2010, New Opportunities for Growth and Partnership Building

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on May 7, 2010

2010 feels to have started like a bull riding exercise and it does not look like it will stay still. So far, the year has been full of incredible energy and I want to make sure that you feel part of this process. Our mission is to turn rural people’s aspirations into reality by building the infrastructure, programs and systems necessary to launch successful agripreneurs. Why agripreneurs? because from the start of our program in 2007 we knew this to be the most important sector for the incorporation of people living in poverty, into the rural economic equation in our state and the nation. When we talk about rural poverty, of course we have to understand that we are talking primarily about new immigrant families and especially Hispanic/Latino immigrants who hold the largest share of the short end of the economic stick.

At the same time, this industry sector and the families who feed its labor needs, represent enterprise development opportunities beyond anyone’s imagination. Different from opportunities in other industries, food and agriculture is at the core of rural economic development and competitive advantages, but it is also at the core of the new immigrant’s competitiveness as it pertains to family assets, traditions and vocation.

Given the labor and wages and benefits in our conventional food and agriculture sector, it is no coincidence that Hispanic immigrants make the bulk of the energy that goes into keeping our food and agriculture industry moving, it is the poor, the desperate and the un-protected that supply the labor in these sectors. At the same time, we also know that developing new enterprises in this sector has never been more promising given the rapidly growing demand for fairly traded, healthy, ecologically sustainable and socially responsibly produced foods. Families living in poverty who provide the largest share of the labor for the food and agriculture industry can have a way out, but unless we built an alternative system, they won’t get a chance to lift themselves and build wealth and opportunities, without a systematic way of building wealth and opportunities for the poor in rural America, we lose competitive advantages and future opportunities for rural America.

Community Gardens, Discovering the Assets

We have started 2010 with a well established community garden in Northfield where we get to introduce large numbers of families to the art of growing their own food, while getting fresh air, exercise, a place for the children to play outside and to build community. On top of this, the plots are big enough to allow a regular size family to generate enough food to balance their budget through food savings and increased energy and productivity that comes from better food, more exercise and a sense of belonging. The community gardens are our most effective outreach strategy, so we are also developing new sites in Dodge Center and Red Wing where we are replicating our Northfield experience. Northfield’s garden will total over 200 plots in 2010, which grew from barely 6 plots in 2007 when our program was launched. From these experiences over each town, we harvest market gardeners and future farmers who move into the second phase of our program, specialized training.

Agripreneur Training Program, Developing the Assets

We are also starting 2010 with a secured piece of land on the South edge of Northfield where the training program will be launched. On this land, we are working with more serious market gardeners and will be deploying the training units needed to conduct specialized training in farm management, financing, agronomical sciences, soil management, enterprise development and most importantly, the symbiotic relationship between over 14 identified enterprise opportunities. These enterprises when aligned to work together can have economic multipliers that exceed up to three times that of conventional agriculture systems. This is done while generating competitive advantages for the farmers, and consequently strengthening the local economies and allowing people to further participate in community life and the local infrastructure that makes our small towns thrive.

Farm Scale Ecology Food Production, Deploying the Assets

In Cannon Falls, we are starting the year with 80 acres planned out to be the first fully deployed ecologically sustainable farming operation. At this site, we will introduce a handful of Latino families to small scale agriculture with a large scale system in mind. This site will demonstrate a fully operational farm and it will take over three years to see it at full production as perennial cropping systems are established. Patience is part of our system but short-term results is critical for families in need, so we are already producing free range poultry and will produce forest ranged pigs during this year as a way to bring meaning to those involved in setting up this operation. This farm will fully incorporate an ecological approach to sustainable food production, and it is also the cornerstone of the deployment of a regional system of farms that will cover from Faribault to Red Wing to Rochester and back to Owatonna. What we will finish testing at this farm will be further multiplied in 7 more farms to create an “economic cluster” or a system of interrelated farm operations that will incorporate 14 or more independent enterprises for a vertical integration of the production, processing and distribution of products.

This products will include everything from grains, feed production, forest raised pork and turkey, free range meat chickens, perennial cropping systems, to meat processing, transportation, freezing and marketing and logistics. All of these enterprises aligned with each other to create a cluster with economic, social and political power to sustain itself over the long run and to support the region’s ecology for maximum food production efficiency as well as the maximization of the capacity of families to engage their farming vocation. Each cluster is being organized under a cooperative legal structure so that we also achieve a horizontal power distribution system, which also results in a fair and democratic control of economic resources and is more compatible with the needs of struggling families and is also in the greater interest of the consumer, political and economic development sectors that are demanding better and more accountable food and agriculture systems and infrastructure.

Economic Clusters as a Long Term Strategy

The Cannon Falls farm system will not only generate the deployment of the regional cluster, it will also generate the energy needed to create the ripple effect that will engage the deployment of 5 other regional clusters or cooperatives that in the coming years will cover up to 38 counties in Southern Minnesota, resulting in a true regional competitive economic advantage. The economic impact and national positioning will be discussed in later postings. As you can see so far, 2010 is a key year as we finish assembling the support systems, infrastructure and systems needed to maximize the chances for success of each farmer in this system.

The ecological approach to food production is also generating dozens of stories for our marketing partners, who need them to generate publications for their own purposes to pursue increased market shares and customer education and engagement. The story titles are varied and address the whole ecology of food, when the story titles repeat themselves, the content is already different as we continually learn how the ecology improves when we care about our health and that of the systems that support it through the production of our daily sustenance.

In Dodge Center, we hope to launch the first poultry production unit to solidify the community behind the first operation in that area, the same is true for Rochester, both of these sites have enough local support infrastructure to make something happen during 2010, that will leave 5 other farm operations to be selected in the coming months.

Research and Development

On the North side of Northfield we run an experimental farm where we will continue to develop the free-range poultry and perennial cropping systems during 2010. With hazelnuts and fruit trees already incorporated into free range poultry fields, and on their third year of growth, we are getting a real sense of the economic value of these third crops and their ability to interact with live-stock when density management, and other sciences are applied for maximum return on investments and holistic farm management. This site has generated data that supports our original projection that a farmer can gross over $50,000 per acre on poultry alone under an integrated farm management system. We still don’t account on new production from perennial crops and by products such as honey that orchards support and other production possible in the same space. We are also watching how this system is contributing to a healthier ecology and diminishing the need for labor and infrastructure. This is resulting in lower up-front investments, and shorter cash-flow cycles, both critical for the system to be compatible with families living in poverty and who also need a simple way to get into the system. From this experiments we also learn what can be multiplied and scaled and what will have to go. Since our aim is to develop small production units that can be launched at large scale levels, everything has to add up at every level before it is considered a viable alternative.

This experimental site will see the incorporation of large scale sprouting systems for small and larger grains, a process scientifically proven to activate digestive enzymes that are essential for the intestinal health of livestock as well as a more complete nutrition that can be naturally generated under free ranging systems. Parallel to this, we will be testing new medicinal herb compounds in partnership with Native American friends who have vast knowledge and experience in this field. Our friends in the scientific community with access to meat labs will also help us in the analysis of new products so that our growing protocols and market claims can be solidified and supported for larger scale deployment. The fertilizer as a by-product of poultry is also being developed as a way to reduce the up-front investment of vegetable growers and a well designed composting system will be built this year to ensure the consistency, high value and reliability and safety of compost production for on-farm vegetable production as another symbiotically related enterprise opportunity.

Continually Building A Support Infrastructure

The supporters in each town as well as outside of our region have grown significantly as well, making 2010 even more promising. During 2009 I made over 50 presentations around the country and reached over 3,000 people, we had around 650 visitors at the farms and secured financial support from key funding partners, including the USDA Rural Development and key individuals within the conservation and forest departments of the USDA. This is important as we foresee a larger impact in our region from the deployment of scenery projects created through a combination of perennial cropping systems with bird production and water and soil management techniques that allow for lands under conservation easements to be put back to high levels of production while maximizing conservation, a key combination in building a true system of natural resources conservation system. Our support infrastructure is built by partnering with groups that bring with them meaningful knowledge and skills that can help revitalize the dwindling small farming sector in the U.S. and strengthen rural communities. A shift on how we engage the immigrant population is also critical in building the infrastructure to support the fight against racism and bigotry.

As usual, we look forward to a continued communication with all of you and to gaining your support in promoting and opening new opportunities for the deployment of this grand experiment. Together we will be designing a new large scale system of small scale farming enterprises that incorporate a key asset in our national rural landscape, the immigrant families and the struggling small farm, both in need of each other and the consumers who are ready for local, healthy foods.