St. Paul-Ramsey County Food System Recommendations to be presented May 16

News from the St. Paul/Ramsey County (MN) Food and Nutrition Commission…

After 18 months of hard work and community input, we have completed a set of Food System Recommendations to help create a more robust, healthy, and local food system in Saint Paul and Ramsey County.  We will be presenting our report in front of the Saint Paul City Council on Wednesday May 16^th at 3:30 pm in Room 300 at City Hall (15W Kellogg Blvd.). To read the report, click here.

Community engagement has been vital throughout this process, so keep it coming!  Feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.  You can also contact your council member to voice your opinion of the work at ward1-7@ci.stpaul.mn.us but be sure to include your name and address.  The meeting is open to the public and all are welcome to attend.

We look forward to putting our recommendations into action over the next couple of months and years.  Your continued involvement will be essential and highly appreciated.

Thanks for all of your valuable contributions and wonderful enthusiasm, we will be in touch soon!

Sincerely,

Saint Paul – Ramsey County Food and Nutrition Commission

Co-Chairs: Becky Timm & Hai Truong

Members:

Nadja Berneche, Diane Dodge, Metric Giles, Bernie Hesse, Lisa Jore, Katie Koecher, Linda Littrell, Kentalé Morris, Helene Murray, Brett Olson, Leonard Russo, and Colleen Schlieper.

Public hearing for St. Paul Urban Ag Zoning Amendments

This is something a lot of people have been waiting for. Will St. Paul become known for its agriculture friendly zoning codes? In 2009, the Saint Paul City Council passed a resolution to explore its own mechanisms that support or obstruct urban food production and distribution, stating:

…WHEREAS, in order to achieve a strong local food system, Saint Paul must:

• Modify city policy to support access for healthy and locally grown food and for urban food production and distribution;
• Facilitate a network of resources to support people’s access to healthy and locally grown food and urban food production and distribution.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Saint Paul City Council directs staff in Planning and Economic Development and Parks & Recreation, in coordination with Public Works, the Real Estate division of the Office of Financial Services, and the Department of Safety and Inspections, to work together with Ramsey County Saint Paul Public Health and related community organizations to explore necessary changes to City policy (including possible zoning, licensing/permitting, HRA/easement policies) and facilitate a network of resources to support the production, distribution, and consumption of healthy and locally grown food.  (Click here for full Resolution).

The public will have an opportunity to hear and comment on the Planning Commission’s proposed Urban Agriculture Zoning Text Amendments on Wednesday, June 1, 2012 at 5:30 p.m. in Council Chambers, Third Floor, Saint Paul City Hall, 15 Kellogg Blvd West, Saint Paul, MN 55102.

Click here to see meeting notice details and zoning recommendations to be discussed.

A note of thanks

Today is my last day at The Minnesota Project. In a little over a week I am heading back to the Pacific Northwest with my partner to do some WWOOFing on a couple farms in Oregon and Washington. I am looking forward to spending the summer learning more about diversified agriculture and getting more hands-on experience with self-sufficiency skills.

It’s been a pleasure working here with everyone and an honor to be associated with an organization that has such a strong history in working toward a sustainable Minnesota. I’m inspired by my colleagues and the many volunteers involved in programs like Fruits of the City, Connecting Immigrant Farmers to Sustainable Markets, and the new Garden Gleaning Project. And I am proud of the work that Jake Fischer and I have been able to accomplish on the Farm Energy Efficiency program:

• We helped pull together a great first round of the Farm Energy Auditor Training Program – the first such program in the state and one of the few in the country. For that we benefited from the talent and expertise of the trainers and specifically GDS Associates. And we’re eager to see the impact that the program’s graduates will have on helping Minnesota farmers identify ways that they can save energy and money. (See our video on “Saving Energy on the Farm: What is an Energy Audit?”)
• Our LED Pilot Project is progressing nicely with new poultry barns being added and initial data indicating that poultry-specific LED lighting might be a viable, energy efficient solution for poultry farmers.
• And our Dairy Energy Efficiency Initiative has seen quite a few successes in the form of utility and equipment supplier contacts, networking with dairy farmers, an article series in the Dairy Star, fact sheets, a number of case studies, a webinar on utility rebate programs, and a brand new webpage to help dairy farmers easily navigate the energy efficiency upgrade process at dairyefficiency.org.

For all of this work, you can read past blog posts right here.

Leaving is always bittersweet. There is the excitement of what lies ahead and the fondness and memory of what has passed.

In closing, I’d like to say thanks for reading about these efforts and for your support for this great organization. To help keep it going strong, I’d encourage you to consider a tax-deductible donation to The Minnesota Project at givemn.org.

Thanks again. Hope to see you around.

Shaun

2012 Omnibus Agriculture Policy bill creates Immigrant and Minority Farmer Loan Program

This just in from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture…  Along with statutory language for food and dairy inspection, grain trade and biofuels, the bill introduces support for farmers who struggle financially due to lack of credit (see last paragraph bout the Immigrant and Minority Lending Program). Access to financial resources to maintain or improve farm operations has been a perennial roadblock to farmers on the fringe in Minnesota and the U.S.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Governor Mark Dayton has signed into law the 2012 Omnibus Agriculture Policy bill. The legislation, which received broad bipartisan support, streamlines and modernizes statutes covering food safety enforcement, grain trade and renewable fuels.

The bill streamlines and modernizes the statutory language governing MDA’s Dairy and Food Inspection Division by consolidating the enforcement provisions of Minnesota State Statutes 28 (cold storage), 28A (licensing food handlers), 29 (eggs), 30 (wild rice/potatoes/apples), 31 (food), 31A (meat and poultry) and 34 (non-alcoholic beverages). The bill creates one chapter that clearly describes the enforcement options for food product categories overseen by MDA, and eliminates multiple definitions of key terms.

The bill also updates state grain statutes for the 21st century, repealing nearly 150 statutes and rules while modernizing statutes to reflect today’s marketplace. Language was changed to eliminate multiple reporting requirements, eliminate multiple bond types and streamline licensing processes required in the grain trade. Similar to the consolidation of the food statues, multiple grain chapters were consolidated into a single, consistent chapter.

According to MDA Commissioner Dave Frederickson, the changes bring greater uniformity to MDA’s statutes and make it easier for individuals and businesses to understand what the state requires of them.

“The Agriculture Department has a wide range of regulatory responsibilities,” Frederickson said. “These duties were assigned by different pieces of legislation over the decades, and the result was often cumbersome and confusing. This bill modernizes our statutes to make them easier to understand and follow without jeopardizing our strong record on food safety.”

Another section of the legislation fine-tunes the future course of biofuels in Minnesota by extending Minnesota’s E20 mandate for two years, and requiring agencies to develop recommendations for incorporating biofuels other than ethanol into the mandate. The bill also extends exemptions on the state’s 10 percent biodiesel requirement for three more years, while directing MDA to develop proposals for evaluating the exemptions with an eye toward ending them.

Finally, the bill creates a new Immigrant and Minority Farmer Loan Program to address a “credit gap” that has been a roadblock for some members of the state’s immigrant and minority populations seeking to get into the farm and food sector or to expand their farm. The loans will be available for working capital, the purchase of feed or supplies, or the purchase of machinery or equipment.

Contact: Michael Schommer, Communications, 651.201.6629, Michael.schommer@state.mn.us

A lesson about real food.

Recently I attended a screening of Farm to School: Growing Our Future – a new documentary produced by Stephanie Heim and Lisa Gemlo of the Minnesota Extension Service and Minnesota Department of Health, respectively.  It tells a story about farm to school partnerships in Minnesota through all the players: farmers, business owners, school principals, teachers, dietitians, school kitchen/cafeteria staff and students playing their part to make it work. In the end, kids learn what real food is.

No one seems to argue that childhood obesity is an alarming health, economic and social concern in our country (we’re told that 1 in 3 children are obese), or that farmers and other small businesses struggle to remain solvent, particularly in rural areas. Here then seems an opportunity to address health and economic issues simultaneously – good food for kids and income for farmers. Not a panacea but at least a no-brainer. Yet the way our food production and delivery system evolved over the years, selling locally grown food to schools can be complicated, even prohibitive. But it can be done! Watch the video. This is pioneering work. http://www.extension.umn.edu/farm-to-school/documentary/

What remains to be seen is whether the infrastructure to provide schools with food from local farms can be supported. Local food does not mean cheaper food and it takes a committed administration and community to support the notion of farm to school.  Some schools, for example, need to retrofit their kitchen to make space to store fresh food.  Others replaced fryers with steamers.  Additionally, kitchen staff may need to be added or retrained as more time is spent in meal preparation and providing a different school lunch experience.

A school administrator sitting next to me during the screening said his students opted to get rid of pop and snacks in their school, and replace them with healthier options.  His quandary was to convince the school board that spending dollars on healthy food for school lunches is not taking away dollars spent on the classroom experience. One need only understand the connection between good nutrition, behavior and the brain to know that dollars spent on healthy food will enhance the classroom experience. What about growing food as part of the curriculum?  It touches on health, nutrition, agronomy science, math, home economics – well everything, really.

I hope farm to school programs grow and thrive to benefit children and farmers. I hope farmers continue to invite school groups out to their fields and that more of their faces show up on school trading cards. I also hope school gardens become as commonplace as playgrounds, if for nothing else to see the delight in kids’ eyes when they pull purple carrots from the ground, or pick bright red peppers or big juicy tomatoes that they themselves planted – doubling the thrill when they haul their bounty into a kitchen of willing cooks and finally eat their harvest for lunch. Is there anything more exciting than that?

Technology and Innovation in Minnesota’s Poultry Industry

Poultry is a significant part of Minnesota’s agricultural economy. In fact, Minnesota is the number one turkey production state in the United States. In 2008, the state raised approximately 48 million turkeys. Minnesota is ranked eighteenth in the nation for broiler chicken production (raising 44.9 million broiler in 2008) and seventh for egg production.

As lighting is a major energy use of the poultry industry and opportunities for energy efficiency in poultry barns are few, we’re hopeful that poultry-specific LED lights may be one innovative technological solution to helping poultry farmers conserve energy. Our LED Pilot Project aims to determine the energy savings potential of these lights and to evaluate the dependability of LED technology for both producers and electric utilities.

Of course, lighting is just one area of opportunity and research. Another area where the poultry industry and technological innovation are coming together is the MinnWest Technology Campus in the Willmar Lakes area in central Minnesota. The campus is located on about 100 acres that up until 2006 were a state psychiatric hospital. The campus’s 30-plus buildings are on the historic register. The Minnesota Project recently had a chance to tour the campus and came away quite impressed.

The goal of the campus is to serve as a business community for innovators in bioscience, agribusiness, technology and bioenergy. The MinnWest website states, “Our purpose is to create a place where innovation and collaboration meet to help businesses break new ground, set new standards and reach new heights of personal and professional success.” The campus aims to attract other companies that will bring new jobs and investment to the region.

MinnWest is currently home to 27 business tenants. And while there are a number of businesses there that are not directly linked to agriculture or the sciences, the core of the companies present do, which the campus’s managers hope will lead to greater collaboration and innovation.

Life-Science Innovations (LSI) and Nova-Tech are the cornerstone tenants, having purchased the land in 2006 from the state. Willmar Poultry Company is LSI’s flagship business and one of the largest producers of turkey poults in the country. The company raises about 30 million day-old poults (chicks) a year, selling them to customers like Sara Lee and Cargill. Nova-Tech manufacturers equipment that uses lasers and microwaves to treat commercial turkeys’ feet and beaks. Besides these, the MinnWest campus includes spin-offs from Willmar Poultry, such as Epitopix, an animal vaccine developer and manufacturer. Other companies are a farmer’s investment group called Farmers Agriculture and Renewable Resource Members (FARM); Whole Feeds, a livestock production management and feed manufacturer; Feedlogic Corporation, an on-farm feed system technology business; and the General Management and Accounting Service Center for Cargill, Inc.

MinnWest has worked with the University of Minnesota to create the new Mid-Central Research and Outreach Center (MCROC), where students can assist companies with research and engineering. That includes an Avian Research Center to focus on poultry disease prevention. In that spirit, the campus recently played host to the i3@mtc Youth Science Retreat, which attracted 500 people for hands-on science projects and live demonstrations from organizations like the University of Minnesota and St. Cloud State University alongside local engineering and biology companies.

Ultimately MinnWest’s vision “is to be a world-class location for companies to grow and collaborate for the advancement of science and technology.” It will be interesting to see what comes out of the partnerships at work there.

Daikon radish – an Asian vegetable to know

I know you won’t see daikon radishes in local markets just yet, though you can buy this power house year-round in grocery stores. I bought some from Hmong farmers Nancy & Robert Lee last year. The Lees enjoy it pickled with carrots.

If you’re new to Asian food, it may not be the first thing you try, but its health benefits and added lift it gives to salads are worth a trip to the farmers’ market.  Eaten fresh, it is crunchy and mildly spicy; translated from Japanese, daikon means “great root” – describing its large size, and I would add its nutritional and medicinal qualities. Unlike our well-known red radishes, daikon is commonly white and can be 6 inches to three feet long – though U.S.-grown daikon are typically 1 foot long and 2-3 inches in

Daikon radish

 diameter. Daikon radish is prominent in the Japanese diet and aids in digestion (helps digest carbohydrates, proteins and fats), is high in Vit C and B complex (a “good for your skin vegetable”) and eaten raw, may help reduce the risk of cancer. The leaves are rich in vitamin C, beta carotene, calcium and iron. Daikon is also consumed pickled, dried, or cooked.

Raw daikon (peeled) can be thinly sliced into salads, shredded or grated into slaws, or julienned and combined with carrots as a traditional Vietnamese pickle. It can also be stir-fried, grilled, baked, boiled or broiled. Store fresh daikon in the refrigerator placed in a sealed container to maintain high humidity – though the fresher you eat it, the better!

Check out this very simple daikon-carrot salad recipe from Food.com.

New Resources on Farm Energy Efficiency

Direct energy use accounts for between 5 and 7 percent of farm expenditures. In terms of electricity used, Minnesota dairies show the largest energy costs, followed by corn growers (for grain drying especially), swine, soybeans, and other agricultural crops. According to Barry Ryan and Douglas G. Tiffany, “dairy farmers used 376 million kWh of electricity, or 600 kWh per year for a typical cow producing 15,000 pounds of milk annually.” For dairy farmers, electricity is the single biggest energy cost.

The Minnesota Project’s work on farm energy efficiency aims to highlight ways that farmers can save energy by becoming more energy efficient, and thus save money. As such, I’d like to draw your attention to a number of new resources on The Minnesota Project’s website.

First, we’ve created several case studies of Minnesota diary farmers who have taken steps to make their farms more energy efficient. Each PDF shares the story of a dairy farmer and offers the experience as an example that other dairy farmers can learn from, as well as to help the general public understand the dairy industry better. The stories are found on our website under Farm Energy Efficiency, but you can also download and read them each here:

• Pat Lunemann of Twin Eagle Dairy
• Joe Borgerding of Borgerding Dairy
• Sadie and Glen Frericks of Blue Diamond Dairy

Second, through working with projector partner Clean Energy Ambassadors, we are proud to announce the creation of a new webpage specifically to help Minnesota dairy farmers quickly identify ways that they can save energy along with rebate and funding opportunities they can take advantage of. Take a look at www.dairyefficiency.org.

Finally, we’d like to share with you the world premiere of a new video which offers a glimpse at the farm energy audit process. Though this video takes the example of a dairy farm, farm energy audits can be beneficial for any type of farm. Now that the initial round of our Farm Energy Auditor Training Program has ended, we want farmers to get a sense of what to expect from the energy audit process as well as to know that it’s an available option that could save them significant money.

Let us know what you think!

Pea shoots and spring

Fresh market farmers spend winter months plotting their next planting season – always with an eye towards improvement; using lessons learned to plant what thrives best in their soil type, balanced with what customers want.  Spring hits and it’s time for long days and an insane list of chores.  For many of us urban dwellers without gardens, we’re just waiting for the farmers’ markets to open.

One of the early crops to watch for that is gaining notoriety is the pea shoot –    those first bright, green, young and tender leaves and tendrils from snow pea vines or garden peas.  Nutritionally, pea shoots are a boon for Vit K and Vit C, and also a good source of Vit A and folate.  Put pea shoots on your market list.

Check out this recipe for Pea Shoot and Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Reduction here. For additional information about pea shoots, visit http://agsyst.wsu.edu/peashootbroc.pdf. For farmers’ market locations in Minnesota, visit www.minnesotagrown.com/.

Behind the Scenes of a Farm Energy Audit

Now that the inaugural round of our Farm Energy Auditor Training Program is over, we are looking forward to the impact it may have on helping Minnesota farmers save energy and money as the program graduates begin conducting farm energy audits throughout the state. To offer a glimpse at what the audit process looks like, The Minnesota Project is producing a short web video. We hope it will give farmers and potential energy auditors a feel for what to expect during an energy audit.

On March 20, Jake Fischer, and I drove out to a dairy near Rice, MN with Dan Thiede, Communications Coordinator with CERTs. There we met with energy auditors Jennifer Brinker and Joe Schultz, of GDS Associates, as well as Alex, one of the students in the Farm Energy Auditor Training Program, who had been conducting an audit on this dairy for his final project. We donned boot covers or else disinfected our boots and talked with the dairy owner and his son about the farm. With their experience in providing farm energy audits, Jennifer and Joe described the process and carried much of the screen time. Meanwhile, Dan ran the camera and somehow managed to it and the microphone out of the copious mud from the past few days’ rain.

After a few hours looking at the dairy’s equipment and asking questions about the farm’s energy use and operations, we had enough footage and information to put together our web video, and Alex had completed his energy audit. Stay tuned for the final video soon. And in the meantime, take a look at these behind-the-scenes photos of our farm energy audit video shoot.

UPDATE (4/16/2012): The video is finished! Take a look and please share it with your networks.