A Family Farm Brings African Produce to Portland

Aug 17, 2021

African eggplant is not easy to find in the grocery stores of Portland, Oregon. When Rosata Niyonzima arrived there from Burundi, after nine years in a refugee camp in Tanzania, this posed a problem for being able to cook healthy food for her family. As a farmer who loved growing her own produce back home, she and her family decided to source seeds from Africa and start growing African eggplant in Portland. Her mission was to share that bounty and the happiness that farming with her family brought her.

Niyonzima, together with her husband, Prosper Hezumuryano, and their children, began tending a plot in a community garden. With the help of a nonprofit called , which aims to cultivate healthy and equitable communities by supporting food production, the family received access to more land. Now 鈥檚 organic crops are spread among three plots of land in the Portland area. The family cultivates a total of 3.5 acres, and the healthy, organic food they produce is helping to advance in the state.

鈥攚hich affects nearly 15% of Oregonians鈥攊s not just about ensuring access to enough calories. For communities, families, and individuals to be truly healthy, that food also has to be culturally appropriate.

Niyonzima鈥檚 son Japhety Ngabireyimana says customers in the local African community say the family鈥檚 CSA and farmers market stands have been like a temple for them. The farm not only gives them access to produce they can鈥檛 get in the markets, but it gives them the chance to connect to their motherland.

The farm also introduces other customers to these tasty new-to-them kinds of produce鈥攆oods many Portland residents have since come to love.

Breanna Draxler is a senior editor at YES!, where she leads coverage of climate and environmental justice, and Native rights. She has nearly a decade of experience editing, reporting, and writing for national magazines including National Geographic聽online and Grist, among others. She collaborated on a climate action guide for聽Audubon Magazine that won a National Magazine Award in 2020. She recently served as a board member for the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Northwest Science Writers Association.聽She has a master鈥檚 degree in environmental journalism from the University of Colorado Boulder. Breanna is based out of the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people, but has worked in newsrooms on both coasts and in between. She previously held staff positions at聽bioGraphic, Popular Science, and聽Discover Magazine.