Rural Enterprise Center

I recently took the leadership team from the Northfield Area Latino Poultry CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) to negotiate a partnership with Callister Farms, in West Concord, South of Northfield.

Building local and regional partnerships is not something that just happens for us, it is an strategic component and key to success in our development model for rural Latino communities. Since we focus on the entrepreneurs, these entrepreneurs must be trained and educated on ways, strategies and know-how as it relates to why, when, how, and with whom to build partnerships, so that we can reduce the risks associated with launching Latino/a-led business initiatives in our rural areas.

So first why a partnership.? For us Latinos and Latinas in rural areas, if there is a partnership opportunity, it is really a golden opportunity to reduce risks associated with starting or growing a business, relate to a larger part of our communities, and build a healthier relationship and presence in rural areas. At the LEC level, when we think of strategies, partnership building is a sound and solid strategy to deliver concrete results in launching Latino farming businesses. Partnerships is also natural to farmers in rural communities and key to small farming systems in today\’s globalization and outsourcing environment.

Those of us who just came from \”underdeveloped third world countries\” can probably contribute to the strategic components that made rural communities and their people key players in our food system in the past. Many of us are here in the first place because we lost our local sustenance systems to global trade structures where a family farm\’s role in the economic vitality of rural communities is not yet factored. In short, we believe that we understand how immigrant populations integrate, but most importantly, we are doing our best to deliver a process that is clear and easy to understand, that is based on the premise that we must first fully utilize what we have, and all of this lends us building partnerships that can contribute to strengthen the rural economy, and where the Latino populations can realize their full potential to make positive contributions.

Why Callister Farm: Because they are a well rooted, responsible (both socially and environmentally), family owned, hard working farmers in our region. Because they own underutilized poultry processing infrastructure that we can improve upon while securing a needed service for the Northfield Area Latino Poultry CSA to succeed.

When: This is easy to figure out, since we want to deliver a high quality product processed in a certified facility. The answer to \”when\” was a very fast \”right away.\”

Callister Farm was the first suggestion by Wayne Martin at the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the UofM. Wayne is a specialist in developing this kind of operations and knows his stuff, so we looked at other places and ended right where started talking to the Callisters.

How: This part goes with the flow, how depends on what we have, what they have, what them and us needed from the partnership, etc. The how sort of comes out in the form of a \”to-do\” list based on our imagination, expertise we draw on, and most than anything, the level of trust and relationship that makes the \”how\” much easier when you talk face-to-face with a farmer who knows what it takes to get started and understands that your success is also his or her own.

Here is a slide show of the visit.

Recent increases in grain and fuel prices have affected our pultry growing prices significantly. We have updated prices after we were hit by a significant increase in our feed prices. Though our products are distributed locally and we avoid a lot of transportation costs associated with distribution of the final products, the feed is a whole different story.

Most of the links to old order forms have been removed from our website, we won’t be mailing the older order forms anymore and new ones are coming to accomodated these rapid changes in our food prices.

New updated order forms are now available in English and Spanish.

Just in case you are wondering why some of the links to the brochure and order forms are not working, it is because we have moved them to one location.

To order, print and mail order form from our brochure in English or Spanish.

Things are moving fast for our poultry entrepreneurs at the Northfield Area Latino Poultry CSA.

Over the last month, we finished the infrastructure to grow up to 1,000 chickens per round. Though there are only 500 in the first batch, the infrastructure we have in place can easily handle twice as much without compromising our operating principles.

Over the last month, we have also seen many visitors, from families who just want to learn how chickens grow, customers who have signed up to bring their kids to watch the growing process, to each family of the members of the group that was formed to run this operation. Altogether we have had over 30 people come visit, mostly family of the farmers and many of their friends.

This group of leaders in-charge of the operation have worked hard at many levels, just building the fence was a huge undertaking, once the post were in during the fall of 2007 we could only wait until the spring of 2008. Once the ice started melting, the chicken wire went up, and the warming house for the little ones was fixed up, then came the larger building where the first round of 500 birds is now inhabiting.

We bought very little materials and we built the place ourselves, we spent less than $4000 total, including the first order of feed.

Since birds take up to 8 weeks to be ready for processing, we have ordered extras to serve last minute customers. So if you have not ordered your chickens yet, print and fill out the order form and mail it to us with your payment.

Here is also an updated slideshow of the growing flock.