A Somali Bantu refugee-led urban farm in Pittsburgh has been expanding over the last several years to include a goat farm about an hour north of the city in Mercer County. Jumping from urban to rural farming was a huge leap. It required significant philanthropic support, and open-minded neighbors. Somali farmers are now working to fill cultural and nutritional gaps for Muslim communities throughout the region.
Abdulkadir Chirambo is executive director of Mwanakuche Farm, a nonprofit produce and livestock farm in Mercer County. Walking through what used to be a two-car garage, he points out how the space was recently renovated to make it more accommodating for families who come to witness the animals they buy be slaughtered.
White linoleum floors, walls and ceilings house various saws for processing meat in this repurposed garage. Mwanakuche Farm does not sell processed meat; rather, they sell live animals, but they’re often slaughtered on site with traditional religious customs.
“We serve almost the entire African continent,” Chirambo explained. He pointed over his shoulder to a conversation happening between one of the farm hands and two customers. He explained that the conversation was happening in several different languages. “When we come around here, we almost speak 11 languages.”
Chirambo spent his childhood in a refugee camp. He and his family came to the U.S. when he was 12, in 2004. He’s grateful to be in the U.S., and says he wants to give back and help other refugees like himself. He sees leasing this Mercer County farm as a way to do both. Chirambo says Somalis make good farmers — it’s what they know and how many would like to contribute.
Halal farming
And he says Africans — especially Muslims — come from across the northeast to visit the farm. Visitors quarters exist to allow families the opportunity to explore before they choose animals to buy. Chirambo says many come just to sit in nature, others come to spend time with the animals and learn how they are raised, like Abu Mugaya and Amina Osman, a husband and wife visiting to buy a cow for themselves and their five daughters in Pittsburgh.
Mugaya is also from Somalia, by way of a refugee camp in Kenya. He says he comes to this farm because the meat is halal — a term used to describe actions and things aligned with Islamic guidelines. “Halal” primarily refers to food, but also extends to various aspects of life, including finance and ethics.
“Normally we believe, in the Quran, to slaughter something like the cow or the goat you have to say ‘Bismillah, Allahu Akbar.’” Mugaya explained. “That will make it halal to eat. In order to make it good to eat, you have to say those words. That’s why we prefer to come here because other places never do that.”
Halal slaughter requires a sharp knife and swift, deep throat cut so that all the blood can be drained from the body. The entire process — from feeding and raising animals through handling slaughtered meat — adheres to Islamic principles of cleanliness, ethics and compassion.
Mugaya is choosing from several grazing cows. There are also about 30 goats, 20 sheep, roosters, guinea hens, chickens and a field of corn, as well as other produce like kava and kidney beans and chickpeas.
This is the second year of operations in Mercer County. The farming actually started in a Pittsburgh city lot of the Perry South neighborhood in 2017. Chirambo shakes his head and laughs when he says, by comparison, it takes nothing to start an urban community garden; jumping to rural American farming has been altogether different.
Good fences make good neighbors
Mwanakuche Farm is leasing farmland through Western Pennsylvania Conservancy’s Farmland Access Initiative — a program designed to close the gap between people who don’t have access to farmland and farm operations in need of farmers.
Three days after signing the lease, Chirambo bought 20 lambs and 3 baby goats and put them out to pasture in the traditional Somali nomadic farming way. The thought of a fence never crossed his mind.
“All we were hearing was the phone ringing and ringing and ringing — ‘hey your animals, your animals, your animals!’”
Luckily, Chirambo already knew some of the neighbors. And perhaps in hindsight, this was a good way to meet the rest. Like Karen Shipton.
“I remember the day I came down the hill, turned left past this property here and whoa, the house beside me, the whole front yard was full of animals,” Shipton recalled with a chuckle.
Shipton is Findley Township secretary and tax collector. She lives one farm over and grew up playing and swimming on this property.
Chirambo recalls going around to knock on all his neighbors’ doors to pass out his phone number and ask for help. He started building a fence with wooden pallets his neighbors gave him, then he graduated to a basic garden fence with t-posts. Now, he and his team are being trained how to set larger beams and build longer lasting fencing. It’s been a steep learning curve. But Shipton says she and other neighbors have been patient.
“This is America,” Shipton said. “We want to help. That’s kinda how we all feel.”
Chirambo says he’s learning a lot about boundaries — lessons he believes would be valuable back in Somalia where so many disputes erupt between neighboring clans.
Chirambo says Mwanakuche Farm would be lost without his neighbors and the Pittsburgh community. In addition to this support from individual neighbors, in the last two years Mwanache Farm has been awarded $260,000 in Heinz Endowment grants for a tractor, supplies, training and help with operations.
Chirambo is seeking more grant support this year, but he says it’s not so much to buy more equipment.
“It’s more about focusing on the administration, building better the community, and ensure they have the fresh produce they culturally use.”
