AURI News

How to gift Minnesotan
By Cindy Green

Benson, Minn. — For the holiday gift season, Farm Bureau is offering a basket brimming with Minnesota products, from buffalo jerky to corn-starch dog treats.

With AURI’s help, Swift County Farm Bureau assembled the gift basket as part of its direct marketing program. Every year, the program works with Minnesota suppliers and the Florida Agricultural Marketing Association, to prepare a mail order catalog of products available to its members.

“Members can purchase commodities often not available through normal marketing channels, at reasonable prices,” says Linda Wall of the Swift County Farm Bureau. “It’s a service that helps build membership and, at the same time, promotes the products we offer in a unique way.”

The gift basket of 13 Minnesota products sells for $29.95. It includes GladCorn, Papa George beef jerky, Grandpa’s Snack’n Oats, Feeding Time birdseed cake, Minnesota Wild chokecherry jelly, Jaeger’s shiitake mushroom wild rice soup, Nature’s Fire firestarters, Harvest Bright cleaner, Prairie Smoke barbeque sauce, Café Brenda croquette mix, Eichten’s buffalo jerky, Huskers corn-starch dog chews and Christmas Tree pretzels.

Farm Bureau also markets a variety of cheeses, wild rice, smoked ham and turkey from Minnesota, and fruit, juice, nuts and citrus cleaners from Florida.

For more information contact Linda Wall at (320) 843-4122.

Lena’s ready to roll — without Ole
By Greg Booth

Ulen, Minn. — Have you heard the one about Lena’s Lefse?

It’s no joke, but a real Norwegian treat. Sue and Doug Lindsay and friends Roger and Denise Halverson are putting years of lefse experience into a commercial venture.

Their company, Lena’s Lefse, is scaling up from a home recipe using fresh Minnesota-grown potatoes. AURI is providing packaging, nutrition labeling, equipment and marketing assistance. Product labels are made in nearby Hawley, Minn., and the flour and packing boxes are from Minnesota.

The lefse has a “taste that is better,” says AURI cereal scientist Charan Wadhawan, because of the fresh potatoes. “It’s not all automatic,” Sue Lindsay says. “Every piece is rolled by hand and gets flipped individually.” Wadhawan says that with less than two grams of fat per piece, the lefse qualifies as a low-fat food.

Lindsay says she’s half Norwegian, and business partner Roger Halverson is “completely Norwegian.” They settled on the name Lena’s because “there’s a pretty good Norwegian community here,” Lindsay says, “and we listen to a lot of Ole and Lena jokes around here.”

Alfalfa sprouting to the north
By Andrea Frazeur

Granite Falls, Minn. — After years of disappointing wheat harvests, small grain farmers of the Red River Valley have an opportunity to grow a new crop.

The Minnesota Valley Alfalfa Producers cooperative recently held meetings throughout the Valley encouraging farmers to join. MnVAP owns a hay processing facility in Priam, Minn. and plans to build a second facility near the Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota intersection.

The co-op separates alfalfa leaves from stems, and processes the leaves into livestock feed pellets. Starting in 2002, MnVAP plans to gasify alfalfa stems into electricity and provide 75 megawatts to Northern States Power.

MnVAP Chair Leon Doom says the co-op achieved several milestones this year. MnVAP signed a development agreement with the United Power Association, then Enron, a global electrical and gas provider, joined as an equity partner, and finally, Prudential Investment affirmed financial feasibility.

Farmers have invested about $5 million in MnVAP so far, Doom says, but the co-op must raise another $70 million for 100-percent ownership of the electrical generation plant and six more hay processing plants. Industry and government investments are expected to add $200 million.

Seeking investment from producers who fought the ’97 flood, five years of wheat diseases, and now low farm prices can be challenging, Doom acknowledges. “There’s not a lot of money to invest right now, but MnVAP offers farmers an opportunity for long-range investment and crop diversity.”

Meat workshop coming up
By Andrea Frazeur

Marshall, Minn. — Meat and poultry processors have lots of regulations to wade through, so AURI is lending a hand.

AURI is presenting a two-day workshop, October 13-14, for meat and poultry processors who want to learn Good Manufacturing Practices, Standard Sanitation Operating Procedures, and other sanitation and monitoring processes.

Besides classroom instruction, participants will have a chance to clean equipment and try out the latest in sanitation monitoring equipment at AURI’s new meat lab. Participants will also receive help developing detailed sanitation plans.

The workshop is for owners and employees of both small and large meat and poultry processing facilities. Processors will get help to meet some of the prerequisites for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points certification, and the workshop will certify them to train employees in their own facility.

The deadline for workshop registration is October 6. The $100 fee includes a textbook, continental breakfast, lunch, handouts and lab testing materials. For more information, contact Louise Eischens, AURI office manager in Marshall, at (507) 537-7440.

Tour the treatment for hog waste
By E.M. Morrison

Raymond, Minn. — This fall, Minnesota livestock producers can investigate a new manure management method in action.

AquaCare, Inc., a division of West Central Environmental Consulting of Morris, is offering tours of its Single Basin Extended Aeration Cyclic Reactor, known as SBEACR (suBEEker). An environmentally friendly system for treating hog waste, SBEACR minimizes odors while preserving the manure’s nutrient value.

With AURI’s help, AquaCare installed a model SBEACR system on the Jerome and Marcia Taatjes farm near Raymond. Since June 15, the system has handled all the waste from the Taatjes’ 700-sow hog operation. “It’s doing everything that we expected and more,” says company manager Bruce Droegemueller.

Similar to a municipal sewage plants, SBEACR combines a low-cost method for separating out solids with a proven biological process for cleaning wastewater, says Droegemueller. It’s an old concept, put together a new way.

Waste flushed from confinement barns is separated into solids and water. Solids collect in a tank and are later spread on cropland or processed into commercial fertilizer. Liquids are pumped into a bioreactor tank. After 24 to 72 hours, clean water is returned to the barn for flushing or even drinking.

For more information or a tour appointment, call AquaCare at (320) 589-0090.

Thompson leaves for organic field
By Dan Lemke

Todd Thompson, AURI deputy director for market development, departed AURI in September for the Cooperative Development Service. He will serve as production director for the St. Paul-based Organic Alliance, a project of CDS.

Thompson is coordinating farm projects over a five-state region to encourage organic and sustainable production. “To this point, what’s preventing the consumption of more organics is lack of supply,” he says. “The demand is there, the supply just hasn’t been.”

AURI executive director Edgar Olson says Thompson played a role in many efforts to improve the organization. “Todd brought a lot of energy and talent to our organization during his time with AURI ... many times he tackled difficult issues with results that are helping us improve AURI programs and services.”

“I’ve enjoyed my time at AURI,” Thompson says. “It was always interesting, but the Organic Alliance was an opportunity too good to pass up.”