Rural Enterprise Center

On the weekend edition of the Northfield News, there was a nice article about our poultry operation in Northfield.  Thank you to Andrea for such a nice write-up and accurate profile, though we could add to the story, here is the link for those interested in reading it directly.  I will keep posting pictures of the operation as it progresses.  We had a busy weekend working on the fences and building as we continue to get prepared for the April 15th arrival of our first batch of days old chickens.

Who we are

We are a group of Latino families who experimented growing free range chickens during 2007 right here in Northfield. Most of us have experience working in farms but needed to see how things work here, so we tried it last year with great success. We are now ready to start a small direct marketing operation raising chickens and want to do so in partnership with our customers through a share system similar to that of Community Supported Agriculture farms.

Where are we located

This year we are based out of 4597 315th St. W just north of Northfield off of Highway 3. Everyone who signs up for a share of our chickens or is interested in shares in the future is invited to visit the place where their chickens are being raised. We also invite those with children to come and participate in the process of growing healthy foods.

How we raise our chickens

We are committed to producing high quality meat at an affordable cost and in a natural and healthy way. This means that we raise our chickens outside (free range). We also plant certain foods (buck wheat, black beans, etc.) that they eat during the day either as mature grains or as tender plants (beans). We also feed them regular chicken feed to supplement their diet. As part of our commitment to sustainable agriculture, we do not use antibiotics or hormones of any kind. Instead we rely on local knowledge for natural medicines from our elders and other farmers in the community.

Why should you order from us

Our commitment to quality, affordable prices and sustainable methods for raising our chickens are the primary reasons we believe you should buy from us. The fact that we are local also ensures that your dollars stay in our community. As new migrants to this area, we offer you an opportunity to learn more about us by doing business with us. Our operation is reliable, we have invested in infrastructure to ensure that we can deliver what we promise, and we will process all of the birds at a certified food processing plant close to Northfield and keep them frozen until you pick them up. By working with us, you will also contribute to this community’s sustainability by supporting local food systems. Most importantly, you should choose us because you will get a fresh, naturally grown, high quality, and affordable product.

Our business meets criteria for social and environmental responsibility

In 2007, we took a trip to Fairmount, on the blue earth river basin in southern MN. We went there to pick up 450 hazelnut trees which are now planted where the chickens will be raised and on land next door where we will grow vegetables between rows. As we raise chickens, they will fertilize the hazelnuts, as the hazelnuts grow, they will provide shade for the birds in the future, four years from now, we should also start harvesting hazelnuts and chickens from the same land. Hazelnuts have root systems that can grow 12 feet down and expand over a 15 feet diameter. These characteristics make them one of the best options for soil protection, eliminating the need for tilling the soil, and over time, they will produce an equivalent biomass per acre to soybeans. Though Chub creek behind our land is one of the most polluted tributaries to the Cannon River, we can claim that we won’t be adding to this problem, and you as our customer, can feel proud to be part of a solution to farm run-off pollution.

How to Order

If you are and “end-user”, which means that you will be consuming the product yourself and want to order our chickens, please print and mail this order form to place an order for the 2008 delivery schedule. Remember, a chicken weights between 4 and 5 pounds, if you can, please order in multiples of these amounts for each delivery date.

To open order form, click here: on-line-order-form.pdf

Dr. Martin Luther King was an amazing person no doubt about it. But most amazing, was his ability to understand and project himself into the future, what it would look like if we all believed in each other and if we all instead of racing to the next finish line, tried to find more meaning in getting there in the first place.

In the race to the “buttom line”, we have pitched nations against nations, workers agains workers, businesses against each other, and in the process, we have created one of the largest gaps between the rich and the poor. We allow corporations and individuals to shift large amounts of wealth from country to country and create policies so that they can keep gaining the most value for their money, but we prohibit the poor from moving accross border lines chasing higher value for the only wealth they posses, themselves. We transfer the wealth from villages into corporations and CEO’s but do everything to force people back into the “economic corrals” that we have created around free trade zones and other so called “free trade and globalization” policies. These settings create blind spots for people in search for opportunities with the illusion of a better tomorrow that never materializes but it is too late when they realize and can’t turn around or build a future anymore. We promote through our consumer choices systems that lower the value of the contributions of of those who’s only resource they own and can invest for a return is their labor. In the process of course the buttom line for corporations is improved and somebody somewhere else ends up wealthier.
Understanding these issues is not enough, doing something about it is not popular, and sometimes equivalent to “political suicide”, but those out there who believe in Dr. King’s dream, I hope will understand that it is not only important for all of us that we change the ways we do business and become more responsible towards people and natural resources, but it is also in our own interest and for the benefit of our own children to do so.

In the upcoming 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s death, there are many things happening, but the most amazing I believe is the rebirth of a dream based on new technologies and business ventures that represent a new generation of thinking and innovation portrayed in the video recently posted on you tube about the coming celebration of this important anniversary. I hope you find it as interesting.

If you have read some of my background, you probably heard that in 1995-1996, I started what we called then, the Guatemalan Peace Coffee, right after the Guatemalan peace agreements were signed between the leftist rebels and the Guatemalan army. In an interview with MPR I found the following quote “Peace Coffee got its start in 1996 with coffee from Guatemala. It was founded by a native Guatemalan who moved to Minnesota during his country’s civil war. He wanted to provide economic opportunities for some disenfranchised communities during the peace process. So the company was appropriately named Peace Coffee”.

I am the “native Guatemalan”, but the story starts in 1994 when, with support from Mark and Niel Ritchie, and Karen Lehman, I founded the Fair Trade Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), I then went on to be a founding member of the Fair Trade Federation, in discussions with folks at IATP we decided that my strenghts were not really in policy issues, but in business development. I was then given support to establish a for profit subsidiary for IATP as an effective way to increase our ability to engage many of the disenfranchised producers around the world that IATP works with on a regular basis. Though these leaders are experts on issues of trade disparities and the United State’s responsibility through its overwellming influence in promoting such disparities through unfair trade policies, they don’t have a voice in the international arena. It was obvious that we could also do something about this unheard voices through an “alternative” business model.

In 1995 I traveled accross Guatemala visiting coffee plantations and cooperatives with Josh Mailman, a founding member of the Social Ventures Network. The idea of launching a coffee company was born during that trip. Josh Mailman said to me “if you can involve Rigoberta Menchu (1992 Nobel Peace Price winner) in supporting a coffee roasting and distribution compay in the U.S. I will find you money to fund the start-up”.

A few months later we had arranged support from the Rigoberta Menchu Tum Foundation in New York and Rigoberta Menchu herself. By then, we had incorporated Headwaters International which was to be a holding company for the coffee initiative and other business ideas that may come our way. IATP moved to its new offices in south Minneapolis in 1996 and the emerging coffee company was asigned space in the basement as it had a back door exit to the parking lot.

As we launched the Guatemalan Peace Coffee, we started a partnership with the Union de Ejidos de La Selva, in Chiapas Mexico and started selling their coffee on consignment from the basement of IATP’s current offices at 2105 1st. Ave. S. in Minneapolis.

We grew our sales rapidly during 1996 and secured the support for a formal launch of the company during a visit that we planned Rigoberta Menchu. During her visit, we launched the Guatemalan Peace Coffee at the First Lutheran Church in downtown, Minneapolis. Later the same day Senator Paul Wellstone introduced Rigoberta Menchu and Peace Coffee to a full auditorium at The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul.

This memories came to me in a rush a while ago when I was looking at IATP’s website and found a new video just posted about Peace Coffee. The transition from Guatemalan Peace Coffee to just Peace Coffee was started right after we launched the company and saw that there was potential to patner with many more producers from around the world. Right after Chiapas came Nicaragua and we knew it could keep growing better under a generic brand, though we thinkered with launching a different country’s peace coffee every year, the idea did not gain traction.

We then started the process to hire a general manager, on July 11, 1997 Dale Wiehoff then Executive Director of IATP and Headwaters Int’l board member, and myself, interviewed Scott Patterson out of a group of about 5 final applicants for the management position. Scott was the youngest applicant but also the one who seem to have the personality and desire to take ownership of the emerging company, though we went into 1998 before Scott picked up the whole vision and concept, he held the job until the middle of 2006 with flying colors. The rest is history and it is nice to see what all these young people can do when provided with a vision and the infrastructure to promote peace through economic justice, and turn the vision of a Guatemalan immigrant with big ideas, into a real example of social entrepreneurship.

As I engage in new business creation and development with the never ending hope that we can change the world for many people through social entrepreneurship, I invite you to take a look at Peace Coffee’s video below and to make sure that you contribute to our local economy, even though coffee comes from half way accross the world, all of those folks you see in the video live and work right up in the Twin Cities, also I don’t believe there is a single company that can claim yet that they grow their coffee locally in MN, so the choice is yours and it is simple.