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Three weeks ago, Hillside Farmers Cooperative started providing frozen chickens to Riverbend Market Cooperative with very positive results and the development of a closer working relationship that promises to re-invigorate the engagement of Latino families in that community and region and an increase capacity of the Rural Enterprise Center to continue to reach out to new agripreneurs and community leaders in the area.

Here is a recent video produced on behalf of Riverbend Market Cooperative.

Northfield Area Foundation Seeks Applicants for Board of Advisors

The Northfield Area Foundation (NAF) is seeking applicants from Northfield and the surrounding area to serve on its board of advisors. The nominating committee will review applicants and submit a slate of candidates to the full board at its November, 2010 meeting. Candidates shall reflect the diversity of the Northfield community, which the Foundation seeks to serve including, but not limited to, educational, religious, economic, racial, and sexual diversity.

The NAF board meets every other month throughout the year. Currently thirteen directors serve on the NAF board. Directors actively participate in all activities of the Foundation including a variety of committees that have formed to carry out the strategic plan of the Foundation. Board terms are three years and a board member may serve two consecutive terms. A former board member is eligible for re-election following a one year absence from the board.

The NAF was formed by interested citizens in 1994 and is affiliated with the Minnesota Community Foundation. The NAF is a permanent endowment created to benefit the greater Northfield community. Contributions from individuals, families, businesses and charitable organizations build the endowment, the earnings of which are used to fund community needs and interests through applied grants. Since 2001, nearly $150,000 in grants has been awarded to assist a spectrum of non-profit organizations from the Northfield area.

The current board includes the following members: Bill Bleckwehl, Ray Cox, Craig Ellingboe, Dan Freeman, Mary Beth Hagen, Karna Halverson, Bruce King, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, Anne Mayer, Dale Ness, Jaci Smith, Sarah Swan-McDonald, and Ross Thompson.

Interested candidates are urged to submit a letter of interest, including a brief bio, no later than September 1, 2010, to:

Northfield Area Foundation
P.O. Box 802
Northfield, MN 55057

Here is the list of all of the previous articles published starting with the latest.

August 7th, 2010 Investing in New Immigrant Families

July 3rd, 2010 The Story of Prink’s Farm

June 4th, 2010 The Ecology of Food: Mercedez’s Story

May 14th, 2010 Sustainability: The New Ecology of Food

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.

For a closer look at what we are learning and monitoring in other states, check this recent article. If you have insights into this or want to have a conversation, drop us a note from the contact link.

Starting on Thursday, we had a group of Saint Olaf College students led by Kris Estenson from the Center for Experiential Learning (CEL), their purpose was to  look close up the issues of social responsibility and how change can come about by dealing with structural and systematic failures, especially in the food and agriculture sector. We studied the issues of vulnerable children, learning delays and other disadvantages directly originated by the lack of access to food or access to too much junk food. The discussion was lively and the farm tour full of great questions.

Friday afternoon, we had the new Arts and Agriculture bilingual camp. A nice group of 1st through 5th grade kids signed up. Led by Miguel Perez, Lucy Celis and Amy Haslett-Marroquin this camp brings kids together to be exposed to a different culture on a  setting where they are free to share, learn, play and explore food production, healthy living, and cooking from scratch at its best (actually starting by harvesting the products they will cook, giving the idea a whole new meaning).

Two of these kids were itching to do some “farm work”, especially taking care of the little chickens. So they got their wish, Garrett and Jose washed the automatic watering fountains in the ranging fields and then spread barley that would sit  overnight and soften for the birds to eat the next morning. The mix also included camelina (Camelina sativa) and comm on flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) seeds, both rich in omega 3 fatty acids. Not that the the young ones knew this or wanted to know for now, but the time will come when with properly nourished curiosity they will ask the right questions. For now, it is just about their curiosity for food and farming not going unattended.

Towards the end of the day, Maria Sosa and her black bean farm crew came over from their operation in Cannon Falls, I had marinated a bunch of our own free range chicken, Amy (my wife), had cooked a pot of black turtle beans, we harvested and cooked onions and other garden herbs, threw in a pot of rice and had a great dinner. Even the kids agreed this was a good evening although the soccer game they had picked, seem more important. After dinner, someone picked up a guitar, we made a bonfire and had some good conversation about life and mundane things that need to be ruminated to complete a full day’s worth of hard work and celebration.

As all of these went on, on a different corner of the farm, another crew under the leadership of Federico Vargas, put together an arrangement of equipment, a trailer, and a home-made shelter so that they can offer poultry processing on the farm for the many small flock growers in our region that are left on a limb when it comes time to process their family’s poultry flock. The purpose of the group is to go out to farmers who have raised chickens and need processing, bring the equipment, and help the farmers do the job.

Many farmers we are in touch with raise small flocks, sometimes under 50 birds, but then have to load them on the back of trucks and drive 50 or 100 miles to a meat packing plant, pay high prices to get their birds processed and then have to go pick them again and bring them home. This is not fair for the farmers who just want healthy foods on their farm, nor for the animals who suffer unnecessarily while the meat quality deteriorates. This group will take all of the pain away from the processing of these small flocks and do it right on the farm. Farmers who don’t have time or resources to put together an efficient system of their own, won’t have to do it, at least if they get in touch with Federico.

As perennial crops (fruit trees and hazelnuts) get established in this small demonstration site we run, we also get ready for many more gatherings like this, planned or unplanned, it doesn’t matter. For the younger folks, some “un-planning” makes the place more attractive, as long as we structure it well, young people will always get a fulfilling experience. Some fun unplanned stuff like bonfires can happen whenever there is grilling, a guitar handy and friends.  The chickens always need care, the chores are always there and everything is prepared for anyone to do them so the kids interested in this jumped right in with some short instructions.

Many of us have learned that we shouldn’t plan kids out of their childhood, but we can surely plan a lot around their childhood, so when they are ready to be helpful they don’t feel left out of the adult structures and when they grow up they won’t go around thinking that food comes from the store and farmers are of a lesser social class. Animals and farms seem to generate kid’s desire to do things naturally (as long as the chore is not obligatory). For kids living on farms, the thrill comes from being able to show off their skills like my daughter and her friend who know how to milk goats by hand. For Hipanic/Latino farmers, it is the place where they have wisdom to pass on and an command respect, a concept slipping away in new generation immigrants who see their parents as obsolete and backwards. The demonstration site is planned to be just the way young people like things, unplanned (at least as far as they can see), fun and meaningful, but also “on their own terms.” If that is what it takes to get young people into sustainable agriculture, healthy lifestyles and healthy eating, then be it, as long as it works and the systems we develop don’t structurally and systematically leave vulnerable children living in poverty behind. We are happy to put our minds into designing and planning systems that are ready to do this, we hope you will join us in celebrating and supporting this kind of culture that brings about true “agri-culture” we so much need to make our rural communities healthier.

Full Slide show

It is happening, more Hispanic/Latino, Hmong and other immigrant communities are making their mark in the U.S. agriculture landscape. It is inevitable, just as hundreds of years ago with the first immigrant populations, agriculture and food production has undergone changes continuously. These new populations are bringing with them traditions and ways of doing things that could provide the U.S. with a new competitive advantage in the world of food and agriculture.

After having tried the fossil fuel intense war industrial complex leftover kind of agriculture long enough, and realizing that this system is not sustainable and will have to end, it is time to think of what may be able to replace it. Some experts and well entrenched folks in this field of conventional agriculture get nervous and shake their heads at the simple idea that we could have a different way of doing things at a large scale, but the truth is that we have to, if one looks at the facts such as how many corporations control grain production, feed, meat, and the key commodities that feed the industrial system, plus the energy that is needed to run it compared with the energy yield from the system the picture doesn’t look good for all of us, from available of real food to the vulnerability this systems places all of us at to the health consequences for everyone. From the reliability of the safety of our food, to the quality, to the declining energy yields, to the residual chemicals to the pollution that comes back to us in the lost habitats, water, air and many other forms creating a deadly cycle at the same time that we need more food to feed the world.

At the Rural Enterprise Center we have looked at the high incidents of poverty among agriculture and food production workers and have tracked down to the family levels the impact that these conditions have in our society and our ability to innovate our way into a new generation of farmers and farming systems. When we look at the irreversible damage of conventional agriculture on our soil, water, air and human health (from workers to consumers), the picture again, does not look good.

To move in a positive direction, our government, corporations, small farmers and citizens need to heavily and deliberately test new ways of using our natural resources, conserving and improving them at the same time that we produce more and healthier food than our current system does. This principle is at the core of the prototype projects that we have started launching at a small scale. But as we look at what we call “production units” (defined units of production that can be replicated my millions of times just like conventional systems) we are also ensuring that they can be scaled up to “economic units” (a set of production units, either of the same products, or intermixed to minimize energy inputs and cost and maximize energy outputs, or energy yields and profits for the farming family). Further more, these economic units are assembled into larger but still local “economic clusters”, or networks of interrelated economic units or family farming enterprises capable of maximizing not only yields and profits, but also economic multiplier effects, wealth creation, natural resources conservation, rebuilding of ecological corridors, and the capability to shape future policies at the local level. Above this level, a system of clusters can be launched at a national level as the details and problems in the system get worked out. All of this while engaging existing banking, services, extension, distribution, value added, retail and other existing infrastructure and support systems. Where the system or the infrastructure is not efficient, creating innovative solutions then becomes the key to the future competitive advantage of regions and communities, and consequently the country as a whole.

As we work with Hispanic/Latino beginning farmers (in the U.S.), who have come with extensive experience and desire to work hard, we see the shaping of this potentially new system coming together.

This month’s story relate to the nuts and bolts of creating this new system, using modern tools, science and infrastructure is key to innovating our way out of the current path.