Building Food and Natural Resource Communities

Building Capacity to Engage Latinos in Local Food Systems in the Heartland
 
This program was developed for training Extension and other professionals to work with Latino farmers.  Supported by a grant from NC-SARE, this effort focuses on institutional change and capacity building to make key agricultural educational organizations and service providers more oriented to serving Hispanic/Latino farmers.  The process begins with multicultural training, followed by monthly sessions on issues related to small farmer production and marketing, with a focus on local food systems, business development, and Latino business networks. 
 
Iowas Latino population grew 153% between 1990 and 2000 (State Data Center of Iowa 2007), and an additional 30% from 2000 to 2005 (American Community Survey 2007) to make up about 4% of the states population today.  Latinos in Iowa are becoming farmers faster than any other race or ethnicity (National Agricultural Statistics Service 2002).  Yet, in spite of documented growth, Latino and immigrant farmers continue to be underserved by USDA agencies and by Extension.   Building capacity to engage Latinos in local food systems is a program to provide Extension field staff and other agriculture professionals with the skills and motivation to support the efforts of new and established Latino immigrant farmers.  Some 40 participants in the first phase gained experience and insight into cross-cultural communication and learned effective ways to find and reach Latino farmers.  Those who are continuing in the full one-year program are developing programming skills to serve current and future Latino farmers in areas of local foods marketing, value-added, sustainable production, and access to land and credit.

Building local food systems and diversified farming in Marshalltown, Iowa
The purpose of this collaborative effort is to develop an immigrant farmer training and business incubation program and integrate it into local food systems that return value that is equitable to farmers, processors, distributors/retailers, and consumers.  This program focuses on beginning Latino immigrant farmers in two Iowa counties where recent research shows widespread farming experience among immigrants from Mexico and Central America, and strong interest in farming in Iowa.
 
Iowa-based project collaborators will link Latino immigrants desiring to farm to farmer training, land, and local marketing opportunities as part of local food systems development.  This will be done by linking a Latino organizing effort, Races, (focused on poverty reduction) with grassroots planning for and development of local food systems (INCA) that includes bringing local specialty growers (immigrant and native born) together with experienced local grower mentors; by establishing a bilingual farmer training program with opportunity to rent plots for organic production at a reasonable rate; and by planning and developing marketing systems that link these small-scale growers with local consumers who want healthy local food that strengthens the local economy. 
 
Collaborators in Marshall County (final selection of the other county is pending) include Iowa Network for Community Agriculture (INCA), with its Growing Food and Profit approach to generating grassroots efforts around local food systems; The Races Project (a multi-state initiative of the Northwest Area Foundation that builds capacity in Latino communities to reduce poverty);  Marshalltown Community College (which contributes and administers the farm on which the incubator plots are located as well as the training through their Entrepreneurial and Diversified Agriculture program), and Marshall County Extension and the Graduate Program in Sustainable Agriculture at ISU (both of which will assist with training).  
 
The program is coordinated through the North Central Regional Center for Rural Development (NCRCRD) and Agriculture and Natural Resource (A&NR) Extension at ISU.  Coordination is in the hands of Hannah Lewis and Jan Flora, working through A&NR Extension, the NCRCRD, and Sociology Extension.

Links
Leadership and Organizational Development
Voices for Community Success/Exito en el Norte

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