As Healthy Harvest fulfills its mission to connect and educate in support of the local food system, there are many projects underway all across North Iowa. We are excited about North Iowa’s local food movement and invite you to get involved if you are not already. If you have a question or a connection you’d like to share, please contact us.

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Consumers: The Gathering: Coming Together Around Local Food is happening March 16


We are excited to work with Ag Ventures, North Iowa Corridor and One Vision to host the second annual “The Gathering – Coming Together Around Local Food” on Saturday, March 16th, 8:00am to 2:00pm in the Olsen Building at the North Iowa Events Center. Come explore all the exciting FREE activities, including:

  • The Market Place – Meet local food and farm businesses, sample products, and indulge in the opportunity to purchase locally produced food during the Winter months.
  • Mini Workshops – Expand your knowledge of buying, using, and growing local food during these 20 minute sessions.
  • Kid’s Edition – Enjoy fun for the whole family through hands-on, educational activities.


All are encouraged to attend all day, or just stop on by. Help us spread the word by sharing our Facebook event.

Click here to get all the details…

 

Producers: NI Local Food Connection Update

North Iowa Local Food Connections program is a partnership of Healthy Harvest of North Iowa, local food and farm businesses, supported by USDA Rural Development, Corporate Farmer and Albert Lea Seed. This network of local farm and food businesses and friends builds relationships, collaborates, learns together, and creates connections that build business and productive communities.

The Connection program had a successful first year hosting six Summer field days, two educational workshops and multiple social networking opportunities for North Iowa local food businesses. In 2019, we look to continue that success with continued programing, and we’d like YOU to be a part of it!


Join us for our NI Local Food Connection Get Together on Weds. Feb 13th at 5:30pm at Fat Hill Brewing in Mason City to network and discuss future programing. Also, you can stay connected to the conversation between meetings by joining our NI Local Food Connection group on Facebook.

Support in 2019 for the NI Local Food Connection program comes from a partnership with Practical Farmers of Iowa’s USDA Beginning Farmer Rancher Development Grant.

 

Communities: Farm to School

We are proud to be partnering with West Fork, Hampton-Dumont, CAL, and Mason City Community School Districts on a USDA Farm to School Planning Grant. We have dug into conversations around local food procurement in the cafeterias through Iowa Local Food Day and taste tests, as well as explored farm to school curriculum in the classroom, including school gardens, greenhouses, farmer visits and more.

For local procurement, we celebrated an impressive first Iowa Local Food Day on October 11th with participation all districts involved in our planning grant! Clear Lake Community School District’s Clear Creek Elementary students enjoyed some delicata squash from Reiff’s Farmstand in Charles City and apples from Jeff Short at DMC, Inc. in Garner; Hampton-Dumont High School served local acorn squash from One Step at a Time Gardens and burger from Purple Ribbon Beef (Special thanks to the ProStart culinary students for their work in prepping the squash!); Mason City Community School District served local tomatoes and cucumbers sourced through North Iowa Fresh on their salad bar at John Adams Middle School and Mason City High School; and finally, not as a part of our grant, but Osage Community School served local onions and potatoes from Kittleson Bros/ Steve’s Sweet Corn and Produce. If you like what you see, let your schools know that using local in the cafeteria matters!

We have also been busy doing local food taste tests in cafeterias, as we explore what products work for sourcing from local producer throughout the school year. We tasted local apples from Apples on the Avenue with students at Mason City’s Lincoln Intermediate, as well as West Fork’s Elementary High School (special thanks to Farmer Darin for joining us!). Next on the horizon is taste testing local yogurt from Country View Dairy at Hampton-Dumont’s South Side Elementary, but all this snow keeps moving the date!

Finally, the Education team met to discuss what is currently being done in the various districts, including ISU Extension’s Pick a Better Snack, Farm Bureau’s Ag in the Classroom, FFA instruction at the high school level, school garden programing, and more. Next on the agenda will be to plan some farmer classroom visits in the Spring, and Professional Development sessions around Farm to School programing from the Iowa Ag Literacy Foundation. We are excited to see how that conversation develops the districts learn from one another and support each other in building their Farm to School Action Plans!

Note: ISU Extension – Franklin County is looking to hire a paid AmeriCorps member position that is slated to partner with the schools to build relationships and support the development of programing that utilizes school gardens and greenhouses. Please contact Michelle Sackville, Director of ISU Extension – Franklin County, at sackvill@iastate.edu with interest.

If you’d like to get involved in either of the Farm to School planning teams, reach out to Katelyn Nicholson at Cerro Gordo County Public Health (knicholson@cghealth.com) or Marie (marie@healthyharvestni.com).

 

Regional Partnerships: The NI Food Coalition

In 2019, the NI Local Food Coalition is embracing a shared goal of ‘increasing youth and family awareness of and access to local, healthy food.’ Join us for our Winter Quarterly meeting on Tuesday, February 12th at 2:30pm at the Landfill of North Iowa, for an exciting update and conversation about North Iowa Local Food developments as well as potential programing around food waste at local schools, with special guest Chelsea Krist from Local Foods – ISU Extension and Outreach. This is also a great opportunity to get engaged with one of our project teams, including: Community Gardens, Farm to School, Farmers Market, Food Hub, and Food Waste.

 

Producer Profile Highlight

During these intense Winter months, many often wonder how to incorporate North Iowan products into their diets. We are extremely fortunate to have a thriving population of livestock-based products, including meat, eggs, and dairy, within a 100-mile radius. Today we’d like to highlight one farm that offers a unique product and has built quite the following at local farmers’ markets and through on-farm sales: duck eggs. Wings and Things in Meservey sells their pasture-raised duck eggs, and in 2019 will offer pasture-raised chickens, ducks, and turkeys. Owners Matt and Brittany Koehler have been extremely involved in our NI Local Food Connection program, and we are proud to have them in the North Iowa business community. Learn more about their farm…

 

 

Become a Member of Healthy Harvest of North Iowa

Like what you see here? Consider becoming a member of Healthy Harvest of North Iowa to ensure our work to connect and education in support of the local food system continues! Memberships start at just $50 a year, and come with some benefits and ways to stay connected to the action. Click here to learn more….