Monday January 4, 2021
Jabril Abdi waters plants in the New Roots Collective greenhouse in Lewiston on May 26. Two new grants totaling $80,000 have brought the New Roots group closer to being able to purchase the property. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal file
LEWISTON, Maine (AP) — A group of African immigrants that leased 30 acres of land to operate a cooperative farm in Lewiston is one step closer to owning the land.
The group that leases the land off Outer College Street is the recipient of two grants totaling $80,000. That means the New Roots Cooperative Farm has obtained nearly $120,000 of its goal of $200,000 to complete the purchase.
“Having ownership changes everything for me and for the community I serve,” Jabril Abdi, one of the New Roots farmers, told the Sun Journal. “It’s really an amazing feeling that our kids have a chance to inherit a unique farmland right here. Nothing makes me happier.”Abdi and three other Lewiston men who came from Somalia in the early 2000s held a ground-breaking ceremony in August 2016 after leasing 30 acres from the Maine Farmland Trust. The land was part of the former Gendron Dairy Farm.
The new grants include $50,000 from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation to respond to the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 and systemic racism have had on Maine’s communities and $30,000 from an anonymous donor-advised fund at the Maine Community Foundation.
If they reach their goal of $200,000, then the money would be used to buy the land, equipment and infrastructure.