Rural Enterprise Center

Last Sunday, September 16, I took two friends to look at Jeff Jensen’s hazelnut plantings in Fenton, Iowa, just across the border on hwy 169. Jeff works with Rural Advantage, an organization committed to developing alternative crops, or “third crop” options that are more economically and environmentally sustainable.

The purpose of the trip was to introduce these two Latino market gardeners to an alternative crop, but not only that, our plan involves economics, the environment, dealing with drought, reducing production cost per unit of biomass produced per acre, etc.

Hazelnuts (Filberts) form part of a new agriculture system called “woody agriculture“, a new generation of farmers concerned with making a living off the land while managing their lands in a way that does not deteriorate the quality of lives of others (avoiding or reducing pollution of waterways, soil erosion, carbon emissions through reduced machinery use, etc.).

Woody agriculture also allows livestock, such as broilers and egg laying hens to be free ranged, in between the established plants, help with weed and insect control and fertilize the crops (at least this is my theory based on a small experiment this year).

A group of us in Northfield are pursuing this option starting with the establishment of a 2.5 acre planting of hazelnuts this fall, we picked 450 hazels at Jeff’s place in Fenton, IA and will be planting them this coming weekend (weather permitting). We also plan to grow vegetables in between the rows until the hazels are 4 or 5 years old, at that point we will plant a perennial cover and raise broilers and egg laying hens. Through this system we plan to not only to get a crop of nuts that will compete on a per acre yield basis with soybeans, but there will be no tilling, and we will avoid other issues associated with conventional agriculture (pollution, soil erosion, overuse of machinery, soil compaction, etc.).

Wish us good luck or scratch your head, but if in doubt, come visit us and check this out yourself. In recent months, I have also been talking to a friend in Castle Rock who has installed an oil press so we can produce hazelnut oil instead of selling the nuts. The byproduct of this process can also serve as livestock feed, so maybe we will even be able to recycle the hazelnut crop and produce two or three harvests of free range broilers on top of the regular crop, all from the same piece of land while improving the soil, capturing CO2 out of the air and providing a nice looking landscape.

At the end, it is only through ideas like this that we will build a local food system that can be sustained for the long haul, hazels are also native to Minnesota, develop roots that can reach down deep making them drought tolerant, resist flooding, high speed winds (plant is very flexible and hard) and are productive up to 30 years.

The kick-off event of the College Board of Business Consultants (CBBC), organized by the Northfield Enterprise Center (NEC) took place at the Archer House conference room yesterday.

Four Latino Enterprise Center projects were featured in the presentations, including family gardens and market gardening projects. I had the chance to introduce students to the Latino Enterprise Center and answer questions, both Saint Olaf and Carleton college were represented equally.
After the introductions we took a drive down highway 3 to visit the community gardens that we developed this year, we ended with dinner catered by Taco Hut, a local catering service operated by owners Rafael and Maria Estrada.

For more information on the CBBC, the businesses and students involved in the projects, for help getting assistance for your business to move to Northfield, or to grow your business in Northfield, write to Blake Abdela, Executive Director of theNorthfield Enterprise Center’s contact us page.

I spent half of the day yesterday working with Niel Ritchie, the Board Chair of Main Street Project, the parent organization of the Latino Enterprise Center. He is also the Executive Director of the League of Rural Voters and oversees the operations for Main Street Project. One of these operations is the Latino Enterprise Center which is based in Northfield.

Main Street Project (MSP) became the parent organization for the Latino Enterprise Center, under the Rural Latino Enterprise Initiative on February 1st, 2007, which is officially our first day of operations.

Since then, many things have happened, this blogg is a good record of projects and contributions to Northfield and the network of individual and organizational supporters that we have built. In other communities around Minnesota, our work has been focused in supporting Latino/a leaders so that they can create their own Latino/a enterprise support initiatives.  If anyone is interested in our work in depth, please call or e-mail us, I will be more than happy to help.

Yesterday was a great day. We started with a meeting with Jim Blaha, Executive Director of the Community Action Center, the subject was “the Newcomer Project”, designed to provide recent immigrants in our region with a welcoming environment, tools to get started, programs to support their leadership skills, and organizational support to get them on their feet to pursue their goals.

At 9:00 am, we met with Griff Wigley, our most outstanding local community blogger, the topic was related to harnessing the power of blogging to connect communities, their leaders and sharing resources and experiences accross rural Minnesota communities. Though there was no specific project to discuss, Griff has supported my own entry into this blogging world and both Niel and I believe that we can replicate this experience for other Latino leaders or community leaders in other small towns. The next step will be a discussion about structuring a program to do just this afterGriff is done with some major projects he is working on.

At 10:00 am, we met with Rick Estenson upstairs of First National Bank. Our topic was very specific. “How to structure a lending program based on experiences in other small and large cities and towns where Latino businesses have struggled in the past and are now successful contributors of leaders and economic activity to their communities”. Though a long title for our conversation, the issue is simple. We need to start a training program for Latino entrepreneurs in Northfield, Faribault and Owatonna (to cover a sizable population).

We know that business training programs alone are almost a waste of resources without the technical assistance, lending and mentoring components organized in a deliverable package. The idea then is to structure a “business development program” rather than a “business training program”, and assemble the complete package before launching it. RickEstenson is our best local allied in crafting this strategy, though our best allies in develping the program structure are in the Twin Cities and cities accross the Midwest, our local initiative and partners is what counts at the end. From here, we just need to follow the trail until we come back to the starting line with a full package under our arms.

At 11:00 am, we met with Jaci Smith, the new Managing Editor at the Northfield News, which has been covering our work at the Latino Enterprise Center since we started. The purpose of the meeting was to inform our local media on what the Latino Enterprise Center is in relationship to Main Street Project, my own history working with Niel since 1994 and the broader context under which the work with Latino immigrants takes place, such as what defines our keys to success and strategies, and a broad exploration of the issues related to the large influx of undocumented immigrants in this country.

We finished our morning with lunch for Jaci and Niel as my guests at our Rotary Club.

About 6 months ago, there was an attempt by a local Latino entrepreneur to start a project to collect, fix and distribute used computers to Latino families in Northfield (see blog entry on projects under consideration at that time). The project lost the leader and we put it on hold while a new leader emerged.

This summer I met with David P. who tends the counter at Servicios Latinos Menas in Northfield accross the street from the Just Foods Cooperative. David owns a computer repair and web design small business and was interested in the computer recovery project right away. As the school year gets going again, we arranged a meeting between David and Joe Pahr at Artech so that they could figure out the details of restoring the program.

David P. meets with Joe Pahr at Artech during the recent open house.

There are currently about 10 computers in the repair “waiting list” at Artech and David will be bringing some to his shop at Menas and will work some hours at Artech so that students there can get involved with the project as well.

As Artech grows, so does interest in the Latino community to send kids there.  So far three of us Latino families (to my knowledge) have enrolled kids and we really like their teaching sytem. This project is expected to generate more exposure of Artech within the local Latino community as families will be picking up the computers at the school, as pick-ups are arranged, so will tours of the school and other promotional activities.

Two new Latina students chat during Artech’s open house
I know that the Artech’s system and concept is very attractive to local Latino families, I have noticed increased interest once I explain that my 12 year old goes there.  I am sure this project will help in this process of integration.

On Saturday August 31st, a group of 11 of us Latinos and Latinas working in Northfield and Faribault met at Just Foods Cooperative community room for the first time. Our purpose was to start a process of organizing a network of Latino/a leaders in the Southern half of Minnesota. One representative from Mankato was not present but came to Northfield on Saturday morning to get a personal update and meet with me regarding the results of the meeting.

Though not a surprising revelation, we learned that we all share common experiences, but we were able to narrow our issues and mission enough to start a serious and focused conversation. We agreed that there is a need to establish a training schedule for all of us over the coming months as a way to improve the network participant’s knowledge, and ability to deliver results to our communities and the institutions that we depend on for services (schools, community edudation, police, city services, etc.)

We will be meeting the last Friday of every month alternating meeting places on a rotational basis among the cities that will be represented in the network. At this point, the following issues are being discussed as part of our focus:

- Enterprise/Economic development
- Access to Health Servicies
- Community Safety
- School connectedness

These are not random issues, we all understand that integration of our communities will not happen until we address issues of poverty and the social and psychological conditions derived from the barriers and the self perpetuating cycles associated with poverty. Though poverty is one of the main sources of the economic and educational limitations of our communities, we understand poverty first hand ourselves and believe that we can lead others out of it trough connectedness, access to services, better education and above all through civic engagement. Though social programs and other support services are key to sustain people on a day-to-day basis, by themselves they are not meant to deal with the root causes of poverty. These are reasons why we must do whatever it takes to think outside the box, avoid duplicating programs, work within our communities to maximize the success of what is already available and only create new programs when they are not available or when what is available does not address our community needs.

We will pursue the development of our network by coordinating efforts and supporting each other’s work and the work of many other organizations in our communities, by developing and supporting new leaders, so that we can increase our overall capacity, and by working with the wider community on the issues outlined above.

Through these and other strategies we hope to carve a path for people to “walk” out of isolation and into more engaged lifestyles.  This is a strategy that will allow us to walk with folks as they get themselves out of poverty, rather than pretend that we can “pull” people our of poverty.  Defining poverty is probably another issue that we need to address.  The governmental and widely accepted definition of who is poor is narrowly governed by issues of money, as we look at our own countries of origin, some of us know that sometimes the richest people don’t have much in the area of material posessions and material wealth.  Though we are not in the business of deciding what means to live better for anyone, or about re-defining concepts and terminology, we will discuss the issues of poverty with a wider approach.  Issues of networking to establish support systems for adults and children go a long way into enriching a person’s life, growing food does not increase income but decreases expenses, consequently is another issue to consider, sharing resources among neighbors and reducing waste has a similar effect, etc. The idea is to think outside the establishment and see if we can contribute new ideas and strategies to this issue of integration and community development.

Our work still needs to be defined and weather we can build the network successfully is still up in the air, but we are doing our best and will keep doing so until we succeed.  The nice thing about our approach is that we are all voluntarilly coming together, are all natural leaders, are well connected in our own circles, and some of us have regional, national and international networks.  We will also look into what it means to be successful, the concept not giving up weather or not we get things right the first time.  With these resources and attitute one can try and fail many times without giving up, this element is crucial as none of us can wave a magic wand and solve our issues.

We all agreed on a collective vision which I provide here:

“Rooted in a desire to serve our communities, we personally committ to the creation of a network of Latino/a leaders so that we may explore, design, sustain, develop and implement ideas with the purpose of responding to the basic needs among Latino/a communities to organize, access basic services and resources, be represented in governmental and non-governmental organizations, and the business sectors within the regions or cities where Latino/a communities are settled”

We also started a conversation on an organizational structure, necessary for effective coordination within the context of the tools available and the constrains and barriers that affect our communities’ ability to communicate among each other and with our leaders. This organizational structure must be simple, broad based, representative of a critical percentage of the population, and effective at communicating with the grassroots as much as with the community at-large. A design will be discussed at the September meeting.