegetables to feed his family. In 1992, he fled his village due to ethnic conflict and found himself in Nepal. During the 22 years that he lived in a refugee camp, he managed to find a very small piece of land to grow vegetables on to provide for his family and other families living at the camp. Bir Rai was resettled in Buffalo with his family in 2014 and soon heard of the opportunity to work on the Brewster Street Farm. He knew he wanted to work and share his skills as a farmer, so he applied to be a program participant.

Habibullah Mohsin has been a program participant for two seasons, and says he enjoys working on the Brewster Street Farm because he is happy to learn new things and be aware of his health and nutrition.