{"id":4974,"date":"2014-12-02T10:44:30","date_gmt":"2014-12-02T16:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gnof.org\/?p=4974"},"modified":"2014-12-02T10:44:30","modified_gmt":"2014-12-02T16:44:30","slug":"veggi-farmers-cooperative-creates-jobs-by-growing-healthy-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/gnof\/veggi-farmers-cooperative-creates-jobs-by-growing-healthy-food\/","title":{"rendered":"VEGGI Farmer&#8217;s Cooperative Creates Jobs By Growing Healthy Food"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/179632834&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" height=\"166\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>VEGGI<a href=\"http:\/\/www.veggifarmcoop.com\/\">\u00a0<\/a>is a community member owned and operated farmer\u2019s cooperative based out of New Orleans East, Louisiana.\u00a0VEGGI\u00a0Farmer&#8217;s Cooperative\u00a0is dedicated to empowering growers in the Greater New Orleans area, starting in New Orleans East, in order to create sustainable, high quality jobs that enhance the quality of life of communities through increasing local food access and promotion of sustainable agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>Out in New Orleans East, in Village L\u2019Este, across the street from Mary Queen of Vietnam Church, Thanh Nguyen waters the seeds he just planted in his plot at the VEGGI Farmer\u2019s Cooperative.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe just planted mizuna,\u201d explains Daniel Nguyen, translating for me from Vietnamese to English. Daniel Nguyen is Project Director for Veggie Farmer\u2019s Cooperative, which was incubated by Mary Queen of Vietnam. \u201cThe actual pronunciation is \u2018we-in,\u2019 he explains, \u201cbut to simplify it, it\u2019s just \u2018win\u2019 like a \u2018win lose situation.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wearing knee high rubber boots, Winn leads me past row upon row of gleaming green crops. \u201cSo these are more of grow rows, greens, lettuces, radishes, mustards, turmeric growing,\u201d explains Nguyen. \u201cThis a Thai Roselle which is in the same family as hibiscus so we brew a tea out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Winn works both out in the field and also down the road in VEGGI Farm Cooperative\u2019s administrative offices, where his team works on marketing, distribution, and fundraising so that the co-op can give micro grants to their growers, who also receive 80% of the coop\u2019s profits.<\/p>\n<p>Growers &#8212; like Thanh Nguyen, who says that his mizuna will be ready to harvest in about 20-30 days &#8212; are older than the folks working in VEGGI Co-op\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur parents were born in Vietnam and came over here,\u201d explains Daniel Nguyen. \u201cAnd we were either born here or came over at a very young age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd how about the farmer\u2019s?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe farmers are all first generation. It\u2019s about nine active farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Daniel Ngyuen says his generation \u2013 many of whom are bilingual \u2013 can both communicate with their farmers, who speak Vietnamese, and perform tasks that require English, like writing grants, and giving interviews. The older farmers bring their own set of skills.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVietnam being a predominantly agricultural society, a lot of folks carry those skills and knowledge with them from Vietnam,\u201d says Daniel Nguyen. \u201cBut we also started with the mission of training farmers so that we\u2019re all on equal footing. So you don\u2019t have to have prior agricultural experience. And the whole idea is agriculture is an ever-evolving field, and so we\u2019re always trying to keep on top of new developments and best practices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>VEGGI Farmers Cooperative\u00a0was born out of a community summit in 2010, which sought solutions to some of the major issues facing the Vietnamese community in Village L\u2019Este, namely: unemployment and food access.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want to step back, it\u2019s Hurricane Katrina that really brought food access issues into light,\u201d explains Nguyen. \u201cThis is a USDA identified food dessert. Meaning a lot of the folks in this community live in poverty, and live a significant distance\u2014more than half a mile \u2013 away from the closest grocery store.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then, in 2010, there was the BP oil spill &#8212; an economic and environmental disaster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of our folks were reliant on seafood industry for employment before the oil spill and over night those folks got displaced,\u201d says Nguyen.<\/p>\n<p>So in one fell swoop, this\u00a0farmer owned and run cooperative, created jobs and access to healthy, locally grown food \u2013 which can be purchased in the community\u2019s corner stores, CSA boxes, farmers markets, Good Eggs, and local restaurants.<\/p>\n<p><em>Written by Eve Abrams for the Community IMPACT Series and produced by WWNO in partnership with the Greater New Orleans Foundation. To learn more about\u00a0VEGGI\u00a0Farmer&#8217;s Cooperative, click <a title=\"VEGGI Farmer's Cooperative\" href=\"http:\/\/www.veggifarmcoop.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, and to learn more about Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation, click <a title=\"Mary Queen of Vietnam\" href=\"http:\/\/www.mqvncdc.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VEGGI\u00a0is a community member owned and operated farmer\u2019s cooperative based out of New Orleans East, Louisiana.\u00a0VEGGI\u00a0Farmer&#8217;s Cooperative\u00a0is dedicated to empowering growers in the Greater New Orleans area, starting in New Orleans East, in order to create sustainable, high quality jobs that enhance the quality of life of communities through increasing local food access and promotion&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":4975,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[677,30],"tags":[746,350,146,666,744,343,238,747,743,145,683,482,745,675,100],"class_list":["post-4974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-small-feature","category-our-community","tag-bp","tag-community-impact","tag-environment","tag-eve-abrams","tag-farming","tag-job","tag-jobs","tag-mary-queen-of-vietnam","tag-new-orleans-east","tag-oil-spill","tag-radio-segment","tag-sustainable","tag-unemployment","tag-workforce-development","tag-wwno"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>VEGGI Farmer&#039;s Cooperative Creates Jobs By Growing Healthy Food | Greater New Orleans Foundation<\/title>\n<meta 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