Gathering of Beginning Farmers in Northfield

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on August 27, 2007

As announced last August 16th on my blog entry, last Saturday a diverse group of people representing farmers, farmer organizations, and Father Dennis from St. Dominic’s Catholic Church met to look into the picture of diversity in food production that is growing around the Northfield area, not only the diversity of color in the faces involved but in backgrounds and sectors of the society working hard to see farmers succeed.  There was room for food, conversation and a great opportunity for everyone to interact, tell stories and learn how other people think and do things.

We later checked on our poultry experiment where we have 15 egg laying gens and 25 broilers, we checked on the status of the 2 acres planted with black turtle beans on land that I rent from my neighbor, our onion production experiment, blue corn seed patch, and the general garden area.  There was a lot of wind and water damage to report but we will still have an acceptable harvest if the weather does not play another trick on us.

A partial list of the people who came to the gathering include, Maria Sosa and Salvador Ruiz from Faribault, Jose Javier of Northfield, Father Dennis of St. Dominic Church, Amy Bacigalupo of the Land Stewardship Project’s (LSP) Willmar office, Karen Stettler of LSP in Lewinston,  Joci Tilsen, Program Director with the Minnesota Food Association, Collie Graddick, with the Pescitice Management Unit at the MN Department of Agriculture, all of these folks came with partners and kids, great food and a warm spirit to share.

Here is a picture with some of the kids after we partially succeeded in pulling them away from their games.