Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on November 15, 2010
Give to the max at the Rural Enterprise Center and become part of a new ecology of food. As our projects move forward, we have delivered a new way of raising free range poultry so that it is scalable, ecologically sustainable, fair to the farmers, compatible with new immigrant families and economically affordable so that people living in poverty can become farmers. Solving a family’s lack of access to healthy foods is not possible through factory jobs, but incorporating low income families into the farm and food industry as entrepreneurs under an ecologically sustainable fully integrated system that deals with entry barriers, support infrastructure, farming systems, food processing and distribution infrastructure and large scale marketing partnerships capable of significantly impacting the way wealth flows from table to farm.
We have started the launch process for the very first farmers cooperative led by new immigrant families in partnership with established but struggling small farmers in SE Minnesota. This process has resulted in a solid plan to launch the cooperative under an economic clustering strategy that allows us to incorporate up to 14 symbiotically related farm and food enterprises, both economically and ecologically while incraesing the efficiencies of small enterprises and the value of the family farm.
This and much more is at the center of our strategic approach to building a new ecology of food from table to farmer in a way that makes sense, can be sustained from an energy and ecological perspective and that delivers a new system of relationships, networks, support infrastructure, and overall a new agriculture and food system that is competitive, resilient, accessible for people living in poverty while delivering high levels of benefits for all involved.
These are some of the examples of the work we do and the reason we would like to think that you want to make a contribution, one that keeps giving back to our own communities.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on November 13, 2010
Last night, I attended a Transition Northfield presentation by Richard Heinberg, senior Fellow-in-Residence at the Post Carbon Institute in California. Although he did not addressed the long-term solutions to the problem, he effectively addressed the challenge we face in our near 100% fossil fuel dependent society. The work we do at the Rural Enterprise Center fits within this overall picture as a new generation looks at scalable and sustainable solutions to our local economies, food and living systems in a way that we can re-design the way we produce and use energy, food, living spaces, communities, etc. I also checked their website and found this quick 5 minute slide show quite informative, check it out below.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on September 15, 2010
At the end of this post is a very short video of Jose Vanegas processing their bean harvest recently just South of Northfield, MN. His wife Maria Sosa (speaking on the background) was bringing the bean bunches and loading the “aporreadero” or beating platform. The beans are hit with a wooden stick (another fellow from El Salvador who was there the day before used two sticks one on each hand and was going at it much faster for many hours), the bean shells that are hit open up and drop down the beans into the tarp below through spaces between the 2×2 boards that the platform is made off.
A Latin American family familiar with cooking black beans in different ways can eat around 75 lbs a year. This amount can be grown in a space of 25 x 50 feet. It takes about two hours to plant it (20 inches between rows and 4 to 6 inches between plants), holes are made with a how or a shallow row is carved in the soil. Beans germinate by the 4th or 5th day. Two to three times of weed removal early in their growth can suffice, once they start flowering they need to be left alone.
90 days later, the beans dry and can be picked. Picking of this small area is done in about 45 minutes to 1 hour. Beating the beans off the shells can be done in about anouther 30 minutes. After shelling, the platform is disassembled and the beans are poured from a bucket into another on a windy day to blow the small shell pieces and dust off, a fan can be used if there is no wind.
After blowing out the dust and shells, the beans are placed on a flat surface and stones and other foreign materials are removed. The beans are ready to be stored, regular paper bags do the job great as they keep light out and moisture and air circulation, very important for keeping the viability of the beans if they are also to be used for seeds.
For many of the families we work with, food security is a primary goal of their farming operations, this simple plan can supply a family with beans for the whole year, but then why settle for a 25×50 space when families can get together and plant a couple of acres and even have some beans to sell. This is the case of the Vanegas family who planted a bit more than an acre and a half and harvested close to 3,000 lbs.
Most of the beans were harvested with a combine, after picked, they were windrowed and combined. The bean beating platform was set-up to teach the kids (many of them) something about how their parents and many generations before them have done things (in fact for over 7,000 years beans have been grown and processed in similar ways across Latin America), machines are useful and can bring benefits, but some families just can’t afford them, lack of access to machines, does not have to interfere with a family’s ability to produce and process their own food if they so desire. And if coming together, like in this case, the harvest from the Vanegas-Sosa family will be enough to provide a key source of fiber, protein, basic amino acids. Although black beans do not supply the full 9 basic amino acids, if combined with a high lysine corn variety and squash (three sisters farming system) for vitamins, a low income family can have a diet far superior than anything they can buy and except for the squash, storing these foods is as simple as setting aside a small corner of the house and keeping it protected.
This system has survived for thousands of years and can survive many thousands more, it is energy efficient and anyone can use and afford it, these and other principles are critical in the process of designing sustainable food and agriculture systems.
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on August 19, 2010
It was over a year ago, when I heard of Riverbend Market Cooperative organizing meetings in Red Wing. I had already met with Latino families there in an effort to establish a presence and link local farmers with low income families. Our efforts in reaching out to potential future farmers in the Latino community in Red Wing were happening parallel to other efforts to organize the market cooperative, both would come produce a very attractive partnership.
Three weeks ago, Hillside Farmers Cooperative started providing frozen chickens to Riverbend Market Cooperative with very positive results and the development of a closer working relationship that promises to re-invigorate the engagement of Latino families in that community and region and an increase capacity of the Rural Enterprise Center to continue to reach out to new agripreneurs and community leaders in the area.
Here is a recent video produced on behalf of Riverbend Market Cooperative.
The Rural Enterprise Center is a program of Main Street Project that focuses on enterprise development. Our mission is to strengthen communities by bringing together the support infrastructure, systems, resources and programs that rural entrepreneurs need to succeed. More...
