Local Video
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| The ecology of food: Mercedez's story |
By: Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin
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Posted: Friday, June 4, 2010 8:41 pm
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Back in his home country of Guatemala, Mercedez Solorzano grew up with lush, green fields and the rich scents of the soil. Living in poverty, Mercedez’s family could not afford the expensive chemicals and machinery that covered miles of land just down the road from his village.
That’s where he drove machines for the large farms — a job that came and went at the will of the rich landowners. (Two percent of Guatemala’s wealthy own 90 percent of the productive lands). His weekly pay was barely enough to cover food and essentials. Poverty eventually drove his whole family out of the area — some like him ended up in Minnesota.
After 10 years in Minnesota, Mercedez connected with the Rural Enterprise Center. He filled with pride as he described the farmer cooperative he had tried to start there. And he noted that the big, conventionally farmed lands here smelled just like the large farms in Guatemala, while the small farms, where synthetic chemicals and pesticides weren’t used, smelled more like his family’s small plots.
Mercedez now raises poultry as part of our agripreneur training program. This reminds him of home, but also allows him to slowly walk a path out of both poverty and his dependency on processed foods he knows to be unhealthy.
“The smells and the feel of the land makes me think of home,” Mercedez says. “But having these feelings in Northfield makes me feel at home here as well.”
He uses a manual developed for raising small flocks of chickens (1,500 at a time) under a free range system, where birds eat, drink and live outdoors for most of their lives, except the first days when they are more vulnerable to the elements and predators. The manual calls for applying layers of hay in the fields to balance out the nitrogen to carbon ratio, allowing poultry manure to be quickly transformed. After the straw, he spreads grain — 300 pounds per paddock.
Mercedez knows that when grain sprouts, natural digestive enzymes (otherwise artificially added to feed) are activated, increasing palatability, nutritional value and biomass. The roots of the sprouts also absorb minerals and water, both critical for the health of the bird’s intestinal track, resulting in diverse micro flora and fauna and a healthier bird.
At the other end, nitrogen-rich droppings in combination with the extra layers of carbon from the grasses sustain a massive microbiological system that with minimal management, turns the paddocks back into healthy sprouting grounds within weeks after the meat birds leave for market.
The result is a healthy microbiological infrastructure that efficiently uses energy from millions of sources. When our food comes from a healthy system, those who eat it will be healthier, too.
Back in Guatemala, Mercedez grew food naturally on small plots. What he did not know then was that small farmers and consumers here dream of a more perfect union with the ecology of their food, and that his skills and ability to smell what is good, as well as his sense of cooperation and community, are vital assets in this new food system.
— Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin is director of the Rural Enterprise Center and can be reached at 952-201-8852. |
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