Bike trek connected kids with farmers

Jennifer Vogel May 16, 2013 0

Over the past week, four bicyclists and one runner from the University of Minnesota have been crossing the state from west to east, stopping at farms along the way to explore innovations. As part of the project, called “Grown to Run,” the team has posted a short video every day showing a different aspect of farming for school kids around the state to view and talk about.

The team even stopped to talk to classes in person in Clara City and Watertown. The idea behind this sort of “adventure learning” is to get kids excited about something that’s happening in real time.

U of M graduate student Bryan Runck, who dreamed up the project, said that around 300 kids have participated over the past week. In one of the best moments, he said, he showed a map to a seventh grade agriculture class of crop cover in 1937 compared to 2002.  The early map showed wide crop diversity and the latter showed almost exclusively corn and soybeans. “They gasped,” said Runck.

U of M graduate student Bryan Runck. (Photo courtesy of project)

“It was I think a really overwhelming success,” said Runck of the project, which ends Friday. “We had a consistent flood of new people joining in the conversation online.” He said he was surprised that farmers even watched each other’s videos. “We didn’t anticipate the farmers engaging at that level.”

So far, the team has shown Madison farmer Carmen Fernholz standing in a field talking about the importance of crop rotation–growing dried field peas one year and corn, soybeans or barley the next–in order to improve the soil. It showed Larry Schueler, a farmer near Echo, discussing water conservation methods like buffer strips and settling ponds. A farmer named Jim Burns, who also is a computer scientist, explained how the newest technology can make farming more efficient, right down to tracking how many seeds go into a planting hole. Watch the videos  here.

The final video, Friday, will discuss the future of agriculture and focus on Garden Fresh Farms, which grows indoor herbs and greens near St. Paul.

Despite grappling with wildly varying weather on the trip, the team arrived back in the Twin Cities Wednesday, earlier than expected. “We camped one night where it was below freezing and had a day where we had 100 degrees,” Runck said. And then there was the wind. “We were all aware of the extreme winds you get on the prairie, but we didn’t fully anticipate that really. There was one day, Saturday, where the bikers were really struggling with that.”

Now that they are back to their everyday lives, Runck says the team is considering a new trek soon. “We all decided, this is an amazing experience and we definitely want to do it again,” he said. “Because there has been quite a bit of buy-in.”

Local Food

Biking Minnesota’s countryside to show innovation

Jennifer Vogel May 10, 2013 0

At 8 a.m. today, five bikers and runners from the University of Minnesota began a 10-day trek across the state to show school kids all the creative approaches to farming employed in rural areas. Starting on the western border, near Madison, the group will stop at farms and towns along a pretty much straight route to the Twin Cities.

Graduate student Bryan Runck dreamed up the idea with some fellow grad students. “We are passionate about the cool and innovative things happening in these rural communities, especially in agriculture,” he said. “Like the technology that is being used to increase efficiencies and techniques in the local organic movement. We thought, why don’t we do something?”

Bryan Runck/photo courtesy of project website

Runck will make daily videos of the trip, including interviews with farmers, and upload them to the project website each evening. Stops will include Carmen Fernholz’ organic grain farm near Madison, Moonstone grassfed beef farm near Montevideo and Garden Fresh Farms, which grows indoor herbs and produce, near St. Paul.

The team will even pop in on various middle- and high-school classes to talk to students in person. The effort, called “Grown to Run” and funded by the U of M’s Institute on the Environment, is an experiment in so-called “adventure learning.” In theory, kids are more excited to learn about something that is happening right now. At least five schools have signed on to track the team’s progress, but anybody can take a look, here.

U of M agriculture professor Paul Porter, who is participating in and overseeing the project, said the goal is to “go out on the landscape and have an adventure and talk about it as the hook to bring in students, to get them to pay more attention the landscape and the food they eat.” He also joked that the team may be “out of our minds.”

Professor Paul Porter/photo courtesy of project website

Runck hopes kids will draw connections between how land is managed, our food and small town vitality. “We’ve tried to focus on innovative ways to deliver food, fiber and fuel,” he said. “The goal is to create this discussion around, what do we want our landscape to look like? What kind of services do we want from our landscape? Not just food production or clean water or the human element. What kind of rural communities do we want to have in the future of Minnesota?”

OK, it’s the economy, but is it ONLY the economy that makes us different?

Dave Peters May 8, 2013 0

Do people in Worthington feel more powerful than people in Two Harbors? Do they work together more? Are they more welcoming?

The Blandin Foundation has produced the latest version of its Rural Pulse, a survey of rural attitudes among Minnesotans, and the latest results shed light on what has become one of my favorite topics — how different we are from place to place.

MPR News reporter Tom Robertson is reporting on the larger findings in the study, last done in 2010, on Morning Edition. The top line is that rural Minnesotans are less optimistic about the economy than urban residents and he does a good job showing you how that is so. But I’m also intrigued by regional differences that show up and, in particular, by the contrast in some things between the farm country of southwestern Minnesota and the woods, lakes and mines of northeastern Minnesota.

Blandin surveyed a random sample of more than 1,000 rural residents between March 7 and March 15, asking several dozen questions probing how people felt about their communities, quality of life, housing, transportation, diversity and more.

Again and again, it seemed, southwestern Minnesota was definitely a glass-half-full kind of place and northeastern Minnesota was on the other end of a spectrum.

Do you believe your community can work together? In the Northeast, 31 percent said no. In the Southwest, only 14 percent said no. Rural Minnesotans in total? 21 percent said no.

Does your community provide adequate transportation? Three out of five say yes in the Northeast. Four out of five say yes in the Southwest. Other regions are in between.

Is the economy worse than a year ago? A quarter of northeastern residents said yes. Only 19 percent of southwestern residents did. (In west central Minnesota only 11 percent did.)

Is your community welcoming for people of all backgrounds? The Southwest topped the state — 87 percent said yes. In the Northeast, only 75 percent did.

Do you feel like you can have an impact on making your community better? Ninety percent say yes in the Southwest; 81 percent say yes in the Northeast. Other regions are in between.

One caveat here is that the margin of error goes up when you break poll results down into small groups of respondents. And not all the questions reflected this pattern. But many did. Take a look for yourself.

The first explanation for the differences is economic. Sherry Ristau, president of the Southwest Initiative Foundation, said her region fared better than most through the recession. Farm income has been strong and value-added agriculture-related industries seem to be growing.

“I see so many awesome things happening in this region,” she said.

The region is outperforming other parts of the state when it comes to business expansion, innovation and new products and job growth, she said. In fact she just blogged about some regional status reports yesterday before the Blandin report came out.

Early analysis of the numbers by Blandin echoed the role of the economy. Median incomes between the two regions are similar but the unemployment rate is consistently 2 points lower in southwestern Minnesota.

But is that the only explanation? These are regions with different histories, different heritages, different cultures, different politics. Why wouldn’t the outlook people have be different?

I last took a run at this phenomenon when I mapped the per capita issuance of gun permits. There was a pretty obvious regional variation.

I didn’t really come up with many satisfactory explanations then, and the economic answer notwithstanding, I’m not sure I can now either. Anyone?