The Grower

Vicky BoydDemand for ethnic produce, such as fuzzy gourds or bi dao, is growing because immigrants want tastes from their homeland and Americans want to try new foods.

When Tzexa Lee came to the United States from Laos as a young man in 1980, he brought with him his appetite for Asian vegetables, such as moqua, a sort of cross between a melon and zucchini, and opo, or bottle gourd as it is also known.

So it was a natural for Lee to plant those crops, exotic foods unfamiliar to most Americans at the time, in his new homeland.

Today people can buy lemongrass and bitter melon from Maine to Montana as easily as they can find jalapeño peppers and tomatillos in supermarkets nationwide.

Lee and many other members of the Hmong people, who fled Southeast Asia after the Vietnam War, settled in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

Farmers by trade, they helped make the Asian vegetable market a national success story, as bok choy and other foods from far corners of the world became almost as well known as iceberg lettuce and carrots are to domestic consumers.

Richard Molinar, a small farms specialist with the University of California Cooperative Extension Service, says the “niche” farming of Asian vegetables these days is not as small as many might think.

It is a multimillion dollar a year segment of U.S. agriculture driven in part by the desire of consumers to try new things.

Chefs looking for new taste temptations are another source of demand.

“We have over 1,300 [Asian] refugee farmers here in Fresno County and over 20,000 acres” of specialty crops, selling locally as well as nationwide, Molinar says.

More than 62 percent of the Asian farmers are Hmong. The Lees, including a second generation of family members born in the United States and now in management positions, own and operate the largest Asian-American farm in Fresno County, and possibly all of California.

Cherta Farms has more than 100 acres of crops. And while that’s not large by traditional U.S. standards, it’s a far cry from the 2- and 3-acre Asian family farm that was commonplace 25 or 30 years ago.

The Lees, in fact, sometimes host visiting farmers from Laos and other Southeast Asian countries who want to learn how to expand their own operations at home.

Widespread demand

While farmers markets and urban outlets within a two- or three-hour drive, such as in and around Los Angeles, get much of the fresh produce from local fields, harvests increasingly are trucked to buyers as far away as Canada and New York.

The large Chinese population in the Northeast creates demand, just as other groups, such as Puerto Ricans and transplants from the Caribbean, seek other specialty crops that allow them to recreate the unique tastes of their own “home cooking.”

A comprehensive survey and study of demographics and the marketing of Asian and Hispanic produce in the East found that ethnic produce accounts for more than 60 percent of total produce purchases of the groups surveyed, and more than 80 percent in some cases.

The study of Asian and Hispanic populations in 16 states from Maine through Florida, overseen by Rutgers University Cooperative Extension Service, allowed researchers to estimate that Chinese consumers in those states spend more than $245 million annually on ethnic produce; Asian Indians at least $190 million a year; Mexicans more than $280 million and Puerto Ricans at least $531 million.

That’s well over $1 billion a year spent on specialty produce just by those groups, which include recent immigrants as well as longtime residents.

Interestingly, the survey found that minority shoppers tend to favor ethnic grocers and regular supermarkets with specialty-food sections, more so than farmers markets. Yet they also place high priority on freshness and shop for food frequently.

Facing challenges

So how can larger farmers tap into the specialty produce market? And if they want to try, how would they learn to grow crops such as raavayya or bharta, which are popular with Asian Indian consumers, or aji dulce, a favorite of Puerto Ricans?

Industry specialists say the short answer is to “start small” and be willing to experiment.

Many vegetable operations in Florida, the largest winter vegetable producer for the Eastern United States, have been adding specialty crops to their more traditional lineup for many years.

Florida has more than 4,500 acres of Chinese vegetable production, mainly in Palm Beach County and half a dozen other counties, according to the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Cooperative Extension Service.

The actual production is not as difficult as it might appear, UF extension specialists say. UF’s Guidelines for Chinese Leafy and Root Crop Vegetables in South Florida, for example, include planting and cultural recommendations for everything from gai lon (Chinese broccoli) to chihili (a type of Chinese cabbage).

UF extension specialists say that while there is little direct information about irrigation needs specific to Chinese vegetables in Florida, growers can estimate based on similar types of familiar vegetables.

Raavaya and bharta, for example, are exotic types of eggplant, and aji dulce is a sweet, mildly spicy pepper that grows much like other pepper plants.

The real trick is maintaining profitability in an increasingly competitive environment, says Tzexa Lee, the longtime Hmong farmer in California.

“The golden age was before NAFTA passed,” Lee says. Since the 1990s, producers in Mexico have been undercutting U.S. farmers in everything from field tomatoes to specialty produce, such as bok choy, as a result of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Lee says that he and other Asian growers in Fresno County, for example, have been virtually shut out of bok choy sales in the past three years because of competition from Mexico.

The daikon Japanese radish, which fetched $15 to $20 for a 40-pound box for California farmers a few years ago, he says, now sells for $6.

“Many prices for [Asian] vegetables, wholesale, are the same as in the 1980s,” Lee says. Yet labor costs in the United States have continued to rise, so profits on many crops are thin or nonexistent.

Lee predicts that within 10 years, most Asian specialty produce farmers in Central California will be out of business, their land sold to developers and claimed for various urban uses.

If so, that could open the door to many other domestic producers of exotic crops in numerous states nationwide, because the demand for new tastes will not fade away.