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.

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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!

Check here for more details.

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.

My journey began 13 months ago, when I first came to the Midwest. That first summer I had the opportunity to work on a couple of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farms in Iowa, and later attend Iowa State University as an exchange student during the fall. It was during this time that I learned about sustainable agriculture as an alternative to overcome flaws of our current food production systems.

My original plan was to attend Iowa State for the whole academic year. Unfortunately, due to the political and social situation in Mexico, ISU and other universities were forced to stop sending students there, canceling the exchange program with my home university until further notice. It was then that I choose to take this as an opportunity to obtain experience by getting involved in agriculture development projects. This winter, I worked at the Center for Rural Affairs in a Latino farmer outreach project. It was through this work that heard about the Rural Enterprise Center, and it’s unique approach to social issues and sustainable agriculture.

During this first three weeks of work here I’ve been most involved with the construction of the chicken production demonstration site at the Agripreneur Training Center and the development and facilitation of the training program. It has been hard (and muddy) work, but has given me the chance to meet this awesome community and hear about the ideas and the commitment of the people involved in this project. It is rewarding to see the chicken coop being built and the trainees taking it very seriously, making plans to actually start their own business. Bob Kell and Katie Blanchard have been wonderful too, giving me just the right support and making sure I’m having a good time.

Working with Rural Enterprise Center, I’ve been learning not just about the barriers and limitations that the Latino community faces in becoming agricultural producers, but also integral approaches to overcome them. I’ve always believed that I’m in a position to be a mediator between Americans and the Latino community since I deeply understand both cultures and especially the problems that immigrants faced  in Latin America and when they establish here in the US. I’m glad that my work here at REC is helping me develop leadership skills to be a better me a better mediator, while letting me participate in this project.

I will be around for three more weeks, since I need to get ready to begin classes in August. I hope that the success of the Agripreneur Training Program brings along other projects to allow future interns the opportunity to learn about the Latino community and the training and support of beginner farmers

(Katie’s Note: It has been great to have Rafael around, and we are especially thankful for his hard work on the chicken coop. We look forward to many future opportunities for student intern involvement in the Agripreneur Training Program!)

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 are embarking in a large scale effort to build a grassroots network of direct buyers of products from Latino farmers as we prepare to launch them in free range poultry, garlic, onions and black edible beans production.

About sustainable systems: We see a sustainable system as one that produces energy as a net result. Energy is the common denominator or currency for determining the ecological sustainability of a food, agriculture and natural resources management system. A farm has energy on both ends, it comes in the form of nitrogen and other chemical compounds normally found in nature as well as energy from the sun, wind, people’s and animal labor, equipment etc. The farm is the place where specific processes convert this energy into usable energy or into raw materials that contain the energy to be made usable through value added processing or other means which also need energy to run. On the other end of the farm is energy again, this time organized and re-arranged so that we can use it. What comes in the form of BTU’s, horse power, nutrient units, etc. on one end of the farm, comes out the other end in the form of calories and other forms arranged in a way that we can use them to live on.

A sustainable food, agriculture and natural resources management system will be the one that produces a yield sufficient to supply the needs of the society. Now, are we there yet? What are the strategies that are winning in achieving this mission?

When we looked at how food is produced and decided to get into the systems design and development, we knew that in order to launch a sustainable system we had to start where it matters most. So far as we have documented, the role that minorities and people in poverty play in the food and agriculture system is the highest most important element of un-sustainability as well as appropriate systems to remove cheap labor from the conventional system, support diversity in systems ideas and other critical paths of least resistance and high returns on mission driven steps. These are the critical steps that we took and some of which I will be addressing at the presentation as I seek to engage YOU in building a new system that is sustainable. In other writings we will address this issues further, but if you want an advance on it, come Saturday to the Resource Center of the Americas and I will get you started and excited about the possibilities in front of us.