Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on November 6, 2009
I will be a speaker at the Superior Grown Food Summit on Saturday November 14th. This opportunity emerged as a result of networking with folks from that region during the recent From Commodity to Community food security conference in Des Moines, Iowa. In IA, where I was also a speaker during one of the plenary sessions I had a chance to expose our work to a network of over 400 community food coalition members and business leaders. It helped to have Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack speak right before. Many more opportunities for networking and building support for our system deployment have come as a result of these conference.
At the Superior Grown Food Summit my concentration will be on engaging bio-regions as we further study the ability of large scale engagement and reproduction of our systems, specifically the integrated agriculture infrastructure to produce short-term gains through poultry production without compromising the engagement of the larger biological regions or ecological corridors.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on October 5, 2009
If you look at our spotlight section on the blog, you will see facebook link to the Hillside Farmers Cooperative page. This social page was started a few weeks ago to provide more instant updates on the cooperative at work. If you use facebook, this is a good time to become a fan, as we finish the production season and enter the fall and winter months, we will be continually updating the page with pictures that we took during the summer but didn’t have time to post them and stories that may have escaped us and may come back as we rest a bit.
Since this medium is really designed for networking and writing short commentaries, we will be more active on the facebook page than on this blog. Become a fan and stay connected. You will get to see the inner-workings of the co-op and stay tuned to the developments coming up as we reflect on our first season as a cooperative of farmers dedicated to bringing our region more wholesome and healthier foods, and improvements to the field of sustainable agriculture.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on October 2, 2009
This is the title of the Community Food Security Coalition’s conference in Des Moines, IA from October 10th to the 13th. According to the update from the Sustainable Farming Association of MN, this is “the largest gathering of community food systems producers and advocates in the US.”. I am honored to be a presenter for the morning plenary session on Tuesday October 13th.
If you are going, look me up and I look forward to having a good and engaging conversation about the state of our food systems and the important work going on in our Southern MN region to restore some of the most valuable infrastructure and ethical links in the food system that we lost to corporate farming and conglomerates.
Posted by admin on September 26, 2009
There’s a lot of forward momentum at the Rural Enterprise Center. We hope our fresh new site communicates that energy — and makes it easier for you to learn about what’s happening and find helpful information. Let us know what you think. Comment on this post or send us an e-mail. Join our mailing list for regular updates.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on August 20, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Kat Vann, Main Street Project, (612) 879-7578
Innovative Free-Range Poultry Operation Launches in Cannon Falls
Media is invited to tour Prink’s Farm on Saturday, Aug. 22, 10 a.m.
11055 – 317 St., Cannon Falls
CANNON FALLS, Minn. – The Rural Enterprise Center, a program of Main Street Project, is pleased to announce the launch of a unique, new free-range poultry operation in Cannon Falls. Prink’s Farm is the second member of the new Hillside Farmers Cooperative to deploy the Rural Enterprise Center model for raising free-range poultry and other products using sustainable farming practices. The innovative model builds on the experiences, culture and knowledge in intensive farming systems that new immigrants bring to the southern Minnesota region, while incorporating the resources of established farmers looking for ways to diversify their farms and support the community.
Todd Prink, owner of Prink’s Farm, is an investment manager and life-long Cannon Falls farmer who began raising organic products in 1985. The new poultry operation is a partnership between Prink and Eladio Evan-de Carpio and family – another member of the co-op. “As a long-time farmer, it’s very exciting to be part of something with this much potential,” says Prink. “We’re working together to raise happy, healthy and great-tasting chickens, and actually improving the environment in the process.”
The first poultry operation, called Finca Mirasol (“Sunflower Farm”), began a year ago and is located in Northfield. The co-op has a distribution partnership with Thousand Hills Cattle Company, also of Cannon Falls. Both co-op locations also sell whole chickens direct to the public.
“This is an important step in building out what we call an ‘economic unit’ in the development system,” explained Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, Rural Enterprise Center Director and model’s creator. “We’ll continue to improve the system’s efficiency while also offering a superior product to local and regional customers.”
The public can purchase Hillside Farmers Cooperative free-range chickens or tour Prink’s Farm operations on Saturdays, 8 a.m. – noon, beginning Aug. 22 through Oct. 31. Prink’s Farm is located at 11055 – 317 St., Cannon Falls, and will sell Finca Mirasol poultry until their own flock matures.
The Rural Enterprise Center is a program of Main Street Project that focuses on economic development. Our mission is to strengthen communities by bringing together the support infrastructure, resources and projects that rural Latino entrepreneurs need to succeed. For more information, visit ruralEC.com or MainStreetProject.org.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on July 27, 2009
Although a lot of what came out in The Story was about some of my encounters with racism and discrimination, all of those events happened before I moved to Northfield, there was a lot of positive facts that did not fit the main focus of the story, I have had many conversations with folks in Northfield, MN who also thought the events exposed had happened here, the answer is no, although I have had situations in Northfield as well they pale in comparison to other places I have been with my family. The farming community here is terrific and very supportive, I feel confident that if something worthy of community action would happen to me in this town, I will have all of the support I would need to deal with it fully.
I have written extensively on all of the support and amazing partnerships that I have been able to align in establishing Latino farmers in Southern Minnesota. These folks include established non-Latino farmers, and although we still have to visit many farms before we are able to find a viable option, this may not be something far from the norm. There is also the experience factor that now allows us to screen farmers much better before we walk into their farms or call them, we also now have a large network of hundreds of farmers who are good friends and want to work with us to accomplish our mission.
I first lived in Northfield for 2 months when I arrived from Guatemala in 1992, but moved to Minneapolis where Amy and I lived for 10 years. Then we went back to Guatemala in 2000 and moved to Belle Plaine when we came back. In August of 2006, we moved to our current place just North of Northfield where we bought a 1.9 acre parcel and our small Finca Mirasol Farm is based. Here we have established a free range poultry system that combines perennial cropping systems and permaculture infrastructure designed to sustain production for a long time from the same piece of land. From these experience the Rural Enterprise Center was born and the mission is to develop the support infrastructure, the systems and programs so that we can launch a network of Latino/Hispanic farmers in Southern MN and establish our presence, contribute our assets to this region’s agriculture and food industries, and prepare the ground for new generations to find it easier to enter this economic sector.
At the Rural Enterprise Center, we are currently working to deploy a large scale farming system based on the technology that we have developed at our small place and we are focused in engaging established farmers and existing support systems in the process of introducing Latino/Hispanic farmers into agriculture. Our job is to provide a path for families to brake barriers and reduce risks that are natural to engaging this sector of the economy, and that are exacerbated by the existing levels of racism and discrimination in our rural communities. Although racism is real and alive every where we work, it is something we are able to deal with through the support of thousands of people that now work with us to achieve our mission.
