co-op mn

After such a deep winter, it was surprising to see almost a dozen people happily pruning trees in early March, wearing light sweaters and sunglasses, and most importantly, showing palpable joy in the task. 

For me, there was an extra level of happiness during the event, since the workshop was Sandbox Cooperative’s kickoff for the "rent your own farm classroom" program that aims to provide farmland and resources for sustainability-focused workshops. Along with co-founders Libby London, Josh Adrian, and Jeny Lai, I envisioned a place where people working toward a healthier food system would have room to play and create — think of it as a farm-sized sandbox — and weren't hindered by small classroom space. 

Thousand Hills Cattle Company, a leading producer of grass fed beef in the Midwest, has its work cut out for it.

First of all, there’s the cost of their product. Although their cattle are relatively inexpensive to raise, according to founder Todd Churchill (they just eat grass, right?), the cost of transporting, processing, packaging, and shipping 24 grass-fed cattle each week is enormous - there’s just not much economy of scale. By the time it gets to the grocery store or co-op, Thousand Hills beef costs more than its corn fed (non-organic) counterparts, nearly every time.

This is Harmony Valley's last weekly farmshare for 2009 - after this week, deliveries will come only every other week through the end of the year. I can't help but feel a little bit sad about it, although I know it'll give me a good opportunity to try new foods at my local co-op - and maybe even to get out to the St. Paul Farmers Market a few times in January.

Providing natural, fresh, organic and local foods has been at the core of Mississippi Market Co-op’s offering since they opened their first store in 1979. This past weekend, the market celebrated their 30th anniversary and an official grand opening at their newly opened West 7th Street store in St. Paul. It was also Annual Meeting time for the market’s 9,000-plus cooperative owners and the event brought together members, a distinguished speaker panel, and the co-op leadership to talk about the future of co-ops and how Mississippi Market can lead the way.

Quentin and Rebecca Irey"We want to change people's lives," Quentin Irey tells me, "we want to bring raw food to the masses." I'm trying to listen while eating a plate of food on which nothing is what it sounds like. Quentin and his wife Rebecca, the Twin Cities entrepreneurs who recently founded Pure Market Express, have just served me samples of four raw foods, and they won't say any more until I've tried what they're calling a bacon jalapeno popper. What concerns me is that the "bacon" they're serving is made from eggplant, and the "cheese" is a mixture of pine nuts, chives, lemon juice, salt and pepper.

So you shop at farmer’s markets and your local co-op. You buy local, organic, sustainably grown and harvested food. Your coffee is grown in the shade, your chocolate is fair-trade, and your bread is homemade.  How else can you can declare your support for the cause of "local, sustainable, organic foods and the people who produce them?”