Final report for FNC22-1336
Project Information
Prairie Rose Farm, LLC was established on Earth Day, 2021, and currently comprises two parcels totaling 71+ acres. It is in it’s third year of conversion to organic/biodynamic production of vegetables integrated with mixed species livestock. Onsite composting, cover crops, and rotations provide fertility. Some production includes no-till and limited tillage methods. Additionally, 3 mobile high tunnels and multiple caterpillar tunnels will provide season extension and production of bedding plants. Pollinator habitat and a hedge have been established with NRCS funding. Specialty crop research in white sorghum for grain, sweet sorghum for syrup, and African eggplant have been supported by MDA and NC SARE grants in a cooperative relationship with immigrant refugee farmers from the New Roots Farm Incubator Cooperative.
Partnership production of pastured chicken and the lease of 5 acres of land to the New Roots Farm Incubator Cooperative provide an opportunity to support beginning farmers.
Problem addressed and the project's approach:
Traditional organic cultural methods employed by immigrant farmers for production of African eggplant will be complemented by use of plastic covered raised beds and two different high tunnel season extension methods. Eggplant will be evaluated for quantity of production in each method comparing and documenting amount of the plant's total season production and comparing quality though appearance. The increased summer production will be packaged, frozen and sold through a new enterprise, Red River Valley Eggplant, organized by Caliton Ntahompagaze, replacing frozen eggplant in local ethnic groceries currently sourced from Ghana. African and Asian families seek the lower quality frozen product when fresh or their own home-grown and frozen eggplant is not available. This project is an example of an African proverb, "When you wash the right hand, the left hand also gets clean" as it accomplishes significant expansion of production skills among all participating New Roots farmers, provides experience in analyzing cost of production among various methods, launches/plans for future growth of an enterprise designed to replace an off-season international market for a culturally significant food thereby assisting these entrepreneurial farmers to realize their dreams of establishing their individual small scale highly productive farms.
Research conclusions and farmer adoption:
Our incubator program regularly provides support for immigrant farmers - but this project allowed us to go into great depth with one farmer as he built his business and graduated out of our program. This experience has inspired us to create a center that will provide "wrap around" services to immigrant farmers as they adapt their knowledge to new growing conditions and marketplaces, and set out on their own.
- Compare cost of production for traditional production with use of raised plastic covered beds and season extension using Caterpillar moveable high tunnel and Four Season Tool moveable caliton eggplantHigh tunnel methods
- Evaluate quality through visual comparison of differences in appearance, size and shape
- Replicate individual farmer preferred methods on their own farm during 2023
- Assist one farmer in clarifying his business model and building a plan for future enterprise growth
- Share findings through field days, website, social media, and conference presentations
Research
2022 growing season update:
Caliton Ntahompagaze significantly advanced his dreams of establishing Red River Valley Eggplant, through the development of a marketable frozen packaged product and the development of his farm label. The path to this success was long, as the initial plan for blanching eggplant according to Extension guidelines for freezing eggplant, and then vacuum sealing resulted in an inferior product. Multiple calls to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA), Extension, and food safety resource people failed to find a solution. Finally, a referral to Jason Robinson, Agricultural Utilization Research Institute (AURI), who suggested that we try a blast freezer provided the solution we needed. The only blast freezer available in the Fargo/Moorhead area was at Northern Crops Institute (NCI). Caliton was allowed to test production using the blast freezer in this space resulting in the marketable product. Consultation with Ryan Pesch, UMN Extension has provided support for integrating African eggplant into his business plan which allowed him to successfully secure a Farm Service Agency (FSA) loan and purchase his own farm property. Caliton also tried a comparison of eggplant on plastic to a regular mulched bed and found a 20% increase in production as well as improved weed control. However, he expressed concerns about the cumbersome planting by hand into plastic and due to the fact that there were only a couple of rows, the wind would catch the plastic edges and it would need to be straightened frequently.
2023 growing season update:
The task of helping this one person, and working deeply with him helped us understand the types of services immigrant farmers need, and what resources we need to provide these services. It showed that if we could only have enough time to focus so deeply on one person as we have with Caleton, we would see real success. It points out the need that if we really want to help, we have to develop deeper relationships and an ecosystem of support - a group of people that includes a mentoring relationship. It's not just having a center where we'll help anyone who comes in the door - we have to go out the door into the community.
In terms of Caliton's farm, he has made significant strides since the end of 2022.
Caliton has continued producing eggplant and trialing using season extension infrastructure for his crop, and is in fact now growing on his own farm which he purchased with help from a USDA loan. He has taken wholesale readiness course so that now, in addition to supplying eggplant to nearby markets, he is also selling to The Good Acre (a food hub in Saint Paul, MN). Caliton has done several cooking demonstrations (examples: on-farm event included Caliton's demonstration; tasting at food coop; speaker at Emerging Prairie monthly event). African eggplant has become what he is known for in this community. We secured a grant to purchase a blast freezer, which Caleton uses to create his frozen eggplant product. Other farmers in our incubator can use the blast freezer as well. More on that below.
Research on African eggplant in our high tunnel was postponed to the following year. Construction of the first caterpillar high tunnel was attempted in March, but then the season got intense and farmers team members could not be diverted to this construction project. Additionally, the tunnel proved to be harder to build than had been anticipated. Later in the season, Mason Berube, a Prairie Rose Farm Intern identified construction issues and successfully built a tunnel for use in 2023.
We did have eggplant in caterpillar tunnel in 2023, but it was not sufficient to survive a late frost. We are still working on getting the high tunnels fully operational and in sync with eggplant production at our farm, but Caliton is confident that eggplant production in the high tunnel will be successful, as it offers more complete season extension. He has purchased a high tunnel with his own funds, which was delivered in July 2024. Caliton has "hatched out" of our incubator program. He is one of two that have "hatched" so far. At our New Roots stand, where learning farmers can market under one label, we now have two farmers showing up independently, selling at market with their own banner and booth. Currently, we have nine learning farmers in incubator.
Our experience supporting Caleton via this grant has blossomed dramatically, all becuase of our experience helping one farmer in depth in this SARE grant. We secured a Beginning Farmer Rancher Development Grant, as well as a grant from Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation. They have shifted their funding priority to food justice, and funded 15 projects in MN, including our Small Farm Innovation Center. The Small Farm Innovation Center is offering wraparound services for farmer development through strategic partnerships with the Latino Economic Development Center, MN Extension, NW Regional Development, and Renewing the Countryside. We are all working together to bring resources here to folks building their farm businesses.
We're one year into that work. That was provisional funding, and now we've secured two more years of this funding. We are currently working on renovating a building on the farm to house the Small Farm Innovation. The First Congregational United Church of Christ in Moorhead has kindly been proving space for our farmers and related equipment, but now we will be able to provide a space solely for their growing businesses.
Eggplant production:
- During 2022, Caliton identified a 20% increase in production, reduced weed pressure and improved size and appearance of eggplant when growing on plastic-covered beds in comparison to the traditional method of production used in his home country of Burundi. A report done for 2023 will include additional documentation of his journey to expansion from traditional farming methods to strategic use of mechanization for production.
- Expanding beyond this grant: A mechanical transplanter has significantly improved production. One of Caliton's next goals is securing access to equipment that lays plastic - and eventually equipment that plants into it. For now, he is not using plasticulture but that is his goal. He has to get the equipment and capital in place in order to do switch to this more efficient and productive system. For now, he is borrowing the tractor here at Prairie Rose.
Supporting Immigrant Farmers:
We learned that having a coalition or support ecosystem is critical. This project only worked because of the individuals and organizations that came together to provide ongoing, consistent resources, cinluding:
- Caliton Ntahompagaze (the farmer)
- Verna Kragnes (project lead)
- Rick Hall (graphics for logo and much more)
- Thaddeus McCammant / Northwest Regional Development (business planning with immigrant populations)
- Harold Stanislawski (evaluation of eggplant)
- Northern Crops Institute (guidance re: value-added and blast freezer)
- Partners for Health (grant for blast freezer)
- First Congregational United Church of Christ of Moorhead (space for farmers)
- Agricultural Utilization Research Institute
- Minnesota Extension
- Latino Economic Development Center
- and others
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
West Central Initiative Farm Tour-5 people from MN Dept of Ag
Hosted Farm Buds in 2022-2023--This is a farm group from Minneapolis-St. Paul that has spent a weekend on the farm each of the last two years to tour and help with projects.
MN Specialty Crop Staff
Learning Outcomes
Caliton was reluctant to try more than one bed of plastic mulch due to a concern about making a change with a significant portion of his crop to an unknown practice in 2022. He has documented positive results from doing so in yield and labor, however, elected for 2023 to try using mechanical transplanting to reduce labor for planting. Ideally, he will be working toward the purchase of equipment that will allow him to apply plastic and drip tape on a bed and then subsequently use a mechanical transplanter to plant into the plastic bed as he scales up his production.
Project Outcomes
There's a certain persistence that's needed if you're trying to help someone preserve a kind of food that doesn't fit into the "normal" boxes in the US. We think this was a two-pronged problem.
First, it that took us a long time was finding someone who could help us, because from local universities' perspective, if we wanted to do value-added eggplant, blanching was the only option for limiting bacteria growth before freezing. But blanching resulted in poor quality product; it never produced the quality of eggplant we needed to preserve the food in a culturally appropriate manner. The local universities wanted to help and tried diligently. However, we finally found an expert who helped us find a food safe option: since the eggplant was a cut and immediately blast frozen, that process limited bacteria effectively.
Second, the advice we received was focused on either a home-production scale or what works in a giant production facility - but we need solutions that are in-between in terms of scale and cost. Microprocessing could be a significant piece of rebuilding the local food system. Now that we have this blast freezer, it can be used by many other producers involved in our incubation and farm innovation program - for example, if a group of farmers all have some potatoes available, we can help them reach larger markets: we can aggregate their potato crops, and use our equipment to cut and blast freeze them into fries. This opens the option of selling to schools because now we have a product they want (pre-cut and frozen fries), in a quantity they can work with, without asking them to do extra labor (cutting the potatoes themselves).