LYONS, Neb. — More Hispanic and Latino families are returning to their roots and operating small farms, but for the most part they are off the USDA’s grid.

That is the finding of a first-of-its-kind study done by the Center for Rural Affairs in Lyons, Neb., and the Cambio Center, a part of the University of Missouri, which looks at the integration of Latinos into the agricultural economy.

While the initial study was small, Jon Bailey, director of the Center for Rural Affairs, said the trend uncovered in its small sample most likely is similar to growing Latino communities elsewhere in the Great Plains and Midwest.

The 20-page study, Improving the Use of USDA Programs Among Hispanic and Latino Farmers and Ranchers, said the key problems were a lack of awareness on where to get help, a limited knowledge of USDA programs, a limited outreach by USDA to Latino and Hispanic farmers and language and cultural barriers on both sides.

“In some areas, like in out here, the Latino population is the only population that’s growing. If it wasn’t for them, we would have negative growth,” said Bailey. “Really, this has to be looked at as the newest wave of immigration to this country.”

Just like Poles, Hungarians, Germans, Russians and Italians before them, the wave of immigrant families from Mexico and Central America is an expression of the American dream, said Bailey.

“But what we discovered in our study is that while the Census of Agriculture says one thing about Latino farmers, reality tells us something else,” he said. The Census of Agriculture officially records only a handful of Latino and Hispanic farmers across the country.

For instance, in one county in Missouri that was part of the study, the USDA officially listed just 10 Latino family farms. Bailey said when his researchers fanned out into the field, they found 40, although not all of them agreed to take part in the survey.

In the end, 30 farmers (all but two were naturalized citizens) in Nebraska and Missouri were interviewed. Bailey said even though the sample was small, it provides a glimpse into why so many Latino and Hispanic farmers across the country aren’t being helped by the USDA.

“The reason for that is they don’t participate in a lot of USDA programs,” said Bailey. “As a result, they’re not listed in any USDA database. That raises the question, ‘What can the USDA do to find these people, and how can we get these farmers to engage with the USDA?’”

He said those are key questions that need to be addressed, but neither has an easy answer.

The economic impact of these small family farms – on average, they’re between 20-40 acres – isn’t known, said Bailey. “It depends on what they’re growing. Most are raising livestock,” he explained.

One constant the study uncovered is that most Latino and Hispanic farmers came to the United States for another job. In Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, said Bailey, most took jobs in the meatpacking industry.

“Their roots were in farming back in Mexico and that’s what they aspired to do. They saved their money, bought some land and became farmers. They didn’t come here to be farmers,” said Bailey, adding many of the Latino farmers had more than 10 years of farming experience before coming to the United States.

In order to conduct the interviews, Bailey said Spanish-speaking interns and college students were hired to interview the farmers one-on-one because they were more comfortable speaking Spanish than in English.

After conducting the interviews and compiling the data, Bailey said the Center for Rural Affairs compiled a list of recommendations to improve communication and outreach between local USDA offices and Latino farmers.

“I hope USDA uses the information to start some pilot programs. The USDA has told us that’s important to them,” said Bailey. The local USDA offices, on the other hand, told him they didn’t have the resources to reach out to Latino farmers as they would like to.

“These farmers are every entrepreneurial,” said Bailey. “They want to do well and they see themselves as stewards of the land. They have a lot of questions about doing things the right way, but they have trouble communicating with the local office because they don’t speak English well and the office doesn’t have anyone who speaks Spanish.”

The entrepreneurial spirit of many of the small farmers was underscored by the fact they acquired their land, livestock and equipment using their own money. Very few bought on credit.

For instance, many of the small farms qualify for a variety of conservation programs, yet few are signed up. Because much technical information is involved during the signup process, the Latino farmers don’t sign up because they don’t understand the material. Even for English speaker, said Bailey, the technical information in the program signup is difficult to understand.

“USDA offices have printed their material in Spanish, but even that doesn’t help. If the farmers have questions, there is no one to answer their questions,” said Bailey. “The frustration is a two-way street. The local USDA offices are just as frustrated as the farmers.”

Even though USDA officials are frustrated, Bailey said many offices aren’t aware of the magnitude of the communication problem. In fact, of the offices in the 11 counties in Nebraska and Missouri that were part of the study, only one had a staffer that spoke Spanish.

Bailey said one of the biggest frustrations among Latino farmers is that when they went to a Farm Service Agency or other USDA office, they couldn’t get an answer for their questions.

“Many want to go somewhere and show someone their operation and have an expert tell them ‘this is what you are doing wrong,’ or ‘if you did this instead of this, you would make more money.’ A lot of knowledge is gained by networking, but that seems to be lacking here since these operations are, for the most part, nonconventional,” he said.

Bailey added he hopes to follow up with farmers who took part in the survey and to do other surveys in the future.

“It was very interesting to us to find that there were a lot more Latino farmers than the USDA knew about,” he said.

“I would guess it’s pretty easy to say that language and culture issues have a lot to do with that. There was a big reluctance on the part of many of the farmers to talk with officials.”

Those are barriers Bailey hopes to overcome in future surveys.