Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 77, Spring 1999, p. 7-10
Research Proposal funded by: The Program in Land Use and Regulation, Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and North American Program, Land Tenure Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison
In the past twenty-five years, immigrant groups admitted to the United States as refugees frequently have had an agricultural background. This is true of Guatemalans, Somalis, Haitians, and Hmong, though few of them have actually become farmers in the United States.
In 1997, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working with the Hmong population in Fresno, California, approached the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) asking for assistance in gaining access to farmland for Hmong refugees, who could undertake the cultivation of labor-intensive crops on relatively small parcels of land. USDA, in turn, asked LTC to investigate causes and consequences of the lack of success in accessing land by Hmong people. This set of discussions led to the present proposal.
The Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia, especially Laos, were admitted to the United States in large numbers during the 1970s and 1980s as a recognition of their support to US military and intelligence operations during the Vietnam war. Primarily farmers before emigrating, the Hmong had practiced swidden agriculture in highland areas, intensively producing a variety of crops in a sustainable manner. They have been resettled in several US states during the past twenty years, mostly in California (where the community now is estimated at 70–80,000 people), Wisconsin (40,000), Minnesota (30,000), Colorado (5,000), and the Carolinas (5,000).1
There is little published literature about the economic life of the Hmong in America; most scholarship and policy reports address issues of cultural adaptation, education, and health. A study based on the 1990 Census, for instance, revealed the situation of the Hmong community in Minnesota:2
Some Hmong have attempted to reproduce the swidden agriculture which they practiced before being forced to emigrate.3 However, given land tenure patterns, population density, and zoning regulations in the United States—not to mention the economic reality of having at least one family member in wage employment—the Hmong in most parts of the nation will have to adapt to sedentary agriculture on relatively small landholdings. There is evidence that they are having difficulty obtaining access to farmland in both California (around Fresno) and Wisconsin (around Wausau), even on a rental basis.4 In search of land to buy, some Hmong families have moved to other parts of the country, including the Carolinas, where, according to Sheehan, they have been able to reproduce the swidden agriculture of upland Southeast Asia in a manner that maintains their cultural traditions and appears to be sustainable.5
In Wisconsin, on the other hand, attempts by Hmong extended families in several counties to subdivide rural land in order to establish dispersed smallholdings have been frustrated by minimum residential density ordinances.6 The Hmong are, however, extremely active in the direct marketing of agricultural products at farmers’ markets throughout Wisconsin, though there has been no research on whether these Hmong are resellers of others’ produce or producers of their own or on whether they own or rent farmland. It is clear, nonetheless, that there is an unsatisfied demand for land on the part of the Hmong and a potential for increasing their ability to achieve self-sufficiency.
The principal objective of the study is to identify the key economic and institutional issues that constrain immigrant groups such as the Hmong from becoming farmers in the United States, especially on land in the peri-urban fringe. Two public purposes will be served by information from the study: preservation of farmland from urban sprawl, and integration of the Hmong and other refugee populations into the productive economy.
The present research, the design and administration of which is to be completed during 1999, focuses on the extent to and the reasons for which rural land markets have not responded to demands for land by the Hmong. Initial investigation will assess the quantitative and qualitative importance of the problem via a sample socioeconomic survey of Hmong households in places where farming activities by the group’s population would be possible, including Fresno and Wausau. The survey will reveal whether the issues are purely economic, such as,
The survey will be carried out by researchers at academic institutions in areas where there is a concentration of the Hmong population. The content of the survey was defined at a symposium attended by representatives of Hmong NGOs and communities at the conference, “Who Owns America? II,” sponsored by the LTC’s North American Program, in June 1998. Symposium participants also determined the sites for research. The Principal Investigator will work with each researcher to adapt the general survey instrument to local conditions and to provide quality control and other assistance while the survey is under way.
With survey implementation, the project will explore the institutional dimension of farmland use: the role of land market and land-use planning institutions, such as real estate brokers, financial institutions, and county and municipal planning agencies, in facilitating or constraining Hmong access to land. Local researchers, together with LTC staff, will compile relevant legislation and ordinances and interview key informants at each site. This institutional material may explain differences in Hmong access to farmland found in the survey and identify possible policy directions.
The target audience for the research is the community of NGOs and policymakers who are attempting to assist the Hmong (and other groups) to become economically self-sufficient via productive employment or self-employment. Through Hmong National Development and its comprehensive Web-based system of communication with the Hmong community nationwide, findings can be disseminated broadly in different formats to different parts of the audience: for aspiring Hmong farmers and the NGOs who assist them, one report will describe site-specific results and suggest appropriate avenues to pursue land access; for policymakers, another report will specify constraints and recommend modifications in legislation and regulations and/or in allocation of financial resources for the support of the Hmong; and for presentation at professional conferences and possible journal publication, a scholarly report based on rigorous analysis will be prepared by the research team upon completion of the project. All reports will be posted on the World Wide Web, with links to major Hmong sites as well as to the LTC site (http://www.ltc.wisc.edu/ltc/).
1 Hmong National Development, Inc. (HND), website (http://members.aol.com/hndlink). HND is a Washington, DC-based NGO whose principal purpose is to help the Hmong achieve self-sufficiency. Agriculture has recently become a focus of HND attention.
2 “Hmong in the ‘90s: Stepping Toward the Future” (St. Paul, MN: Hmong American Partnership, 1993) (retrieved from World Wide Web).
3 Elizabeth Sheehan, “GREENS: Hmong Gardens, Farms and Land Ownership in America: Constructing Environment and Identity in the Carolinas” (Storrs: Anthropology Department, University of Connecticut, n.d.), p. 1 (retrieved from World Wide Web).
4 Roy Beck, “The Ordeal of Immigration in Wausau,” Atlantic Monthly, April 1994, p. 84.
5 Sheehan, “GREENS,” p. 7.
6 Wisconsin State Journal, various issues, 1995 and 1996.
Copyright © 1999 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
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