Q&A With Friendly Vang-Johnson: Farming Advocate

 

 

Farming advocate Friendly Vang-Johnson describes herself as “farmer-adjacent.” With a background in public policy, she is the government affairs director of the Minnesota Farmers’ Market Association and a Minnesota Farm Advocate specializing in assisting emerging farmers with their needs — including assessing land damages, coordinating supply chain values, and helping farmers apply for grants.

She began Friendly Hmong Farms after the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on aiding Black and brown farmers in matters of food sovereignty, racial justice, land reparations, and more. She returned to her Minnesota roots after 15 years in Seattle. Minnesota Women’s Press spoke with Vang-Johnson about her work and her perspective on farming in the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge.

Q: Tell us about the advocacy work you do.

This work is about what farmers need, what the environment needs, where the money is supposed to serve farmers, how to build economies, and how to undo racism and sexism. It is to deconstruct the system, and then supplant it with something else decolonized or more liberatory. It’s not perfect, because we’re trying to build something that we’ve never seen before.

When my mother and I couldn’t get an FSA loan in 2021, I said, “Wow, I have a master’s degree, I speak English fluently, I work for the federal government, and I can’t even access this? Who’s gonna get access to these billions of dollars that Congress has set aside for disadvantaged farmers?” You start to understand that it’s not because we aren’t talented or qualified or hardworking. There’s a systemic, structural issue that’s happening.

I think that’s why younger folks are disillusioned with society. They’re not willing to cooperate and comply. I think it is a good thing to ask: “Is this how it really works?” We’re bristling against the system, and that gives us an opportunity to supplant it with something else. Through all of our individual talents and capacities, we have room for a sustained and nimble movement that isn’t predicated on one person being the leader.

Q: How has Metro Surge affected your family?

I’ll give you this very specific example. My mother has greenhouses on her farm, and we were talking through her plans for this year. I said, “You know, Mom, it’s going to be a different year. You have to understand ICE is here. People are afraid to come out.” She insisted, “I don’t care if they’re here. I’m going to continue farming. I’m a citizen.”

There is always hatred toward us, whether it’s because we’re brown, refugees, women. It’s nothing new. As my mother was going down her list of all the farmers who use her greenhouse, my dad interjected, indicating that someone had already self-deported. My mom was stunned. “Why would they self-deport?” My dad explained: “Because he doesn’t want to be caught by ICE and then shipped off to Sudan. He’ll get a ticket and go back to Thailand or maybe Laos, but not be rounded up and disappeared.”

You believe that you’re protected because you have citizenship, because you’ve been a compliant citizen — law-abiding, a productive member of society. You’ve done all the things that white supremacy and corporate culture have told you to do. So to have the shock of what is happening in this “first-world country” — we’re constantly resisting and in survival mode. And we never get to that place of being able to grieve.

Q: How might involvement at farmers markets be impacted?

Putting on my MFMA director of government affairs hat, that is something we’re trying to think through as an association — trying to come up with an emergency response plan. This is one of the things I testified about in front of the Senate Ag committee.

I said we are having to spend time and energy coming up with plans to address the presence of ICE. “What can we do as upstanders? Do we have any expectation that local police will help us in resisting? Do we get the whistles out? Do we have a plan all the way down for if a vendor is taken: How do we make sure that we know who to call in their family, that their vegetables are packaged and put away, and who’s going to take it back for them? What if there is a shooting by ICE at one of our open-air markets?”

We have to spend time and energy figuring that out instead of simpler things, like “Should we have a musician at a farmers market? Should we have kids’ face painting?” Farmers markets are hubs for economic development. Now, we can’t focus on how to make that economic activity more vibrant. Instead, we’re looking at potentially trying to save people’s lives. That is the impact: our emotional or intellectual energy is spent addressing this, when we know that the vast majority of people they are taking away are not violent criminals.

We also have farmers who fill out paperwork for insurance certificates and are waiting, worried. The panic I can hear in their voices is because they probably feel like there’s a land grab that’s about to happen. There are all of these ripple effects that cannot be quantified.

[But we also live out our values.] Someone said to me recently: “You can deviate from your mission, but don’t ever deviate from your values.”

Q: What upcoming projects are you excited about?

I’m building a co-op with other Hmong women called Peb Lub Neej: Women’s Food & Medicinal Sovereignty Cooperative (PLN Co-op). It is a co-op of Hmong women who are farmers, but also have deep expertise in other things. We have an eye doctor, a medical doctor, a restaurateur. One is a cultural expert; then there’s my background in public policy. Another is an attorney by training, but she’s a fund development person. We all have deep skills as a co-op to help farmers sell their produce. We might create a value-added product, like these Hmong medicinal herbs that women take who are postpartum. We’re saying: “Hey, let’s grow this stuff. Let’s work together.”

We are protectors of our community. We’re stronger together. We are trying to assert there is a different way of being. We can be a collective.

 

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