Education Programs

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Project Description: The goal of this project is to provide educational opportunities that will help consumers access local food, new producers get started and help existing producers expand into new areas of production and new markets.

Project Update:

3/5/21 – Laurie Kallinen:
It’s hard to believe it has been a year since COVID-19 altered the way we do virtually everything! In spite of the challenges inherent with isolation, social distancing, and masks, we have been able to offer a variety of online classes and webinars. And the best part is that they are recorded and viewable even though we can’t yet meet in person. Here is a list of some of the classes you can view online: (It’s been a busy year!)

FARMING:
Root Cellaring in Northern MN

Raising Chickens in the Northland

Land Development & Homesteading Techniques with Stefan Meyer of the
North Shore AgroEcology Center.


AgroPhenology: Nature-based Planting Calendar

Give Peas a Chance: Garden Planning

Cooking:
Nixtamalization – Making Hominy From Flint Corn

Orchard:
Pruning Apple Trees in NE Minnesota with Cindy Hale

Virtual Grafting Tutorial with Deb Shubat

Minnesota Food Laws:
Minnesota Cottage Food & Value-Added Products

What’s the deal with “Product of Farm” rules in MN? with Cindy Hale

Farm Funding/Grants:
Fall Grants for Minnesota Farmers

Cooperative Development:
Cooperative 101 with Cooperative Development Services

5/20/2020 – Kaare Melby:
With the COVID-19 situation, our focus shifted from in-person classes to online classes and conversations. This strategy seems to be reaching many more people than our in-person classes, and this has really helped to grow our network. Another advantage to offering these classes online is that we are able to save recordings of the classes so that people can watch them at any point in the future!

So far we have done the following online classes:

The Past, Present, and Future of Agriculture in North-Eastern Minnesota

Minnesota Cottage Food & Value-Added Products

Virtual Grafting Tutorial with Deb Shubat

On Monday 11/18/2019 Kaare Melby, Honor Schauland, and Andrew Norcross presented a class called Finding, Buying, and Gathering Locally Grown and Wild Food. This class explored the different types of local foods available, where to find those foods, how to store and preserve those foods, and when to gather local wild foods. Honor and Kaare had presented this class twice before, once here in Finland, and once at the Fond Du Lac community center.

You can review the powerpoint presentation from the class here: Finding, Buying, and Gathering Locally Grown and Wild Food 

There are also two resources that were developed for this class that you may find useful:

Where to buy Local Foods
A guide to help you find food that is grown, raised and processed in and around the Finland, Minnesota region.

Finland Area Gathering Cycle of the Year
An overview of the wild foods available in the Finland, MN area arranged by harvest time.