BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Providence Farm Collective is a non-profit organization that supports Black, immigrant, refugee and low-income farmers who can’t otherwise access farmland in Western New York.

In 2021, 275 farmers and 84 summer youth employees grew and harvested more than 90,000 pounds of produce for 6,000 people who experienced food insecurity in Erie and Niagara counties. Planting crops in the soil also helps farmers connect with their roots.

Hidden in the back of a house on Parkdale Avenue is the greenhouse Nelson Nagbe helps take care of. The greenhouse is made possible by the Providence Farm Collective.

This is where those who are part of the Liberian Association of Buffalo come to prepare their year’s crops for planting. Nelson, the president of the association, says when the group first heard about the farm collective, almost everyone was interested and excited to join.

“Every member, because almost everybody that is here from Liberia, we are from Liberia, we [are] interested in farming. It’s our way of living. Our parents' parents’ parents do this substation farming to feed themselves. So they taught us the same way," Nelson said.

Nelson says when association members came to Buffalo, they had their own little gardens, but now they could plant more. The crops growing are crops traditionally used in Liberian cuisine.

“These are crops and vegetables that we’re used to eating. So when we don’t see them, we do not have them, we don’t feel satisfied in the dish that we are having at that time. So we’re needing them. It is important to grow them ourselves to be able to prepare our meals out of them," Nelson said.

Nelson says family members of those part of the Liberian Association who are currently living in Liberia sent some of the crops. They grow in the greenhouses until May and then are planted in the Providence Farm Collective farm located in Orchard Park to fully grow. For Nelson and some other members of the Liberian Association of Buffalo, it’s just a little part of a home he cannot return to. Nelson fled from Liberia in due to a civil war in the country.

“It was kind of depressing. It was kind of sad because the war, we couldn’t go back. Fear, death; lot of destruction, lot of killings,” Nelson said.

Nelson resettled in Cote D'Ivoire for almost seven years, but the war he had run from broke out again. He found asylum through the United Nations and came to the United States.

There was no way to go back; got to go forward," Nelson said.

Nelson says the farm brings the Liberian community in Buffalo closer together.

"Almost everything we plant here, every member of this community has a trill in here. Three to four trill in here that they’re going to take to the farm," Nelson said.

The crops grown there will be sold in a PFC farmers market starting in July.

There are other community organizations part of PFC: the Somali Bantu Community Farm, the Congolese Farming Project, the Karenni Hope Farm, the Chin Garden of Hope, Ak’iwacu Farm, and Buffalo Myna Indigenous Christian Fellowship, and Buffalo Go Green.