PlantItForward │, Houston, USA, a neighborhood and a farm, settling refugees has also set up a community food security network

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There is a growing number of programs across the United States to use agricultural activities to resettle refugees. Most of these refugee farms are managed by teams of refugee resettlement agencies, churches, communities, or businesses, while others are established by refugees and immigrants with their bare hands.

Plant It Forward, make Houston a food oasis

In Houston, a technology metropolis famous for its aerospace and energy sources, it is hard to imagine that the 6.3 million people in the Greater Houston area rely almost on foreign countries or other states for food, and there are very few fresh fruits and vegetables delivered directly from local farms. According to the Houston Food Bank, 18% of households and 25% of children have little access to fresh and nutritious food sources. In a suburban community southwest of Houston, residents rely on buying daily food at gas stations.

Houston is also the most ethnically diverse city in the United States, hosting more refugees than any other American city, with 20% of the 2013 birth census coming from immigrant families. Despite Houston's dry climate, numerous oil refineries, wide land and long commuting time, the relatively low cost of land, housing and prices naturally attract immigrants from all over the world. Houston is more concerned about refugees and immigrants than other cities.

In 2010, a local software developer wanted to find a way to give back to the community, working with the Catholic Church and community organizations to come up with the idea of Plant It Forward Farm (PIFF). Although Houston is a food desert, there is a lot of space for urban arable land, so urban agriculture is seen as an opportunity to solve the lives of refugees. As a result, the church first came forward to lease three acres of land, recruit refugees with an agricultural background, and conduct an one-year training course in agricultural technology and sales, so as to help the refugees connect with their new life, find meaningful jobs, and practice economic independence.

By Lillian Waddill

Each refugee is burdened with his own national culture and life history, and is forced to enter a new place, and his psychological trauma also includes being mercilessly separated from his mother land and nature. For refugees, not only social adaptation, but also geographical and climatic adaptation, as well as existing beliefs, values, knowledge, technology and other challenges will affect the level of life.

In the process of migration, the importance of how refugees preserve their traditional culture and dietary characteristics has been proved, so does urban agriculture have the same function? The answer is yes, the crops that preserve the refugees' own culture symbolize the continuation of multiculturalism, and urban farms can become such a multicultural agro-ecological space to maintain biodiversity. connecting the culture of refugees with the culture of the new community and preserving the knowledge of traditional food is not only to preserve culture, but also to preserve natural ecosystems.

Therefore, the resettlement of refugees with urban agriculture provides vocational training or short-term job opportunities, but also the construction process of a new life, a life-long progress, reshaping the history and identity of a person and a family.

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