The Indochinese Farm Project began in 1982 with 18 acres of land along the Sammamish River. Funded in part by King County and the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority (Market PDA), the Indochinese Farm project was a joint project of the Washington State Commission on Asian American Affairs and Bethany Presbyterian church. Through the project, refugees from Laos could lease land for farming at low cost.

In 1984, 10 Mien and Hmong families from Laos rented land in the Sammamish Valley for farming through the Indochinese Farm Project. In its third year, the project provided training in agricultural skills, and on the use of pesticides and fertilizers. The farmers were taught English and trained in skills needed to allow them to market their produce. They hoped to earn a living by selling their produce at farmers' markets and to restaurants and churches.

Here, Hmong farmer Shoua Chang works the land on her farm. She wheels a tiller upside-down after preparing the soil for a spinach crop. In the first year of the project in 1982, farmers had to till the land by hand, but the following year used rototillers donated by the Seattle Foundation.

Caption information source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “Laotian refugees become farmers – then greengrocers” by Karen Hoisinger, August 4, 1982, p. C1;"Laotian refugees learn to dig up profits" by Darrell Glover, May 8, 1984, p. A3.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.