MPR Coverage of our Work in Northfield
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on August 30, 2010
This piece aired this morning on Minnesota Public Radio about our work launching new immigrant farming entrepreneurs or “agripreneurs”.
Audio:
Partnership With Riverbend Market Cooperative Produces Results
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.
Minnesota Effort Seeks to Ease Rural Poverty Through ‘Agripreneurship’
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on July 8, 2010
This is the title of an article and audio program produced by Sharon Rolenc, of Public News Service of Minnesota. To read the article and listen to the recorded interview follow this link.
Mercedez Farming Story in the Northfield News
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on June 7, 2010
What if every Latino/a family in Southern MN were given the opportunity to contribute their real skills, knowledge, entrepreneurship spirit, hard working ethic, and all the many other great assets to the regional food and agriculture sector? We could actually build a new system that is fair to workers, profitable for the small companies (farming enterprises or small farms), creates wealth for the region by keeping the resources multiplying and growing locally, improve our production efficiency (through richer, more stable, protected and improved soils, waterways and reduction of inputs), and build a regional ecology capable of turning around the way we think about farming, food, economic development, the role of new immigrants, and the ecology.
As long as we keep thinking just about job creation, instead of investing in competitive advantages as a strategy for economic development, we will continue to think of people like Mercedez as cheap labor for farm fields and meat processors and other factories, while missing the real potential these folks represent for the region. When we mismanage the people’s potential, we miss the larger potential to turn our regional food and agriculture into something we can sustain for the long haul. We have to keep in mind that conventional agriculture does not create competitive advantages, but keeps talent and opportunity from emerging through the forces that it generates in terms policies, subsidies for unsustainable systems, the flow of resources from the public to fields and factories and then out of the communities, eroding our natural and material resources while further creating economic and intellectual poverty and with it, the incapacity of building systems outside the of track of dead ideas.
Mercedez story is part of a series of articles, this is the second and many more are on their way, stay tuned. Click here to see the story published by the Northfield News.
Here are some photos of Mercedez’ operation. In a chronological account, we first we take the open fields and place free range poultry units in quarter of an acre plots, these birds are fed and live outdoors, they include a combination of meat birds and heritage breeds, most of the heritage breeds are 
picked live at the farms by families who like to butcher their own birds, as they like to use every part of the bird, the rest are taken to inspected processors for market distribution. From the fields, we remove excess composted manure and cure it to turn it into clean finished soil.
Then vegetable production can start, as these field composted manure is rich in all of the nutrients needed to grow vegetables. In the future there will be a story about this as well as further explanations are in line as to how we manage the micro and macro ecology that includes flora and fauna, organic matter, sun, water, etc, to its maximum potential for net energy yields in the form of food.
Mercedez has operated his poultry at the Rural Enterprise Center’s experimental farm in Northfield and grows his vegetables at his newly secured land in partnership with Greg Carlson on the South side of Northfield. He is now starting to think about strategies for land ownership. One step at the time, 
from the aspiring dreamy farmer living in poverty, to introduction to MN’s farming conditions, specialized training, to systems development, to land ownership, to the full launch as a new farmer working under a new ecology of food, that is Mercedez story, one that will still take many more years to finish telling, and his is only one of many we will be telling as we build a regional competitive advantage by building the systems, support infrastructure and programs needed to make Southern MN a hub of a new way of doing agriculture at a large scale without compromising the efficiency of the small scale farming systems and the contributions of new immigrants to this new ecology of food.
Economic Clustering, as a Poverty Fighting Strategy
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on June 1, 2010
Last week and Monday this week, two fields of black turtle beans were planted ahead of the predicted rains. The first plot is in Cannon Falls, where one of our main ecological farm operations is being deployed. Although the plot is just 4.5 acres, the seeds planted there have been selected for a specific growing period, resistance to deceases and drought, productivity, size of plants, pods and beans and characteristics needed to achieve an excellent bean quality while keeping its genetic diversity improving.
What is important of these black beans is that as the poultry production system grows, our fields are also fertilized and improved with the manure from the barns and fields, the beans are but one in a series of enterprises being developed as part of our new approach to the whole ecology of food production and distribution. Dry edible beans are important for families like Maria Sosa’s, her husband and two kids. Saving this crop as a regular source of protein and basic amino-acids and vitamins is easy and inexpensive, but it is also a product that we have built a market for so it can be turned into a agripreneurship opportunity.
For a family living in poverty, getting their foot in the door of the vast food and agriculture industry is impossible, unless of course it is as cheap labor in a field or at an animal factory or processing plant. One process that is showing solid promise is the clustering of small farm enterprises, mostly part-time opportunities for people in poverty looking for a good source of food but also farther ahead into a possible farming opportunity.
Clustering allows for each farmer to become a highly efficient producer while staying small. For example, one family that produces free range poultry partners with another that produces grains, both can partner with another that grinds and mixes the grain into feed. After the poultry is produced an opportunity emerges for meat processing, marketing, distribution and value added. Manure from free ranging fields is full of a multitude of nutrients that do not get captured through confinement facilities and it is more stable and complete straight from the fields. This allows for vegetable and dry edible bean operations as well as grain production to reduce cash flow needs for inputs. A simple machine to turn manure into pellets is enough to create a large scale way of managing such valuable by-product and efficiently apply to regular row crops.
Back to the black bean operation, it can be combined with a garlic production operation as the two crops are distant genetic pools and are not affected by the same deceases or pests, while one fixes atmospheric nitrogen, the other needs it, while one is harvested in September, the other is harvested in July, one needs planting in the spring, while the other until November.
Finding the right crop combinations for people with economic difficulties is as important for creating a path to success as it is in being good stewards of the natural resources that make a new ecology of food possible and a sustainable food and agriculture system viable. When each of these crops are developed into production units that can be scaled or multiplied to meet market demand, consumers can get all the food they need and poor families can have a new opportunity.
Hillside Farmers Cooperative and How to Become Involved
Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on January 23, 2010
With the recent publicity that we have received, many of you reading the materials may be wondering where our products may be available.
Our production systems are being tested and production is limited by many factors, primarily the lack of processing infrastructure for poultry in our region, although we are close to solving this issue production will be limited for a while. On other products, we are setting up production as demand increases. Products are available directly from the farms in Cannon Falls and Northfield and through drop-sites in the Twin Cities.
To receive information on products, drop-sites and buying our products you must first sign-up to one of our mailing lists. Once signed-up, you will receive weekly updates and instructions.
If you live outside of the areas below, send us an e-mail and we will get in touch with you. Otherwise, just click the link according to which general area you live in and enter your e-mail and name.
