• Boston Globe,  Featured

    A Somali Bantu refugee farmer thrives in Maine

    Liberation Farms supports Somali Bantu refugee farmers to develop viable farm businesses By Jocelyn Ruggiero Globe correspondent, August 1, 2023 WALES, Maine — Seventy-two-year-old Ahmed Baraki leans forward, his back parallel to the ground, and vigorously rakes his “yaanbo,” or hoe, loosening the weeds that cluster around the young cabbage and Boston lettuce sprouting in long, straight lines on the narrow half-acre plot he shares with four other farmers. He regularly pauses to yank clusters of greens and dirt from the ground and the yaanbo’s blade. There’s a light breeze on this cloudy and unseasonably cool June day, and the air at Liberation Farms smells like manure and compost. As…