BANGOR DAILY NEWS • May 28, 2021
A group of Somali Bantu immigrant farmers has bridged a cultural and lingual divide with the crops they raise and sell throughout the Lewiston community. Though these four farmers speak only MaiMai while most of their neighbors and customers speak only English, they all share a love of the land and a dream of connecting to their community. The African-born farmers — Seynaub Ali, Batula Ismail, Mohammed Abukar and Jabril Abdi — own the New Roots Cooperative Farm in Lewiston, the first immigrant-owned farm cooperative in the state. And if current negotiations with the owner of the 30 acres they lease go well, the cooperative will soon own the land.