Sharing Our Roots

Programs: For seven years, main street project has provided low-income immigrant communities in exurban and rural se minnesota counties with opportunities for classroom and hands-on training as part of an effort to grow community wealth through farming and related business opportunities in our emerging system of regenerative agriculture. Our goal is to create a new generation of farmers who will build operations around a poultry-centered, regenerative agriculture system that is sustainable, resilient, healthy, fair, and transparent. Main street project's production model re-connects perennial crops and small grains with free-range poultry raised in paddocks. It is designed to be compatible with new immigrants and other marginalized populations interested in pursuing a vocation in sustainable agriculture. Trainingmain street project continues to assess and improve its training. In the past year, we provided basic and advanced agripreneuer training to 17 latino participants in our region. Basic training and technical support was also provided to our partners in pine ridge, sd, thunder valley cdc. Among the outcomes for training program participants:-agripreneurs who raised flocks this year were able to supplement their family incomes. -new agripreneurs learned how to raise and care for the chickens, how to implement the msp model, how to do daily documentation of raising and caring for their flock, and how to some extent, to develop a business plan. Advanced agripreneurs continued to apply those skillsand became competent at raising their flocks with minimal guidance from staff. -agripreneurs also learned about healthy food and how nutrition is related to their health and the health of their children. In addition, raising chickens has helped increase agripreneurs and their communities gain access to healthy food. With support from a local foundation, main street project has been able to lower the cost of chickens so families are able to purchase more birds for their personal use when they are processed. A group of three local youth were also engaged in a main street project farm enterprise training program. They had primary responsibility for caring for chickens for msp's prototype egg production. Beyond their interest in farming, the youth farmers bring an equity lens to their interest in agriculture. They made an initial connection to main street project because they were seeking an opportunity to engage in sustainable farming and looking for opportunities that aligned with their values. The youth plan to continue farming as a way to make a living. Two of the youth agripreneurs have secured access to land to start their own coops in 2017. The training they received gave them the experience and confidence to move forward. Interest from established farmers has been strong, and this outreach begins to lay the foundation for expanding a regenerative agriculture model in the broader region. In addition to the established farmers mentioned above, in fall 2016, three farmers from southeastern minnesota attended a one-day training to learn about the msp model. These experienced farmers who currently farm using conventional methods expressed enthusiasm for the msp model and optimism that it might be possible to incorporate the model on their farms. Researchmain street project continued to partner with academic institutions in the study of our regenerative model. In 2016, we worked with a graduate student intern from the center for integrated natural resource and agriculture management (cinram) to develop a framework of measures for assessing specific indicators and impacts of the main street project model. The framework is being used at locations implementing the model including main street project's r&d farm and other demonstration partner sites. Establishing the framework and criteria was a crucial step in being able to assess the model's contribution to a resilient and efficient system of sustainable energy and water quality. Main street project research conducted in 2016 includes:-a cost of production and return on investment analysis of the broiler side of the system-rigorous safety testing on passive composting in fields, which could potentially introduce a new, certifiable, highly efficient standard for manure management-air quality testing in chicken coops, to ensure the safest possible environments for both the birds and their keepers-hazelnut production under poultry-based weeding and fertilizing-alley cropping of annual vegetables in combination with elderberry production-alley cropping of annual grains in combination with hazelnut production within poultry ranging paddock-preliminary data collection on hazelnuts' productivity levels inside poultry ranging paddocks-fall application of non-composted straw from poultry barns as a combination of mulch and fertilization in one application (as straw is used for bedding in the solarium part of the poultry barns, this straw is richly mixed with poultry manure)as main street project has laid careful groundwork in the development of its poultry-based regenerative agriculture model - establishing baseline scientific evidence for the model's effectiveness, developing relationships with partners who contribute to its work, and successfully engaging and training agripreneurs - substantial regional interest has been generated in the model. Developing markets for msp products is critical to our growth and success. We're continuing our relationship with long-term consumer partners at bon appetit, the food service organization at st. Olaf and carlton colleges in northfield, and the direct-to-consumer drop sites run by volunteers in lakeville and minneapolis. Bon appetit is a valuable institutional customer, providing more demand for msp's poultry than we can supply. Bon appetit's farm to fork philosophy aligns well with msp's mission, and importantly for the company, "puts money back in the community where we live and work. " main street project staff regularly present at state, national, and international conferences and meetings of key organizations interested in sustainable agriculture. Msp frequently hosts guests who want to see the r&d farm and observe the regenerative system in person. Tour groups have included international delegations and members of minnesota's funder community. Partnershipsa critical component of our ability to achieve widespread adoption of our model and system-wide impact is our development of demonstration and training partnerships like the one we have with thunder valley community development corporation (cdc) on the pine ridge reservation in south dakota. Thunder valley cdc serves the oglala lakota nation. Pine ridge members have some of the highest rates of diabetes and preventable diseases in the united states. Thunder valley cdc is implementing our paddock-centered poultry system after training their staff received at our minnesota facility. By the end of 2016, thunder valley cdc had built a two-paddock system with a chicken coop/poultry house. They have a small flock already started, and are planning to take the model to scale in the coming months. Our systems approach is central to our partnership with thunder valley cdc. The result of our approach takes back the land and makes it productive again, so the whole reservation can achieve food security. The stacking of enterprises on top of our poultry- centered agriculture system reweaves the social fabric critical to holding the community together, brings back the jobs, but most importantly creates the foundation for the appreciation of the assets that were there to begin with; family, culture, land, native foods and indigenous wisdom. Our partnership with thunder valley cdc contributes to our shared base of knowledge and research and provides evidence of our regenerative model's potential by:-demonstrating that the model can be adapted to work in different ecologies;-demonstrating that the model can be deployed with minimal resources;-demonstrating that people from different backgrounds see the value of healthy food grown naturally using a regenerative model;-providing new locations for data collection and observation to learn from and improve the model; and-contributing to advancement of a regional development strategy. Market development for both crops and livestock produced using our model is critical to our expansion efforts. We are actively working to find and grow local markets for poultry, hazelnuts, and elderberries. We're partnering with regeneration farms to develop a licensing system for products produced using the main street project model. Regeneration farms is working to grow the brand and developing industry relations and financing critical to market expansion. As farmers in the region increasingly implement our model on their farms, we can begin to achieve the scale needed to have a meaningful relationship with corporate supply chains.