New Study Profiles the Rural Enterprise Center’s achievements in Food and Agriculture as a Rural Development Opportunity

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on January 19, 2010

The Center for Rural Entrepreneurship just released a report on our efforts to incorporate Latino families into the Southern Minnesota economy. The system is based on engaging existing farmers, local resources, and national and regional support networks. The system aims to provide families with a path out of poverty through a replicable and scalable system that follows a step-by-step approach. This approach is designed to build capacity, long-term engagement, is compatible with the rural economic landscape and the realities of struggling small farms, and on the engagement immigrant Latino families as net contributors to strong partnerships for broad-based community success. To read the whole report, click here.

Hillside Farmers Cooperative, Something new in South East Minnesota

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on December 7, 2009

Here is a link to a recent article by Edible Twin Cities about our emerging Hillside Farmers Cooperative that we started this year to unite the farmers entering free range poultry, grains and vegetable production supported through our program for the Northfield, Cannon Falls and Red Wing region.

A Sobering Report on Food Production and the Current Food Crisis

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on October 26, 2009

As I blogged a couple of weeks ago, I referred to the world report on agriculture, endorsed by 55 countries and growing. The report titled “Agriculture at a Crossroads” is an International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). I have been reading bits and pieces so far, but was fortunate to hear the summary presented at the recent national community food security coalition meeting in Des Moines, IA by one of its editors and authors Hans R. Herren, of the Millennium Institute.

Once one gets a deeper understanding of the the state of our current food crisis and what it can turn into if not addressed, and as we look at the most affected, the majority among the children in the U.S. especially those among minorities, it is hard to understand how we continue to support a food system that has already failed. We continue to watch the human pain and economic cost associated with the consequences of unhealthy food choices that have turned obesity, diabetes and cancer from exposure to synthetic chemicals into a national epidemic.

Not only are we currently failing our children in terms of designing systems that work, but we are compromising their health and their ability to deal with the challenges they will face, especially those more vulnerable living in poverty but who today represent a large majority and the brains of the future. While we deliver a deteriorated system and a systemic crisis, we are also interfering with the full development physically, mentally and intellectually, which will inhibit their ability to deal with the problems we are passing on. That is an equation for more trouble.

A radical systems based change is needed, one based on different social and economic paradigms that result in the engagement of grassroots available talent, idling agriculture resources, and tapping into one of the greatest opportunities to generate massive, large scale, societal changes. Through a circular way of thinking in terms of engaging talent and resources rather than the traditional linear way of thinking, we can ignite the launching of a new food system based on principles that generate a higher social, economical and environmental return on investment.

These opportunities can be tapped for permanent solutions to poverty, by building competitive advantages through the engagement of disadvantaged families themselves. In fact these families currently provide the bulk of the labor and skills to our food system anyway, while unable to afford the food they produce, how in the world will a system that perpetuates this discrepancies ever deliver competitive results in a world economy. By launching community-based, local, regional and national support infrastructure, systems, and programs that generate enterprises designed to deliver on a triple bottom line (people, profits and the planet), we can generate engagement and productivity at levels that no current vertically integrated corporate structure can. As bad as we have it now, the opportunities and the best times are ahead, unless we leave things the way they are.

Although this food crisis and the issues associated with its origins are complex, some folks have found easier ways to explain it, such as in this report from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.

Building a Local Poultry Industry, One Farm at the Time

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on October 14, 2009

I just came back from a fascinating conference in Des Moines, IA where we were honored with the visit and speech by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and his vision for a new agriculture system that incorporates the ecological sustainability, community based solutions to food production, and other important aspects of our food and agriculture system that are in bad need of repair.

One thing that I learned is that “local food systems” are not a small idea anymore, specifically in the poultry industry, one of the easiest livestock options to adopt to local small scale systems in a way that is more efficient from the standpoint of energy and resources that go into it, as compared with the outputs.

In looking at the operations we have designed and are launching both in Northfield and Cannon Falls, but also thinking of the plan to spread our systems to the whole Southern MN region as a way of creating a competitive advantage for our community food systems, I am constantly looking for well done research to facilitate our own strategic planning as well as the development of strategic partnerships that will ensure that what we do becomes part of the main stream way of doing things in a large scale solution to our current food crisis.

I would like to share a video I found on small scale poultry processing and what it means to communities. I also want to point out that in our systems development process, poultry is one of the livestock options that we are targeting for now, but others are being planned for introduction later once the first option has reached scalability and maturity. Behind livestock comes vegetables, fruits and nuts production and other derived opportunities, and in front of the livestock comes the engagement of farmers interested in switching from commodities to small grains and other healthier and more complete feed supplies.

What we have designed is an integrated system that keeps costs low, reduces pollution by eliminating most of the transportation and heavy machinery used in conventional agriculture, protects and builds the soil in quantity and fertility, and at the end, produce food that can be consumed in the communities where the farmers live as well as in close-by areas where there is no such production or scalable production cannot be achieved. All in all, what we do, has been done for centuries, and is the only kind of approach and process that can be done for centuries to come. Contrary to conventional agriculture, we are seeking to produce what people eat from vegetables, roots, meats, fruits, honey, etc., all coming from a symbiotic web of relationships between farming enterprises, rather than from vertically integrated mono-cultures that put us all at risk of large scale catastrophic failures, while delivering low quality, expensive, un-healthy food options.

Demographic Changes in Southern MN and the Challenges and Opportunities

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on September 16, 2009

I just saw this article from The Twin Cities Daily Planet about immigrant demonstrations last weekend throughout some of our region’s rural cities and towns. The article does not cover all of the activities, more articles were written in the Post Bulletin and the Owatonna People’s Press. The issue of new immigrants, especially Latino/a in our region is bound to keep growing in its social intensity as well as its importance for the region’s economic vitality. Minnesota 2020 for example, has published some important facts about the role of new immigrants on the schools and the region’s economy, specifically in Worthington, where the Latino population became key in re-energizing the schools and downtown to name two areas positively impacted.

Here at the Rural Enterprise Center, we are concentrated in tapping on the opportunities that this new population represent, specifically the areas of intensive sustainable agriculture that engage existing resources and improve their productive capacity through the incorporation of traditional knowledge that many new immigrant families bring with them. Our current free range poultry and vegetable production system is one clear example of how we can all turn to the positive side of almost any challenging situation, no negative approach has ever produced a positive result, and no reaction to a situation is ever better than a proactive approach.

With this in mind, we will continue to work on our economic development systems, and as we do this, many other approaches will continue to evolve like the ones documented in the reports above. All of this is good, the conversations need to happen and policies and systems that don’t work need to be fixed, sooner or later.

Latino Entrepreneurial Leadership Growing in MN

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on August 31, 2009

I just received the release below from the Latino Economic Development Center in Minneapolis. Ramon Leon, the founder and Executive Director will be receiving the Mexican Consulate’s Ohtli Award “Opening Doors” in the Nahuatl language.

Minneapolis MN. August 31, 2009

LEDC’s President and CEO Ramón León, to receive the prestigious Ohtli Award by the Mexican consulate of Minnesota

-For immediate release-

Latino Economic Development Center’s President and CEO Ramón León will be presented with the Ohtli award at the official Mexican independence celebration event on September 15, 2009 by the Mexican consulate of Minnesota. The Ohtli award – which is the Nahuatl language word for “opening doors” – is one of the most prestigious honors bestowed by the Mexican government to recognize individuals who have distinguished themselves in improving the quality of life for Mexican citizens living outside Mexico.

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