MAST stands for Minnesota Agricultural Student Trainee and its mission is to improve global understanding by providing educational and cultural enrichment through international exchange. Working with the Rural Enterprise Center in Northfield will be part of his three-month MAST experience.

Daniel graduated from the National Central School of Agriculture (ENCA) in 2008 (the same school that I attended in Guatemala, and is currently continuing his studies in agriculture business management at the Escuela Agrícola Panamericana, Zamorano.

At ENCA, he worked on crop production systems including vegetables, fruits, ornamental plants, extended season systems (greenhouses), cattle ranching, pig production, egg production and managed the student broiler production projects, and many other activities aimed at improving the productivity of small farms as well as building the capacity of families and communities to sustain and increase food security.
At Zamorano, Daniel continues to learn the science behind farm production critical to rural communities, but with a larger systems view – gaining experience in post-harvest processing, larger scale natural resources management, technologies such as GPS and GIS and the application of these tools to improving landscape-based ecological management for communities, and other approaches to the challenge of scaling up capacity to produce more food sustainably.

Daniel’s work with the Rural Enterprise Center will expand his understanding of the food and agriculture system in the United States. Part of his time will be focused on two specific pieces of our program’s systematic approach to addressing poverty:

• Financing: Review and analyze the strategies followed by credible programs and organizations serving the financial needs of immigrant populations in other parts of the country – and compare those experiences to our financing strategies and opportunities.

• Production: Review and refine our free range poultry production manual, with a focus on nutrient management, soil chemistry and manure management; identify research projects to complement the development of a larger and more permanent student-based production research internship program at the Rural Enterprise Center.

I’m hoping his time in Northfield will be a positive experience for him. I’m sure it will help the Rural Enterprise Center continue to make progress in some important areas. But to begin, it is good to catch up on what’s happening in my home country and with my old, young friend.

People in the Northfield community and beyond are pulling together to support the family in a variety of amazing ways. Read the Northfield News story here, with links to a new Facebook page, volunteer opportunities, info about a Dec. 16 benefit concert, and donation opportunities at Just Food Co-op and through First National Bank of Northfield. Friends have also set up an online donation site.

Keep a good thought this week for the family — and for the generous community that has surrounded them.

Zenaida and Modesto want to grow corn and beans here, as they did in Mexico.

Jaime is looking into land where he could build a coop and raise chickens with other training participants.

Jose is eager to start working towards owning his own farm — he dreams that his children could experience growing up in the country like he did.

These are just a few of the visions being realized by some of the twenty-one participants in the first-ever Agripreneur Training Program of the Rural Enterprise Center, which just came to a close with a graduation ceremony last month.
The training program began in May, and almost every participant stayed dedicated to the classes through the summer. The program included in-classroom farm business planning and some in-field experiential learning.

The classroom training was dynamic, as participants worked through all aspects of fundamental business planning: finances, human resources, marketing, communications, and operations. We learned and laughed through many role-playing experiences, reflected poignantly on personal values and how they play out in a business, and struggled (and triumphed!) through many new financial-management skills and building a chicken coop together!

At the end of the training, every participant completed an introductory business plan that will serve as an excellent baseline for the further opportunities for land and financing that we hope to be able to connect them to as their agripreneurial plans develop.

When asked how she thought the training would assist her in the future, one trainee responded, “What won’t help me? Everything I learned is going to help me! This training is something that will help a small family business grow.” Another participant commented that she is glad that the training will help her “get ahead and not fall into problems.”

We have learned as much (if not more!) from this training as the participants, and the coming months will include immense evaluation of our training curriculum and process, to include all the great feedback gleaned from participants. We’ll also be giving ongoing support to participants, to help them continue to develop their business plans and connect with all necessary resources.

Stay tuned for much more information in the coming months — there will be many opportunities to support the exciting plans of this first class of training participants!

I grew up on a farm helping my father grow corn, beans, and papaya, and raise pigs. I loved that work. I want to raise chickens here and have some land to grow vegetables. I want my children to get to experience the life that I liked so much growing up.

I want to be the best onion grower in Minnesota!

The quotes above represent just a sampling of the ambitious and inspiring goals described by our new class of Agripreneur trainees at our introductory class this Saturday.

After working through the papeleo of registration forms, photo permissions, schedules, and guidelines, I sketched a path on on the chalkboard—the path from now to five-years-from-now. I described how the Agripreneur Training Program will include training on immediate skills and will also be and investment in skills for the future. We’ll learn about feeding chickens today and about financial management planning for the long-term, for example.

After this introduction, I set everyone loose to imagine their path—where do we want to be in 5 years? If it’s 2016, what do we want to see when we look around?

I had given five minutes for participants to brainstorm, but we had to take five more—everyone was scribbling away in their notebooks, drawing pictures of fields, chickens, vegetables, houses, and family members.

When it came time to share, the feelings of hope, excitement and desire for change were palpable in the room. Individually, the participants reflected on everything they lack along their path, but this was coupled with a communal reflection on the strength they share as a group, a team, a community of people who all want to reach their goals. The room erupted in applause for the particularly ambitious goals of a few participants, and nodded in support of the honesty of one participant who didn’t, or couldn’t, imagine himself in five years— He said,  “I can’t think about the harvest when I don’t even know what I’m going to plant yet!”

And thus we begin the Agripreneur Training Program! From now until August, this group will come together to learn business-planning essentials and in-field skills. They’ll learn about financial management of a farm business, and the feed requirements of chickens, about marketing and manure-curing.

If the energy and interest of these introductory classes have been any indication, it’s sure to be an exciting season.

We all got pretty chilly standing in the frozen mud as Regi gave a brief introduction to the production buildings and process, but as soon as we ducked into the building it was warm and toasty and we all became quick friends with those hens!

Used as a prototype building this season, only about 25 laying hens lived in the building through the winter, but has capacity for 750 birds to have ample space. The building is entirely heated by the sun. It is a simple wood and plastic-sheeting construction, with a large south-facing wall with a double-layer of polycarbonate sheets for extra insulation. The building is tall enough to house a raised tank to keep water flowing through the gravity-fed tubing to waterers. Both sides of the building open up to allow chickens to free range during the day.

Winter poultry production is a marvelous opportunity on multiple levels — first, it will provide southeastern Minnesota with locally-produced, community-based, sustainably-raised meat through the winter season, but of equal importance is the job opportunity it provides to Latin@s whose usual seasonal work means they are more likely to be unemployed in the winter.

After lots of good questions and discussion at the farm, we trekked back through the thawing mud and returned to the office for delicious tamales made with Hillside Co-op chicken by the mother of some of the participants. Regi gave a brief introduction to the Agripreneur Training Program that will commence in the summer, and was met with lots of interested questions and discussion.

Upcoming Saturday programs will cover financial literacy, building credit, budget management, and general popular education activities  to begin to build community amongst the trainees.

For our part, we know there is a lot more than just antibiotics, what about bug resistance to pesticides, corn that produces pesticides and are used to feed animals, think of soil pollution and the contamination of aquatic life supporting systems with suspended matter from the farm’s surface, pesticides and other chemicals that go down the stream as farmers pour stuff down into the soil and our institutions continue to research and government allows corporations to prescribe doing so without regard for our ability to support life systems. But we are not in the business of judging anyone for what they do, accountability is something else, but that is the public’s responsibility and our institutions, for our part, we are in the business of building the new ecology of food and agriculture, one based on a whole system change.

This article will shed light on critical issues we need to understand about rural economies and engaging our most important assets, I find it factually accurate and intellectually challenges us to think and research further how we approach wealth creation and the role of food and agriculture in economic rural revitalization.