We hosted two bus loads of visitors on two separate tours looking at meat production and landscape impact and management as it pertains to the deployment of scalable sustainable food and agriculture systems. This was an opportunity to do many things, but most importantly, with our limited resources, meeting all of these folks at our own place rather than trying to schedule meetings and travel to meet them one-by-one across the country I would say is worth the largest contribution we could have received this year. Not only would it take a lot of cash resources but couple of years to accomplish such goal.

Needless to say, I am thankful in an immense way to be honored with such an opportunity where our team was able to interact with all of these folks. We understand some of the visitors do not invest in work in Minnesota, but the nature of our systems development thinking and of the prototype farms we are putting together have the scalability component embedded in the design, especially in the processes so that they can be adapted to local ecologies in a variety of places. Folks from outside our region can take what we are doing to a whole new level anywhere in the country and we look forward to working with them as our systems get launched and grow, opportunities arise and the business environment opens up the larger potential for innovation in food and agriculture systems re-engineering.

When we talk about systems change, we are not thinking micro or sub-systems, but the whole food and agriculture landscape, the fact that our visitors understand the larger picture and the challenges associated with this approach allowed us to have a leveled discussion about how we move forward and align our strategic thinking so that we can generate the highest returns on investment for our communities.

Rural Enterprise Center is eager to invite you to join the conversation at a FREE event co- sponsored with Just Food Co-op and the Northfield Arts Guild.

The event is Friday, May 13 at 7 p.m. at the Northfield Arts Guild Theater
(311 W. Third Street, Northfield).

Look Who’s Knockin’, is a new one-act play from Land Stewardship Project, coming to Northfield for one night only. The 45-minute play focuses on a retiring farm couple’s dilemma as they wrestle with the future of their farm.

After the play we’ll have a panel and community discussion moderated by Ken Meter, economist and president of Crossroads Resource Center, with a panel including Melanie Reid, Just Food Co-op general manager and Reginaldo (Regi) Haslett-Marroquin, Rural Enterprise Center director.

Refreshments will provided from Just Food Co-op.

Call (507) 650-0106 or stop by Just Food Co-op to reserve your FREE ticket. Or email us, and we’ll reserve a seat for you!

This is sure to be a wonderful, enlightening evening. Invite friends & neighbors! We look forward to seeing you there!

Although today we had individuals from as far as Saint Cloud, the goal is to concentrate our efforts in the Southern half of the state with an even more dedicated effort targeting five counties between interstate 35W and the Wisconsin border.

Informational meetings have been scheduled for every first Saturday of the month at 10 am at the REC offices, 105 E fourth street Northfield, and every first Monday of the month at 6 pm at the same location. Presentations are also being scheduled in partnership with organizations in the region as we identify new partnerships. This effort will significantly improve the public education about our work and our partners and the ability of families to fully participate in community life, establish permanent roots and participate and contribute to our rural communities in a meaningful way.

This outreach work started on the first week of February and will continue as long as families keep coming and responding to our calls or until our programs are fully populated. The goal for this year is to reach 300 families through informational sessions. From this larger group, a selected number of families will participate in one day intensive home ownership and financial management training. An even smaller group will qualify to participate REC’s poverty reduction and assets and wealth creation strategy through sustainable agriculture farming enterprise development.

The families that will enter the Agripreneurship Training Program at the REC are being trained to play a key role in the sustainable food and agriculture system that we are deploying regionally. This new system is part of a much larger and robust process to redefine the role of minority families in the sustainable food and agriculture system. We seek to significantly influence this role from one of primarily providing cheap labor, to one of defining, owning and benefiting from this emerging industry in the country.

Starting on Thursday, we had a group of Saint Olaf College students led by Kris Estenson from the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL), their purpose was to  look close up the issues of social responsibility and how change can come about by dealing with structural and systematic failures, especially in the food and agriculture sector. We studied the issues of vulnerable children, learning delays and other disadvantages directly originated by the lack of access to food or access to too much junk food. The discussion was lively and the farm tour full of great questions.

Friday afternoon, we had the new Arts and Agriculture bilingual camp. A nice group of 1st through 5th grade kids signed up. Led by Miguel Perez, Lucy Celis and Amy Haslett-Marroquin this camp brings kids together to be exposed to a different culture on a  setting where they are free to share, learn, play and explore food production, healthy living, and cooking from scratch at its best (actually starting by harvesting the products they will cook, giving the idea a whole new meaning).

Two of these kids were itching to do some “farm work”, especially taking care of the little chickens. So they got their wish, Garrett and Jose washed the automatic watering fountains in the ranging fields and then spread barley that would sit  overnight and soften for the birds to eat the next morning. The mix also included camelina (Camelina sativa) and comm on flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) seeds, both rich in omega 3 fatty acids. Not that the the young ones knew this or wanted to know for now, but the time will come when with properly nourished curiosity they will ask the right questions. For now, it is just about their curiosity for food and farming not going unattended.

Towards the end of the day, Maria Sosa and her black bean farm crew came over from their operation in Cannon Falls, I had marinated a bunch of our own free range chicken, Amy (my wife), had cooked a pot of black turtle beans, we harvested and cooked onions and other garden herbs, threw in a pot of rice and had a great dinner. Even the kids agreed this was a good evening although the soccer game they had picked, seem more important. After dinner, someone picked up a guitar, we made a bonfire and had some good conversation about life and mundane things that need to be ruminated to complete a full day’s worth of hard work and celebration.

As all of these went on, on a different corner of the farm, another crew under the leadership of Federico Vargas, put together an arrangement of equipment, a trailer, and a home-made shelter so that they can offer poultry processing on the farm for the many small flock growers in our region that are left on a limb when it comes time to process their family’s poultry flock. The purpose of the group is to go out to farmers who have raised chickens and need processing, bring the equipment, and help the farmers do the job.

Many farmers we are in touch with raise small flocks, sometimes under 50 birds, but then have to load them on the back of trucks and drive 50 or 100 miles to a meat packing plant, pay high prices to get their birds processed and then have to go pick them again and bring them home. This is not fair for the farmers who just want healthy foods on their farm, nor for the animals who suffer unnecessarily while the meat quality deteriorates. This group will take all of the pain away from the processing of these small flocks and do it right on the farm. Farmers who don’t have time or resources to put together an efficient system of their own, won’t have to do it, at least if they get in touch with Federico.

As perennial crops (fruit trees and hazelnuts) get established in this small demonstration site we run, we also get ready for many more gatherings like this, planned or unplanned, it doesn’t matter. For the younger folks, some “un-planning” makes the place more attractive, as long as we structure it well, young people will always get a fulfilling experience. Some fun unplanned stuff like bonfires can happen whenever there is grilling, a guitar handy and friends.  The chickens always need care, the chores are always there and everything is prepared for anyone to do them so the kids interested in this jumped right in with some short instructions.

Many of us have learned that we shouldn’t plan kids out of their childhood, but we can surely plan a lot around their childhood, so when they are ready to be helpful they don’t feel left out of the adult structures and when they grow up they won’t go around thinking that food comes from the store and farmers are of a lesser social class. Animals and farms seem to generate kid’s desire to do things naturally (as long as the chore is not obligatory). For kids living on farms, the thrill comes from being able to show off their skills like my daughter and her friend who know how to milk goats by hand. For Hipanic/Latino farmers, it is the place where they have wisdom to pass on and an command respect, a concept slipping away in new generation immigrants who see their parents as obsolete and backwards. The demonstration site is planned to be just the way young people like things, unplanned (at least as far as they can see), fun and meaningful, but also “on their own terms.” If that is what it takes to get young people into sustainable agriculture, healthy lifestyles and healthy eating, then be it, as long as it works and the systems we develop don’t structurally and systematically leave vulnerable children living in poverty behind. We are happy to put our minds into designing and planning systems that are ready to do this, we hope you will join us in celebrating and supporting this kind of culture that brings about true “agri-culture” we so much need to make our rural communities healthier.

Full Slide show

5th Immigrant and Minority Farmers Conference
FEB 19-20, 2010, St. Paul, MN
Location:  Wilder Foundation
451 Lexington Parkway North near University Av.
This conference focuses on being as relevant as possible for farmers. Farmers are involved in the planning, presentations,
participation and evaluation. The conference is free to farmers and this is only possible with the generous support from sponsor partnerships. Farmers, sponsors & other participants welcome.

Here is an extract from the schedule on the 27th.

11:30-12:30 p.m.

Panel Discussion: “Immigrant Activism and Empowerment”
The Lion’s Pause, Buntrock Commons

Panelists:
Beth Berry, Tackling Obstacles Raising College Hopes (T.O.R.C.H.), http://northfieldtorch.org/
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, http://www.startribune.com/ProjectCluck , Rural Enterprise Center, http://www.ruralec.com/
Janet Lewis Muth, Rice County Growing Up Healthy http://growinguphealthy.org/

Here is how we made that happen:

First, we worked on a plan for a two-week project to process over 3,000 free range chickens from our two start-up farms in Northfield and Cannon Falls (please don’t try this at home). For the plan to work, we had to secure a physical site on one of the farms, find basic processing equipment, fully pre-train one or two of us on the whole system, design a layout, and complete many other tasks associated with organizing the project and the people. We also needed some cash to purchase basic supplies (boxes, packaging material, ice, LP gas, etc.).

Thousand Hills Cattle Company lent our cooperative (Hillside Farmers Cooperative) the money to purchase the basic processing equipment. Prink Oakridge Farm in Cannon Falls figured out the freezer truck with Thousand Hills, driving and operating the unit, and unloading at the storage facility. Cannon River Machine, figured out the layout and basic processing skills needed so that a team could be trained on the specifics of each aspect of the processing. They also built a large 2 by 8 foot steel platform so we could build a fire under it and heat a large tub of water (saving time and LP gas).

Our program found financial support to cover some of the supplies and materials. Both farms contributed part of their production to compensate each individual who participated in the processing, providing them with a supply of poultry that will feed their families all winter.

A community organizer in Faribault worked to organize 14 individuals to do the processing. In the course of one and a half weeks, we all took turns loading chickens into cages, bringing them over to the site, switching jobs when someone got too tired, wet, cold or all of the above. All this happened during the two weeks that it rained non-stop and got really cold as well. It was physically demanding work under miserable conditions. It was almost as if some higher power was seeing if we would give up on the whole project.

When we finished, all of the birds had been processed and 12 individuals had learned how to do this work efficiently and cost effectively, achieving very competitive production levels. They worked happily and in a relaxed atmosphere. Some children came and played, observed their parents working together, and watched a mix of people of different skin color and backgrounds interact as if issues of race had never existed. Much more happened while this community enterprise took shape. Of course, one part we did not hold back on was the enjoyment of the best chicken stews and grilled chicken you have ever tried.

These families will be ready to start again next spring when the production season begins. Going forward, more families in our region will learn that community supported agriculture includes growing  chickens, but also processing them right on the farm for freshness and health. Perhaps most importantly, we’ll have more opportunities to connect with each other as a community, while supporting those who have been left behind in our current economic system.

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.

The process was organized by the Goodhue County Hispanic Outreach Program and led by Adriana Thuerauf. The Rural Enterprise Center provided background for the process, materials, training, and other support needed to structure and develop an emergency preparedness plan and community-wide engagement strategies that have been utilized in Northfield to accomplish similar goals.

Last night’s meeting attracted over 75 Latino individuals, many of them whole families with children. Within this group were individuals with clear leadership potential that we will continue to engage as we move from the basic community organizing process into the engagement of these key network in economic development and other community building infrastructure projects.

The organizing process brought together outside forces as well, up to 40 individuals and organizations in the area have signed up to serve as a larger area support network for Latino-led initiatives, this coalition of organizations plus the presence of key regional leaders made the meeting more meaningful not only for the future efforts that were ignited though this building block, but as a motivational component and true show of support for the Latino community leadership development from the larger community leadership.

We had the presence from the board of the Goodhue County Hispanic Outreach, that provided the organizational support for the effort, as well as Darrel Glander, Assistent Chief of Police, Stan Slessor, Superintendent for the Red Wing Independent School District 256, and Jeff Larson, of J.P. Larson & Associates L.L.C. an immigration law firm in Minneapolis providing pro-bono services for Latino families in the area.

Here is a slideshow of some of the scenes from the meeting.