Farming and Leadership Development One Step and One Leader at the Time

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on July 8, 2007

The Cannon River and Hiawatha Valley Chapters of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota had their quarterly board meeting and farm tour this afternoon before the nice rolling rain showers came through Northfield. The board meeting was held at Mary Ellen Frame’s farm off highway 3 on the north side of town.

I had the chance to participate at both, the board meeting and the farm tour. With me was Marco Flores, one of our emerging community leaders in Northfield. Marco has participated in leadership trainings organized through the Hispanic Committee at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church and was the first to confirm his interest in participating in this experience.

During the board meeting, Marco was able to observe the dynamics and the way Anglo’s conduct their meetings, we then talked about the differences and formalities observed, including the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting and the way decisions were proposed, motions articulated, seconded, voted on, and recorded for the permanent files of the SFA chapter.

We had a chance to see the board at work, then Ben and Erin offered a tour of their Open Hands vegetable farm and the simple but effective machinery that they use to prepare the ground, plant, weed, and harvest their crops which are sold locally inNorthfield to 40 members of their Community Supported Agriculture operation.

Over the next 12 to 14 months, the Latino community in Northfield will be working on leadership development through the formation of a Community Development Council. This council will be representative of the different sectors where Latinos live in Northfield.  Its purpose will be to deal with those issues that are specific to our community (civic engagement, social environment, language, community participation, access to services, interaction with the Anglo leadeship, etc.)

Through the council, we hope to establish a strong Latino-to-Latino families network, as well as a permanent structure for Latino leadership development and training.  The council will also serve the purpose of relationship and community building goals with the Anglo community by providing a structure for formal interaction and communications and an opportunity for Anglo’s to learn the Latino way of conducting business.  Mutual understanding and integration of our communities will be the result of deliverate efforts and leadership on both ends to come closer together as we all grow in numbers and our issues get more complex.

Ensuring that each one of these leaders starts to feel comfortable among leaders in the Anglo community and that everyone understands how the Anglo community leadership is structure and managed is of the highest priority if we are to move forward a lasting process of integration and effective management of our Latino community affairs.