Thread: Asians become part of farming trend across Southeast U.S.

Asians become part of farming trend across Southeast U.S.

By Larry Copeland, USA TODAYPosted 7m ago |

PINEWOOD, S.C. — In a neat, sparsely-decorated home in rural Sumter County, Tuan Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam, serves strong hot green tea in tiny cups and talks about life as a chicken farmer.

Nguyen, 54, lives here on about 80 acres with a dozen goats and 160,000 chickens. His wife lives 50 miles away in Columbia, where she operates the family's nail salon. They see each other once a week, as they work to put four daughters through college.

"You work hard," he says. "But I like it a lot. It feels like independent work. With this kind of business right now, you can feel safer. So many businesses are up and down. But if you take care of the chickens, they will take care of you."

Nguyen is part of a farming trend unfolding in rural South Carolina and across the Southeast: Growing numbers of Vietnamese, Korean, Hmong, Laotian and other Asian farmers are moving in and creating communities based on agriculture. Nationally, from 2002 to 2007, the number of Asian farmers jumped 40%, compared to a 7% rise in total farmers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2007 Census, the most recent of the agency's five-year farm surveys.

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Asians still account for just a fraction of all farmers in the USA, and more than half of them are in Hawaii and California. But their numbers are expanding rapidly here in Dixie, according to lending cooperatives that finance farm loans and to the farmers themselves.

"It started here about four years ago," says Chris Collins, 31, a loan officer for ArborOne Farm Credit who covers the area. "It's grown pretty fast." He says he works with about 15 Asian farmers among more than 200 clients.

Among other Asian farming communities in the Southeast:

•About 150 Vietnamese farmers work in south Georgia. New farmers there are often sponsored by an established farmer and then are obligated to sponsor the next person in line, says Liz Nogowski, marketing and communications director at Southwest Georgia Farm Credit.

•In North Carolina, Asian farming communities have sprouted in Caldwell, Catawba, Lee, Moore and Stanly counties.

•Florida has numerous plant nurseries owned by Korean families in the Apopka area near Orlando. They have been there for more than a decade, says Regina Thomas, senior vice president/chief development officer for Farm Credit of Central Florida. "They rely on each other," she says. "Families that are more Americanized and more fluent in English tend to help the newer families."

Here in rural South Carolina, most Asian farmers raise chickens. Joy Upchurch, vice president for marketing and bank services at Columbia-based AgFirst Farm Credit Bank, estimates that about 50% of the Asian farmers in the Southeast that have loans through one of her bank's cooperatives are poultry farmers. The rest grow vegetables, fruits and nuts or have nurseries and greenhouses. About 60% farm as their primary business and 40% to supplement income from other jobs.

"I just think they see it (chicken farming) as a good business opportunity," Upchurch says. "It may very well resemble what they used to do or what their father or grandfather used to do, in terms of raising vegetables or poultry on a small scale."

Poultry farming is a difficult, initially expensive, 24-hour-a-day job. Chickens are raised 20,000 at a time in houses 500 feet long and 42 feet wide that can cost from $100,000 to $1.3 million apiece. The average farmer here has six houses. Once houses are acquired and approved by the state, the farmer signs a contract with a chicken-processing company.

That company actually owns the chickens and supplies baby chicks, their feed and vaccinations. After eight weeks, the processor picks the birds up for slaughter. Farmers usually raise five flocks per year.

Poultry houses are automated, with computers controlling temperature, humidity and feedings. Alarms on farmers' cellphones alert them to any change. It's vital they act immediately to correct it. It takes only a few minutes of extreme heat, for instance, to kill a flock. Collins, whose father owns chicken houses, remembers him opening the door to see 20,000 dead birds. "His knees buckled," Collins says.

Among some Asian farmers in South Carolina, there is a strong sense of camaraderie. They say the work is hard, but rewarding.

"We go 10, 12, 15 years without a vacation," Nguyen says. "We never have vacation."

"At first, I didn't like it at all," says Hoangson Nguyen, 34 and no relation to Tuan, who farms in nearby Clarendon County. Hoangson Nguyen, who has two bachelor's degrees, considered quitting to go back to college; but Tuan Nguyen, who has taken Hoangson Nguyen under his wing, encouraged him to stick with it. Now, he's glad he did.

A few miles away lives Jong Kim. He retired as a manufacturing manager in California and, after seeing chicken farmers in Lancaster County, Pa., decided to get into the business.

"This is my retirement plan," he says. "Most of my friends back in California have businesses like mom-and-pop stores, liquor stores and dry cleaning businesses. They had never heard of a farming business. Now, four of them have moved here and bought chicken farms."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... 9_ST_N.htm

Hope they all use E-Verify.