Co-op aims to move people from poverty to farming
By Heather Thorstensen
hthorstensen@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 11/15/2010 4:03 PM
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NORTHFIELD, Minn. — A cooperative has formed in southeast Minnesota to help local Latinos increase their quality of life.
USDA Rural Development is among Hillside Farmers Cooperative's supporters.The agency gavethe co-op a Small, Socially Disadvantaged Producer grant worth $113,865.The grant is the first of its kind in Minnesota. It will cover expenses to run a feasibility study, make a business plan and receive other technical assistance.
The cooperative is its own entity, but the group supporting its creation is Main Street Project, a Minneapolis-based non-profit organization. Their goal is to help people move out of poverty so they can become more involved in their communities.
According to Main Street Project, 21.2 percent of the state's Latinos live below the poverty line, compared to 9.2 percent of all Minnesotans. Organizers say a cooperative will be helpful because many immigrant Latinos have agriculture backgrounds and find a cooperative system culturally familiar.
"All we're looking for is a new way to do things so it's fair to everyone and to the ecology," said Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, the director of Main Street Project's Rural Enterprise Center in Northfield.
The cooperative's main enterprise is free-range meat chickens, raised without artificial inputs. The birds' fast life cycle allows for a fast cash-flow, making it easier for low-income families to get started. Poultry production gives the co-op's members a source of healthy, natural food. Livestock, and their manure, are key to the co-op's goal of being an efficient, sustainable farming system.
Five Latinos are in the network now, along with two non-Latinos and about 20 other individuals —some Latino, some not — who work with the seven core farmers.
So far, the cooperative has sold nearly 35,000 birds, processed at a USDA-inspected facility in Utica. The meat is delivered with the co-op's state-inspected delivery vehicle directly to customers in the Twin Cities. Thousand Hills Cattle Company in Cannon Falls is helping them distribute their chicken. Customers may buy directly from farms in Northfield and Cannon Falls or at the farmer's market in Northfield.
The co-op processes grain for feed. By May or June 2011, they hope to increase their chicken production by developing their own mobile, poultry processing unit.
Their start-up stage will be complete when they have eight poultry farms producing 64,000 birds total per year. Production is planned to climb to 576,000 birds per yearand the co-op will move into other farm enterprises, such as turkey, beef, egg and fruits and nuts production.
Estimates show eight poultry farmers will make annual incomes of $30,000 to $45,000 each, depending on farm management. Because poultry manure can be used as fertilizer, each poultry farmer is expected to support three additional farm enterprises, like grain or vegetable production.
The co-op has potential to generate $5.6 million per year, says Main Street Project. Hillside Farmers Co-op is the first of six co-ops they plan to help form in southern Minnesota.
"When we reach that point, we will have transformed poultry production in this state" for large-scale, free-range poultry production, said Haslett-Marroquin.
Maria Sosa of Owatonna is the co-op's chairwoman. In 1995, she came to the United States from Mexico, where she ran a business selling fish. Her father farmed.
Sosa has a seasonal job working with immigrant workers through an outreach program. To add to her income, Rural Enterprise Center helped her connect with a landowner to lease 1.5 acres to grow black beans and garlic. She sells the beans to Mexican food stores and hopes to sell more to local colleges for their cafeterias.
"It's not impossible," she said of immigrants starting to farm.
Sosa has been asked by the Rural Enterprise Center to be Farmer in Residence with their new training center south of Northfield. It's planned to be constructed this fall or early next spring.
Graduates are expected to join Hillside Farmers Cooperative or help start new cooperatives in southern Minnesota. The training center will include four poultry production facilities, be a place for community gatherings and will help cooperative members continue to learn.
Rural Enterprise Center trains low-income, potential agripreneurs by helping people try their hand at farming atcommunity gardens or small livestock operations. It offers business training, connects trainees with established farmers as mentors, and helps trainees launch their farm.
In 2011, Rural Enterprise Center is hoping 15 candidates go through their program.
Todd Prink, a certified organic farmer in Cannon Falls, has partnered with Hillside Farmers Co-op as its treasurer. A seasonal poultry facility on his 80-acre farm can produce about 4,500 birds a year. He grows grain and sells it to the co-op as feed.
He sees the co-op working toward providing good jobs for its members. He also sees the partnership as a mutually beneficial relationship.
"I can help them, they can help me," Prink said.