Help Build the New OK Community Farm!

Help OK Community Farm Access Farm Land!

OK Community Farm (OKCF) was established as an LLC in 2023 in Lewiston, Maine. A small-scale vegetable farm, OKCF is owned and operated by Omasombo Katuka and Poya Ndjadi, in collaboration with their family members, friends, and a broader community of supporters around Southern and Central Maine.

Poya holding onions.

Rented farmland in Scarborough.

African eggplants.

African sweet potato leaves.

Arriving in the United States in 2010, Omasombo and Poya found their way to Lewiston in 2012. Omasombo’s involvement in Lewiston Adult Ed programming, working to refine English literacy skills in the hopes of finding better employment opportunities, connected him with staff at the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project at Cultivating Community. Since then, Omasombo has built a vegetable enterprise that not only demonstrates a successful pathway for growing food business, but also makes tangible and meaningful progress towards shared goals of a diversified agricultural economy and a more equitable food system.

The Maine food system is stronger when Omasombo and Poya have a place in it. No other Maine farm produces anywhere near an equivalent volume of fresh produce for the growing West and Central African community in Maine like OKCF. Though the farm has grown in sales, reach, and impact – the lack of a permanent land base continues to hinder further expansion and the building of generational wealth.

Spreading production across fields over an hour apart, with the majority of the rented acreage in Scarborough, 70 minutes away from home in Lewiston, the farm intrinsically can’t achieve the efficiency to make vegetable production profitable and sustainable in the long run. Additionally, without long-term tenure, investment in the type of equipment and infrastructure required for effective vegetable operations is too precarious: no permanent home for a wash-station, and no cold storage to name a few.

After many years of renting small parcels while searching for land, we finally purchased 20 acres of farmland scheduled to close on May 27th, 2024*. This is a community farm, and we need our community's help to build it. Being able to secure the land was an exciting first step, but to turn its former hay field into a thriving vegetable farm, it will need a lot of work including a well, farm equipment, a wash-station, and for us to pay off the short-term loan. This farmland contains:

OK and Louise visiting the parcel in Wales, ME.

This opportunity provides an immediate opportunity to address the land needs, but the timeline is tight. We need your support. Please help OK Community Farm access farm land and continue to make changes in Maine’s food system!

Below are newsletters featuring OK's farm journey.

Maine farmers newsletter featuring OK

OK featured in Sunjournal Magazine

Blog Archive featuring OK

*Update: Closing date has been extended until 05/27/24.