Alioye

Farmer: Alioye

Interviewing team: Logan, Heidy, Susan, Nasar, Nick,

Interviewer: What is your name and where are you from?

Farmer (through a translator): Alioye Muhammad from Somalia.

Interviewer: What does it mean to live a good life?

Farmer: He is thinking because he is farming now, his future is to become an independent farmer, to have a large farm. To become [an] American independent farmer.

Interviewer: What skills do young people need to live a good life?

Farmer: We are old; it is hard to adapt or to understand better or to get more skills; but the young people—it’s easy for them to learn, to go to school to gain more knowledge. Everything is easy [for them] and they have the chance now to get that opportunity, but us, we don’t have that opportunity. Our opportunity is to do is only work.

Interviewer: Do you remember the first time you farmed?

Farmer: That’s uncomfortable. Seven years up until now [he has been] a farmer [here].

Interviewer: Can you tell us a story about farming?

Farmer: Difference in weather. Sometimes when we grow the farm all the year long, we get no vegetables because of drought in Africa. Also, here, last year we did not grow a lot of tomatoes because of rain… (Translator waits for farmer to continue)—

So, in Africa, he’s talking about when he was young, twenty years old or something like that, at the end of each season when we have all of our vegetables, we would bury the corn for storage to keep for a while, and we made a party. All the village, they come together, just playing or dancing or having fun, you know. That’s what we do, also jumping up in the trees, you know. The two villages they come together and they run, like the Olympics, who have more running, like wrestling, who have more strong [games/competitions]…so they do that stuff as celebration.

Interviewer: Do you dream of something else besides farming?

Farmer: Yes, because farming is hard. He dreams of starting a store, starting a business.

Interviewer: Can you tell me about different places that you have farmed?

Farmer: In Africa, lots [of places]. This is the only place in Maine.

The land is good in Africa. It’s different because the land here does not have enough nutrients, but the one in Africa is good and clean and you can produce a lot of vegetables. Also, it doesn’t need a lot of work, it doesn’t need a lot of compost and that stuff, you can plant it and just wait – and the weeding, also, is not hard, although we only use hands, you can weed by hand 100 acres and the vegetable is good tasting. They have a lot of pride in the vegetable.

Interviewer: What are the different vegetables?

Farmer: In Africa, Somalia, there are two types of farms – some grow vegetables and some grow corn. In the area he grew up, no vegetables. He grew corn. Different sections [of Somalia], they grow different vegetables. In the southern end, they grow some kinds, in the north, other kinds, in the east, other kinds.

When he came here, there were a lot of vegetables he never saw before. Also, some of the same vegetables, but different shapes. For example, zucchini: one plant can spread fifty yards and harvest up to 100 pounds, but here, one plant is ten pounds. In Somalia, we don’t have carrot or lettuce; they won’t grow there, it is too hot, too dry. They grow all the time [in Maine]. They grow, but they just grow specific crops; but [in Somalia], whenever we have the rain or the river, that time we can grow EVERYTHING: vegetables, corn, whatever we want.

Interviewer: What is the best part about farming in Maine?

Farmer: That it is good. Just grow the vegetable, sell it, and whatever is left over is for the home.

But the corn is bad. If you grow a lot of corn…when the corn is ready the weather will change, the cold will start, the snow will come; so we must store the corn. We would like to wait until the corn is hard to become like African corn [because] we don’t want to eat it the way it is now. We don’t want to use American corn because it is too soft, a lot of the corn. And our customers, especially the Somali customers, they like to wait on the corn, but it will not be good if they wait so long: the weather will change and the corn will be bad and the taste is not good at that time. So we have a hard time with the corn.

Interviewer: What do you think about when you farm?

Farmer: That he’s doing a good job, that he must clean his farm. He thinks, what is the next stage? Are you harvesting tomorrow? Are you going for farmers’ market? He is checking in with himself, to make sure he is ready to go to farmer’s market….

Interviewer: What is the first thing you think about when you are done farming for the day?

Farmer: Just sit down, end of day, go back home, take a shower, and eat food. Sleep! (Alioye says “sleep” in English, which causes everyone to laugh.)

Interviewer: Can you tell me any story about farming?

Farmer: This is his farm and the next one belongs to another farmer, so close together. So the other farmer, he comes and he’s trying to push [the boundary] … he pull out the stakes and he puts them here to make his land become bigger. And Alioye, he comes the next day and he sees where the stake is and he says, “This was here, you know, my stake, when we divided up the land, and I put it here and now you push it—no!” And they start fighting and they start complaining with each other.

Interviewer: What is one farming method or tool that you wish you could change and how would you change it?

Farmer: He does not own this farm, although he likes to be a farmer; his future is the method to change. To have his own farm, that’s his goal.

Interviewer: Is there something you would like to say to the young farmers?

Farmer: Yes. First, no one can live without farming. It’s a battle for your own life. So if you didn’t farm what do you eat? Nothing. So the young people have to learn how to farm. Because now we are old. After a couple years we may die and then who’s left over? The young people, you know, they stay in the world. They have to start growing food so they have to learn that system. Because they have to start producing food for the world.

Interviewer: Is that happening?

Farmer: He says, for example, “I am almost fifty years. My son is twenty. If I didn’t show him what I am doing, or my culture, and I didn’t teach him the way and I died, who’s going to teach that person? Who is going to lead the right way? Nobody. I have to show him, you know, to do what is good for him about this life. So it is the same. Farming is the same. We have to encourage ourselves, also encourage our kids to be a farmer. Some people have to go to school, gain more education; other people have to farm, we have to work a lot of different systems. And that is a good way to be.