LEC Hosts Western MN Visitors

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on June 23, 2008

 

I had the chance to have Cecilia Alvarez from the Enterprise Assistance Fund in Montevideo, MN visit us today.  With her was Chuck Waibel, owner of Garden Goddess Produce in Milan, MN.  Chuck is a researcher and producer of vegetables for winter distribution, a really interesting operation that grows and stores food in the summer and distributes it in the winter.  We have a lot to learn from these folks as we look into the winter months for our production in Northfield and other areas.

Chuck also produces vegetables during the winter through a system of solar heated greenhouses that require a very small amount of heat during the coldest weeks of the year.  He is sharing all of this data with us in Northfield and the blue prints for a chicken/greenhouse that he has developed with the purpose of extending the chicken growing season as well as combining their production with vegetables under the same facilities, also taking advantage of the heat generated by the birds.

Kay Fernholz was also part of the contingent, whom, with her sister Annette run Earth Rise Farm out of Madison, MN.  They established a foundation as the legal entity behind their farming operation and training center.

I had learned from these folks back in 2001 and then again recently as we assembled a statewide network of resources to support Latino families getting into agriculture.  Recently, our partnership work with the Land Stewardship Project on farm management training brought us back to looking at Earth Rise Farm as we envision a physical location in the western part of the state where we can launch a program of this kind.

Working with Cecilia Alvarez to strengthen our links, and to share experiences for the benefit our Latino communities around rural MN has been very productive.  In the coming months, we will be learning more about Chuck\’s winter production methods and as we train Latino/a farmers in the Northfield/Faribault area, we will incorporate this new technologies and production and marketing methods.