(folk music beginning) - [Leonel] What's happening in Virginia, and I think it's happening throughout the country, the old farmers are leaving the farming business, and a lot of land is not going back into farming.

Some of the best soils are being gobbled up by the urban development.

- [William] Right now, with food insecurity, everybody's concerned about "Are we gonna have enough food to feed this generation, "and the next generation?"

Big Ag cannot tote the burden of trying to feed the world alone.

They need the small farmers.

(folk music continuing) Everybody plays their part, but the smaller guy, they don't get the opportunity to play in a big vast field like back here, they only got an acre, only got two or three acres.

Look what you could do!

- [Ari] I always try to do something different than anybody else.

People come in here, "Oh my god, sugarcane in Virginia!"

This is how we live in my country.

You got your chicken in the yard, you raise your little produce, (Ari speaking Spanish) but that's not like a hobby.

You raise that to survive.

- This is our food security for this country.

Es tan importante las ayudas y los beneficios que hay en este país, que es nuestro país, para la agricultor Los tiempos estan cambiando.

!¡Es el tiempo los agricultores!

♪ In the heartland ♪ ♪ We rely on ourselves ♪ ♪ And one another ♪ ♪ Hand in hand ♪ ♪ We must stand ♪ ♪ In the heartland ♪ (folk music ending) - [Announcer] Production funding for this program is made possible by... (folk music beginning) Todo mundo puedes debería de ver donde viene.

Muchos tienen sus hijos, sus hijos no saben de donde viene el tomate.

O cree que viene de la tienda.

Tu tienes que hacer tres cosas, y son fundamentales.

Tienes que trabajar fuerte.

Tienes que tener una buen administracíon.

Y tienes que tener conocimiento.

Para que tu puedes hacer esa tomate, esa planta.

- [Ari] Pretty much, I've been working with food soon I got to United States.

In my area, you don't raise like cabbage, broccoli, but when I come and try raising a broccoli, probably I raise my broccoli was that big, (laughing) I don't have no experience how to trimming, when I planting... Nosotros queriamos crecer un tomate con las temperaturas de Sinaloa.

Con el conocimiento de Sinaloa, México.

Entonces, es muy diferente.

No teníamos el conocimiento de como crecer esta planta Esta tomate.

En esta tierra.

(folk music continuing) El tomate... le gusta la gente, le gusta venado, le gusta el conejo...

Le gusta - ¿como se llama el animal se venían a veces?

¿La problema?

- Possum?

- Uh-huh, sí.

(folk music ending) (office workers conversing) - [William] So when you go back there and they get W9, tell 'em to check the math, yeah.

Come April, I've been around here for about 10 years.

When I came here, there was one full-time employee, which was myself, and maybe eight part-time employees.

The challenges I think that I'm facing at the moment are unique challenges, or opportunities.

I don't call 'em challenges, I call 'em opportunities.

This is I guess ground zero.

You're actually on a 416, 17 acre research farm.

We cover all of the Commonwealth of Virginia, counties in Maryland, four counties up in Maryland, and these counties in North Carolina.

And when I came here 10 years ago, we just covered maybe six or seven counties in south side Virginia.

- If we're in the area and we have other requests, then I guess we can tag on- - Yeah.

- And then we can make it one whole package.

- Yeah.

- To make it.

- [William] Yeah.

- So we'll look at it logistically as the requests come in.

- [William] There are lots of large farming operations, but they cannot feed the world.

They need the help of the little guys as well.

And that's our goal here, is to help the small, socially disadvantaged guy.

- [Zoom Speaker] I know we're in the mode of responding to requests, but I just think, again, we need to be considerate of the places that might not even know that they should be requesting, you know, our unit and and putting some information out there for their audiences to know that they have an option to request.

- [William] We go out in the field with you, we work with you, we train you, we show you how to do it.

There is a better way of doing things, if you just follow our recipe, so to speak.

(folk music beginning) So many people have been disenfranchised over the years, and there's a history of that.

With the country talking about immigrants, you know, they're very apprehensive about participating in any government programs, you know, so you tell 'em about USDA, or you tell 'em about this, and they go, "Oh no, no, no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, yeah."

That's important, I think, that we build that trust factor, break that down to them, so that they can have an impact on not only their community, but the world.

(folk music continuing) USDA defines a small farm as anybody that grows less than $250,000, because they use the broad spectrum of an entire country.

Here in Virginia, we look at a small farm normally in the 100 to 150 acres, most of them.

And then we have a lot of farmers that are just small.

(folk music ending) - [Lys] And how many acres is this plot?

(Ari laughing) Is it like an acre or is it... - Point 85.

(bachata music beginning) Just be careful here.

Déjame mover este aquí... (plastic scuffing) What we going to do here is try enjoy as much space as possible.

I take off out of there, out of that other house, about 3,700 pound of tomato.

(laughs) - [Leonel] The hoop house, or high tunnel, extends your growing season.

In one of these hoop houses, he can produce what he could do maybe in two or three acres in open field.

Everything here is under his control.

(relaxed bachata music continuing) - I come from Dominican Republic, and we are tropical.

Lime, avocado, guava, sugarcane, papaya, banana - plátano - and chinola.

Passion fruit.

I have including out of state produce, like let's say fruit, lemons, orange, pineapples, and stuff like that to make it catchy.

But the majority stuff will be a... (turkey snapping) (laughing) Come on, man!

Back in the day, pretty much that's all I got.

People... (laughing) Come on, bro!

I got people, they coming here and told me I come here just for, like, forget about the city, distract myself.

(relaxed bachata continuing) We got grapes here.

They call it muscadine.

(leaves rustling) Turnip.

Look at this.

(relaxed bachata music continuing) We call it "agricultor" in Spanish, I'm an agricultor, and I'm producing vegetable and retail it and wholesale it.

Twice a week is farmer's market and Richmond, and also daily, people come in here and pick their own or whatever, they call me, "Hey, I need so much of this, so much of that," okay.

When you buy produce from great big company, I don't wanna say they don't know what they doing, but also they have to apply strong chemical.

You know?

This one, it were picked yesterday.

(bottle crinkling) (cucumber snapping) You heard?

That's how crunchy it is.

(cucumber crunching) Keep it fresh.

You putting all the stuff together and you got a market.

(bachata music ending) (bag thumping) So we get the baby, and good to go.

(truck engine accelerating) (tires crunching) (engine humming) I do a lot of travel.

I drive at least four days a week the same road.

Thursday, I gotta go all the way to Richmond, and that's like another hour and a half.

But when I coming back, I gotta come into North Carolina, which is in Roanoke Rapids.

So from Roanoke Rapids, come right back to the house, that's on Thursday.

(lively folk music beginning) It's not frustrating.

I meet people and I enjoy myself.

(Customers speaking Spanish) (Ari speaking Spanish) - [Leonel] For the Hispanic community, they eat beans two or three times a day, you know, (laughing) so they buy whatever he has.

- Man, man.

"Yo, we got beans here!"

"Oh, bring me some, bring me some!"

(Ari speaking Spanish) I planted the stuff for different cultures.

Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras.

Everyone, here, there, one country like something more than in the other country.

And that's why I'm here for now, planting what they need.

¿Que estamos haciendo?

Quitala frijoles.

Okay, ¿de que color?

Negro.

Okay, está bien.

(lively folk music ending) Very popular.

We got the black beans today.

Black beans and red beans.

Even, let's say, Salvador and Guatemala, they kind of close, it's different culture.

They raise their kids differently, they eat differently.

Ayudale a él, por favor.

What's up, brother?

(beans rattling) My father, he was one of the major rice producers in Dominican Republic.

I really wanna be involved at one point, but, you know, he don't let me.

Mom and father, they have me, like, the rich boy, and that's not good.

So when I came to United States, I really don't know.

Not even fry an egg, (laughs) but I have that vision.

So I'm pretty much a really good copy of my father.

You see what I doing, it's pretty much what he was doing in his country.

I never done it, but I see.

It's about food.

People need to eat.

(bright folk music beginning) La comida es muy, muy importante.

El tomate es dinero.

Yo le dijo, mira, aquí.

!¡Es una cora!

Oop, se me cayó la cora.

!¡Esta es una cora!

Empezamos este sueño en el 2012.

Pues, prácticamente tenemos diez años.

Empezamos con jalapeños.

Pablo que es mi esposo y compañero de vida por mas de dieciséis años.

(Margarita laughing) Él es originario de El Salvador.

Y yo soy originario de México.

De Sinaloa, México.

- [Pablo] We met before 9/11, 'cause I was in the military, so we met, I met her in Virginia Beach.

Yo estudiaba en una universidad en 2001 Pues aqui vine y caí en un militar, si, y un miltar muy joven y guapo Dije yo, "Bueno, pues... !¡me gusto Estados Unidos!"

Este sólo es un campo de tomate Roma - It's only Roma tomatoes.

Tuvimos este problema por el huracán.

El exceso de agua es lo que haces un corazon no esta muy bonito.

Me gusta mucho el tomate Roma porque es un tomate fuerte.

Es un tomate que, tiene tamaño, y a lo restauranteros es son lo que le gusta.

(bright folk music continuing) El mercado es más amplo para el tomate.

Y no tenemos ningún problema en venderlo.

Es completamente natural.

Lo que tu te llevas a tu boca, es completamente natural.

- [Pablo] And you know, the good thing is, like, everything that we produce here stay in the same county.

It doesn't leave out.

Nosotros empezamos en 2012 pero nos hubimos un pausa en 2017.

- [Leonel] It rained for two weeks in a row.

Everything was waterlogged and they lost their, their plants just collapsed.

By the time the inspector came to evaluate for their crop insurance, there was no plants.

They were rotted.

Perdimos todo.

Empezamos desde cero.

- [Ari] It's hard when you can really do nothing about it.

When my father died, it was like, (sighs) take my heart out of my body.

My father, he was my brother, he was my uncle, he was my friend, he was my partner.

He was everything for me.

One thing I learned from my father, if you fell, get back.

If he fell somewhere, that's nothing, go back again.

- [Rev.

Brown] When the waters rise, you don't base your survival on the whims of charity or benevolence alone.

You better have something for yourself.

He say "Listen, if you can't afford what they got "across the street, "and if you don't feel welcome over in that space, "roll up your sleeves and grow on the land that I gave you "in the first place."

(audience applauding) Es algo para mi muy impresionante, ya que - en aquello tiempo cuando yo empecé a a ser agricultora, y no tenía ningún conocimiento... Pero siempre asi a aprende algo.

- My mind is blowing.

(laughing) (lively bachata music beginning) It's amazing what you can do with one little bitty seed.

- [William] Sometimes I get an individual in here and they got all these dreams, they gonna do this and they gonna do that.

But then when you narrow them down, get 'em focused, and then take 'em on that path and see them become successful.

(lively music ending) My goal is the sustainability of the program.

I've been with it ten years, but how much longer do I want to stay here, you know, is the question I have in my mind, 'cause I'm retired once.

I love Ag.

I love Ag.

I grew up on a farm in southside Virginia.

We raised flue-cured tobacco and beef cattle.

This little plot where you see grassy, I think that's gamagrass, and then on the back it's just regular crop land that the farm manager plants, various crops on to help maintain the farm.

I recall the struggles that my parents had on the small farm, you know?

And for me being able to come back and help other small farmers to overcome those challenges, that's what keeps bringing me back.

(folk music beginning) This is our high tech high tunnel.

This tunnel was off of the grid.

It operates off of the solar field and the wind turbine up in the air.

It collects the rainwater off of the roof deposits it in those cisterns in the back.

As far as we know, this is the only one of its type in the country.

It has the irrigation system, you have two pumps in the back that takes the water out of the cisterns, and then it irrigates the crop.

It's all operated off of a Wadsworth system, electronically.

If we say we want the temperature to be 65 in there, we can set it so it'll automatically raise the curtains on the side.

(relaxed folk music ending) So a small farmer, now.

The question would be, "Well, I can't afford all that."

No you can't, but you can afford some of the simple technology, like put some gutters on your high tunnel and collect your rainwater.

"Well, how I'm gonna irrigate?"

Hey use one solar panel, and you can run one of those pumps back there.

You don't have to have all this elaborate stuff we got in this one.

So that's what we try to do here.

(gate rattling) If they see it, they can get a better idea of what they need to do.

You know, visualize it.

- [Ari] In my family, it was like 11 uncle, every single uncle, has to have a area for raise some type of produce.

So like let's say you raise watermelons and cantaloupe, everybody coming to you and get watermelons and cantaloupe.

(Ari and customers speaking Spanish) I raise squash and cucumber.

Everybody have to coming here, and get their own squash and cucumber.

My grandfather, he was the one saying, "Look, everybody gotta raise some type of produce."

(blues music beginning) When a customer come into farmer's market, they gonna find the produce.

It don't matter if it's from my table or from other table.

(blues music continuing) (bag rustling) We picked that last night, eight o'clock.

Very fresh.

Thank you.

(customers chatting) You know the, this thing, like when it gets cold, too cold, they kind of weak.

They don't like too much cold.

- No they don't.

- That's right.

(blues music continuing) Oh, you gave me one too much.

People get excited, and sometimes they come for one or two items but some, they take like five items.

- Here you go.

- She got another one there.

It's a little windy.

(breeze blowing) [Woman] I gotta get a jacket.

(plastic crinkling) - [Customer] I watch you all the time on Facebook.

(Ari chuckling) - People met here.

"Oh, yeah!"

And they start talking, da da da, da da da.

- This is some of my work.

- Oh, okay.

Look at that!

- Carvings.

- Wow.

- Where y'all from?

- Lawrenceville.

- Lawrenceville?

- Lawrenceville.

Just go by, like a dollar for you.

- Let me ask you a question.

- Yes sir?

- Banana tree, you just chop it off even and mulch on top, or do you, what do you do with that banana tree during the winter?

- Right here we got the marketplace, and they also sell it too, during the week.

- [Joann] We use Ari's vegetables in as many of our items that we sell in our deli case as we possibly can.

That's our chef, back there.

- [Jessica] You know, you go to the grocery store, you don't know where your stuff's coming from, who's growing it.

So we build a relationship with Ari, and he comes to see us Saturdays and bring stuff to us, and then I get to kind of plan menus around that, which is fun.

- [Ari] And I really enjoy the support all the community give me.

(folk music beginning) - [William] You learn a lot about an individual, sitting across the table having a meal with them.

You know, I may grow a vegetable this way, you may grow it this way, but we need it to be grown this way to be able to be marketable.

So we bring our resources together and our knowledge, and then... - [Ari] We need to be... (overlapping chatter) Like the way I just... - Crutchfield open it up and pass it to me... (participants laughing and chatting) Pass it back to me and we'll stop presenting.

That's right.

- That's right.

- Man, you on point, you on point.

(all laughing) (overlapping chatter) - [Ari] Thank you, good to talk to you.

- Good to see you.

- How you doing, buddy?

(overlapping chatter) (Ari laughing) - You got 'em wall to wall now.

What did you do with your hogs and stuff?

- [Ari] Now I have the facility to see what other people do.

So that's another grain.

(folk music continuing) (overlapping chatter) You can see other operations, and that's wonderful.

(folk music ending) So he need a lot of orientation.

I said, "No, it don't work like that."

You know you have to have the... - He needs a mentor.

- (laughing) Yeah.

- [Herbert] Your farm, the county, what county your farm in?

- Nice crunchy cucumbers.

Mhm, I can see that, right here.

[Man] That'll work the appetite up.

Say less, say less.

(overlapping chatter) - [William] Well good evening everyone.

Good evening and welcome.

How many of you here have a high tunnel?

Okay.

- [Herbert] We are the education component.

We interact with a lot of beginning farmers, and new farmers, and socially disadvantaged farmers.

And I want them to really understand what's available, so they can utilize all of these resources to better their farming operation.

And sometimes the bigger farmers, they're all involved in the technology.

You know, they have the bigger tractors, they have the auto stair, or all these other things.

But the small farmers, it's not a whole lot for us in the world of technology.

So this is one way that technology can be adopted onto the smaller farms... - [William] We need to demonstrate to the farmers the technology and what's there, so that you can make an informed decision about what's good for you and your operation.

A lot of those pieces of equipment, these farmers can't afford.

So we purchase those types of equipment through grant funding, and then we make it accessible to the farmers.

It gets you back up on your feet, and then we'll pass it on to the next farmer that may be in distress.

(birds cawing) Y a que quiebra es temporal.

Tu puedes quebrar.

Tu puedes fracasar, tu te puedes se bancarrota Pero cuando tu sabes trabajar, !¡tu te levantas!

- [Herbert] Farming is evolving.

This is the future of agriculture.

- [Leonel] This is the trend, and this is what we need to work for.

There are ways to get back into farming.

(somber folk music playing) Esta es en proceso.

Es el proceso.

Cuando digo el sueño americano, para mi, es tener un techo.

El tener comida.

En la mesa.

Y tener tiempo para tus hijos.

Para tu familia.

Mi sueño no es vivir en una casa de dos millones de dolares.

Es uno sueño de otros.

El mio, no.

Lo mejor es una casa mas pequeña.

Pero feliz.

Y tu dices "Esta es lejos de su sueño americano."

!¡No!

Esta es muy cerca.

Eso es el sueño americano mio.

(somber folk music continuing) - [William] When it all comes together, that vision that I had, prove to the individuals that had their doubts that, "Hey, this is something that is of value, "that the farmers can use, "and that they going to take a piece of this "back to their farm."

- [Ari] You never finish learning, but hey, so far I think I'm kind of okay shape.

I don't feel like I'm working.

I'm feeling like it's a hobby, but I make money.

- [William] Each morning, you have to have something to get up for.

You know, I love fishing and traveling, but I love farming and watching things grow.

I'm gonna stay here behind this desk as long as I'm having fun.

Oh, you know, I'm still having a little fun.

(laughing) - [Ari] You treat the plant right, they appreciate it.

When you know what the plant need, and you see the plant growing, and you say, "Wow, it's coming, it's coming!"

(music ending) - [Announcer] Production funding for this program is made possible by... (gentle music beginning) ♪ Who belongs?

♪ ♪ Is there room enough for all?

♪ ♪ Who belongs?

♪ ♪ Do we stand or do we fall?

♪ ♪ And is there room ♪ ♪ In our hearts for this whole land?

♪ ♪ Is there room ♪ ♪ For us in the heart of the land?

♪ (gentle music ending) (light chord playing)