Inside a large greenhouse in Des Moines, Firmin Ntakimazi walks between tables covered with black trays and seedlings. He’s a community resource navigator with Global Greens, a Lutheran Services of Iowa program.
Since 2011, Ntakimazi and other Global Greens staff have connected hundreds of former refugee and immigrant farmers to land, infrastructure and business coaching. It started with community gardens across the metro and expanded to include an 8.5-acre incubator farm in West Des Moines.
Renting this greenhouse space from Dogpatch Urban Gardens is one of the latest developments and comes after several years of struggling to find the right fit.
Ntakimazi sweeps his hand over one of the tables.
“You see, they grow a lot of peppers because they have orders in the restaurants,” he said, “And these eggplants, that’s the favorite one. That’s the one that’s bringing a lot of income.”
Ntakimazi explains these are African eggplants. The fruit they produce is round, about the size of a duck egg and slightly bitter.
“You use them to cook with meat or fish or beans or peas. They kind of go with anything,” he added.
Ntakimazi says people come from as far as Arizona to buy African eggplant at the Global Greens International Market, along with other cultural produce, like lenga lenga greens and cassava leaves.
With Iowa’s short growing season, the new greenhouse space offers a head start to 42 small-scale farmers and over 200 gardening families in the program. But with federal funding freezes, cuts and uncertainty, Global Greens staff are trying to offset costs with plant sales and shift away from a reliance on grants.
“This greenhouse is very important to us,” said Tika Bhandari, a grower and Global Greens community resource navigator. “We can transplant [onions] in March or April, but we need to start germination in December or January.”
Bumping up the timeline means produce is ready to sell in early May at the farmers market or through LSI’s community supported agriculture (CSA) program, Bhandari said.
Finding the right space
Zachary Couture, the land and production supervisor for Global Greens, said they’ve used greenhouses in the past, but they were much smaller and scattered around central Iowa. Staff shuttled seedlings to West Des Moines, Granger and Boone.
“It's been a real struggle for us finding greenhouse space,” Couture said, in part due to zoning codes that affect where agricultural infrastructure can be built.
But then Dogpatch Urban Gardens in Des Moines announced it would scale down its vegetable and flower production and offer greenhouse space for rent. Since February, Global Greens has rented 1.5 greenhouses and subleased space to program participants at a reduced cost.
“It's been a huge stretch for the farmers, for our organization as well, because we went from 500 trays total to total capacity here of over 2,000 trays. So that's a quadrupling,” Couture said.
Greenhouse infrastructure and equipment can cost thousands of dollars, according to Ntakimazi. Many beginning farmers in the Global Greens program do not have the capital, space or land to build their own.
Bhandari added that many of the program participants learned how to grow food in hot, humid climates before resettling in the U.S. Germinating seeds in a greenhouse and preparing them to be transplanted outside requires new skills.
“We need to have a proper temperature, proper heat system,” Bhandari said. “To be a sustainable farmer, they need to have their own greenhouse going forward, but this is our place where we can learn all those things.”
Global Greens staff provide technical assistance and training on site.
“We just hope we can keep this place going,” Couture said.
Plant sales help fill in funding gaps
Over 20% of the planned revenue for Global Greens this year is uncertain due to federal funding freezes. LSI was set to receive subawards totaling $153,000 through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities Program and Increasing Land, Capital, and Market Access Program.
On April 14, the agency announced an overhaul of the Climate-Smart program and a new name: Advancing Markets for Producers. The USDA said it “will contact current partners individually to provide information about their future participation” and reimburse “eligible expenses incurred prior to April 13, 2025.”
LSI said the organization is waiting for communication about both USDA programs while looking for ways to offset the funding gap. This includes selling vegetable seedlings, herbs and potted flowers at Dogpatch Urban Gardens the first two weekends in May and at the Global Greens International Market at the Polk County Health Department the first three Saturdays of May.
“Just coming out and buying a couple plants would be a really good thing that people could do to help keep this going,” Couture said.
If the plant sales are successful, he said they could be part of a longer-term strategy to help Global Greens become more self-sustaining. A small percentage of the CSA shares also supports staffing and program overhead costs, Couture said.
Continuing 160 years of service
LSI is one of Iowa’s largest nonprofit human services agencies. Roughly 400 staff work across the state to support adoption and foster care, mental health, people with disabilities, and of course, immigrants and refugee communities.
“We are celebrating 160 years of service to Iowans this year,” said Nick Wuertz, director of LSI immigrant and refugee community services. “I love to remind people that we were actually founded by immigrants — Danish and German, Norwegian and Swedish immigrants — who started a children's home after the Civil War.”
But it’s been a challenging year, Wuertz said.
After nearly 200 refugees arrived in Des Moines, Sioux City and Waterloo in January, the federal government suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. This prevented new refugees from coming to the U.S. and stopped reimbursements to LSI and other organizations for their resettlement services.
Wuertz said donations from Iowans have helped LSI retain most of its resettlement program staff in the short term and provide direct financial support to families to help with the transition.
“We’re really, really grateful for that support, and it's really allowed us to help get families on their feet, even though our government abandoned them upon coming here to the state,” Wuertz said.
LSI staff are still trying to find employment for about 60 adults in the Des Moines area.
With the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program suspended and no new arrivals coming in, Wuertz said LSI will wind down its resettlement services.
He said the organization will also end a program that helped over 100 people each year prepare for the citizenship exam and access legal services. Wuertz said the decision came after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ended its Citizenship and Integration Grant Program.
But Wuertz emphasized that LSI is still providing other services and programs for immigrants in Iowa, including small business assistance and English-language learning classes. During the federal fiscal year of 2024, LSI resettled 722 refugees and Special Immigrant Visa holders.
Wuertz said the organization will continue serving Iowans despite policy shifts and financial setbacks.
