Farmers Case Studies
As residents of the Midwest know, the growing season is painfully short. When it’s twenty below, what else can you do besides go to the supermarket and buy tomatoes shipped from thousands of miles away? Whitewater Farms in Altura, Minnesota has found a solution. The farm, owned and operated by Sandy and Lonny Dietz, contains a geothermal greenhouse...
Norm and Mary Erickson of Hazelnut Valley Farm retired and started a hazelnut farm in Lake City, MN. Their nutty adventures into the business of growing, harvesting, and processing the crop led them to install a solar-heated greenhouse with many innovative features. They look forward to a future where hazelnuts can be profitably converted into...
Dairy farmers are an industrious group by nature, and farmer and entrepreneur Peter Reese of Goodhue County has eyes for common sense and untapped opportunities. The basic concept of Perpetual Harvest, LLC, came from Peter’s thoughts about how our economy is under-utilizing available and renewable local resources.
Chuck Knierim found a gem in a trash heap when he pulled out a discarded 1976 electric Ford Endura. The Endura traces its origin back to the Arab Oil Embargo of the early 1970s. As oil prices skyrocketed, the federal government allocated funds for alternative transportation options, and every project proposed was an electric car.
As the clean energy movement sweeps quickly, yet quietly, across Minnesota, communities are discovering new and unique opportunities for renewable energy development. With its diverse and varied landscape, Minnesota has the ability to participate in clean energy development in several ways.
Tim Terrill from the Winona Soil & Water Conservation District Organization said he saw “an excellent example of how conservation and farming can work together to achieve environmental and economic benefits,” when he partnered with Eric Kreidermacher of Pork and Plants and Professor Bruno Borsari from Winona State University.
Norm Krause, director of the Central Lakes Agricultural Center, gave the CERT team a presentation about the corn burner at the Central Lakes Ag Center in Staples on October 15th, 2006. U of M professors Steve Taff and Carl Rosen plan on studying the project.
The Haubenschild family business is a lot more than a dairy farm; it’s a renewable energy generation plant, a research facility, and a model for the future of agriculture in a society committed to clean air, and drinkable water.
Linda Meschke’s interest and work with water quality issues in Southern Minnesota has lead to an entirely new bio-based development plan for the city of Madelia, Minnesota, and ideas and plans from this
project are spreading to other communities.
Todd Juwizak and Eva Barr are combining traditional homesteading practices with modern renewable energy technology at DreamAcres Farm, an off-grid 60-acre organic farm in Southeast Minnesota.
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