A New Ecology of Food
The Rural Enterprise Center has created an innovative, scalable small-scale approach to sustainable farming, focused on creating economic opportunities for rural low income families. Because poverty affects primarily rural Latin@s, the new system seeks to maximize the utilization of these population’s assets which come in many forms such as traditions, culture, and work experience. A training process builds on these assets, and addresses challenges head on, such as access to land, training and technical assistance, financing, marketing and business support infrastructure.
Beginning with the grassroots work of building a broad business/community support infrastructure, and moving towards the launch of new “agripreneurs” or family-scale farmers — our goal is to work strategy is focused on creating a compatible path for rural Latin@ immigrant families to break the cycle of poverty so they can participate in, contribute and benefit for a new large scale system of small scale sustainable food and agriculture enterprises.
Families have an array of food and agriculture enterprises to choose from, these enterprises have been developed to meet specific market opportunities and scalability without compromising the sustainability from three key points of view, 1) energy sustainability, we have designed a system that uses minimal amounts of external energy to produce large amounts of food, 2) ecologically sustainability, the enterprise opportunities are designed to “feed” on each others by-products to complete ecological circles critical for maximizing the farm’s natural productive capabilities, 3) people sustainability, this starts with the economic sustainability, so first the system must produce sufficient income for families to meet their needs, meet their natural vocation, support other families up the value added chain under fair trade transactions and deliver foods efficiently to the marketplace so consumers do not end up paying for unnecessary costs.
Each family that enters this new system must think first be trained and follow self-assessment processes so they know this is a commitment they can make for the long haul. For Federico Vargas, a local agripreneur in Northfield, the opportunity is shaping up as part of a poultry processing enterprise opportunity that has started to emerge as other agripreneurs growth larger amounts of poultry and the markets grow. Watch and listen to his story working with the Rural Enterprise Center to find a path that is compatible with his culture, background, experiences, life aspirations, and economic and social profile.
At the same time, this approach has the potential to transform community food systems, helping to rejuvenate small-scale farming operations struggling because of the trend toward consolidation in today’s commodity-driven agricultural environment.
Download Rural Enterprise Fact Sheet (PDF)
Download Case Study: Agripreneurs, A Free Range of Opportunity, by Center for Rural Entrepreneurship (PDF)
Download Community Guide “Hatching an new Ecology of Food” (PDF)
Why poultry?
Although it’s not the only agricultural product, raising natural free-range chickens is at the core of the Rural Enterprise Center’s strategy to launch successful Latino farmers. Here’s why:
Turnaround – Poultry has a short life cycle and a concurrent cash flow (multiple flocks are raised each season). That means it’s possible for low-income families to begin raising poultry without having to disrupt their current situation significantly. Poultry requires minimum inputs and allows maximum returns.
Culture – Most immigrant Latino families already have experience and knowledge around this kind of poultry farming (never to be confused with conventional poultry farm methods) and with cooperative systems. This is a competitive advantage in a growing market for local, natural foods.
Watch and listen to Maria Sosa’s story, one of the agripreneurs who has found new hope in this program after decades of trying to find a path away from conventional farming and factory jobs and into sustainable food and agriculture systems. This new path must be fair for her family and the people she works with, healthy for consumers, contribute to strengthen her community and it must protect and improve the natural ecology.
Sustainability – In sustainable farming systems, biological activity needs the presence of livestock. For example, chicken manure is nature’s fertilizer, and can help us grow more nutritious products more efficiently – such as vegetables, nuts, fruits and honey. Plus we reap the benefits of soil protection through permanent roots systems, extraction of beneficial minerals found deeper in the soil, carbon sequestration, reduced carbon emissions and more.
In this video, you can hear from Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, the Rural Enterprise Center’s Director. He talks about the background, systems thinking approach and structures and strategies that have been put in place to turn this work into an economic competitive advantage for the Southern Minnesota region while the design is broad and thought through so that it can be replicated anywhere in the country.
