Get all the updates on our Fall/Thanksgiving recipes, Virtual field days, Farm to School programing, Double Up Food Bucks program launch, and more! As always, there are many projects underway all across North Iowa, as Healthy Harvest fulfills its mission to connect and educate in support of the local food system. 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.

Consumers: Cooking Up a Healthier North Iowa

As markets come to a close, we reflect on the 2020 season. Due to the pandemic, we weren’t able to do our usual programming in-person. We did, however, use this time to create a virtual recipe database on the Healthy Harvest website – check out our Fall Recipes. Each recipe is interactive. You can click on the local ingredients and be directed to producers in our region who grow it. We hope this tool will be helpful for consumers, but also producers who are looking to encourage use of certain crops that may be bountiful or under-appreciated! Email Mallory (recipes@healthyharvestni.com) to share your favorite recipes.

Little Locavores Virtual Learning

With kids back in school, our little locavores program has slowed, but not stopped. Each month on our Little Locavores FB group, a new learning packet is made available with ideas to use food and cooking to supplement our children’s education. Here is November’s Little Locavores Thanksgiving Guide.

Be sure to check out our recipe database that feature local products on our website. See a sample below:

Feature Recipe Potatoes O’Brien

A hearty breakfast, lunch or dinner, Potatoes O’Brien is endlessly customizable and delicious. Iowa-grown bacon, potatoes, peppers, onions, and garlic shine bright in this base recipe. Ingredients with an asterisk (*) are available seasonally right here in North Iowa (aka this WHOLE recipe)!

INGREDIENTS

INSTRUCTIONS

Chop the vegetables into 1 inch pieces. Cut bacon into 1/2 inch squares and fry to desired crispiness. Remove bacon from pan, reserving the grease. Add all vegetables and garlic to pan and fry until potatoes are tender, stirring frequently. Add bacon back and stir gently. Best with an over-easy egg on top!

Yield: 4-6 servings

(More can be found in our recipe database). Have recipe you’d like to share? We love to hear what you are doing in your kitchen. Send them along to Mallory at recipes@healtyharvestni.com.

As the regular growing season comes to end, Mallory is looking forward to the “off-season” to focus on planning out programing for 2021, including new cooking classes for kids and adults – so keep an eye out for those!

Producers: NI Local Food Connection Update

Over the past few months, we’ve hosted our Summer Field Day series – but with COVID-19 in our lives, they moved virtual this season! The schedule included:

  • June – Virtual Field Day at Apples on the Avenue – learn about their local U-Pick apple orchard, their production practices and equipment use, and their creative grass management tactics.
  • July – Virtual Field Day at The Thomas Farmstead – learn about their creative and sustainable farming practices, their chicken tractor, the brooding of their chicks, their resident two cows, and their pasture-raised hogs.
  • Early August  – Virtual Field Day at Honey & Ewe – learn about their bee keeping methods, how they raise their sheep and poultry, their high-tunnel gardening, and how sustainability plays a role on their farm.
  • Late August – Virtual Field Day at Steve’s Sweet Corn – learn how they started their business, the equipment and processes they use, their marketing and branding techniques, and their long history of partnership with Kittleson Bros.

We welcome you to watch the recordings on our Facebook page.

Now that the season is wrapping up, we will be shifting gears into offering educational workshops and networking connection opportunities for our local food and farm businesses. For updates on this programing, join the North Iowa Local Food Connection group on Facebook.

As always, we welcome input on what resources are of interest from businesses and consumers alike – so reach out and let us know how we can best help you!

Support in 2020 for the NI Local Food Connection program comes from a partnership with Practical Farmers of Iowa’s USDA Beginning Farmer Rancher Development Grant.

 

Communities: Double Up Food Bucks brings benefits to Iowa families, farmers, and local economies

The North Iowa (Mason City) and Clear Lake Farmers Markets implemented a new program this season. The Double Up Food Bucks program, a healthy food incentive program in support of families living with food insecurity to enhance convenient access to fruits and vegetables.

A program of Iowa Healthiest State Initiative, Double Up Food Bucks matches the value of federal nutrition benefits spent at participating farmers’ markets, helping people bring home more healthy, locally grown fruits and vegetables. The benefits to adding this state program ripple through our community: low-income families eat more healthy food, local farmers gain new customers and make more money, and more food dollars stay in the local economy.

DUFBs helps low-income families stretch their food dollars. And easily access fresh, local produce. The Farmer’s Markets are family-friendly where people connect with the farmers who grow their food, try new foods, set healthy eating habits that will last a lifetime and enjoy affordable, accessible fresh fruits and vegetables.

Here’s how Double Up Food Bucks works: Double Up matches the value of SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) purchases made at participating sites with additional dollars to spend on fresh, locally grown produce. For instance, a family that spends $10 in SNAP benefits at a participating farmers market receives an additional $10 in Double Up Food Bucks to purchase Iowa grown fruits and vegetables.

From July 15th to October 1st this year, we had $2,312 in Double Up Food Bucks redeemed at our two market locations. That’s additional food into the homes of local families and additional income to our local farmers. Win-Win!

Learn more about Double Up Food Bucks at www.iowahealthieststate.com/double-up-food-bucks featuring a complete list of participating markets, an infographic showing how it works, and more.

Regional Partnerships: The NI Food Coalition

Our Fall meeting held October 20th highlighted a conversation on local Farm to School efforts in North Iowa, and provided time for project team updates. We heard from speakers from North Iowa Fresh (our local food hub), CAL Community School District, ISU Extension Offices, and local Nutrition Service Directors who shared about progress on school gardens, local procurement in the cafeterias, and efforts to tie classroom lessons into the garden/greenhouses.

Some highlights included:

  • This Fall alone over $15,000 has been spent by local school districts on local produce, yogurt, other protein products (not including fluid milk), thanks to the support of Iowa Dept. of Agriculture and Land Stewardship (IDALS) who made CARES funding mini-grants available to schools for the purchasing of local foods and equipment to help increase their ability to use these products.
  • CAL Community School District has their new Farm to School Coordinator, Jill Craighton, who is excited to have students back on the School Farm, interacting with their goats, chickens, and hogs. Even just being with the animals or in the gardens allows for increased learning opportunities such as talking about what an herbivore is, how things grow, and other fun facts (like the goats won’t bite you because they don’t have top teeth!).  Jill is working on several long-term plans on how to increase the student’s involvement on the farm, future plant/product sales, and how to further integrate the farm experiences into the classroom.
  • Mason City’s Lincoln Greenhouse and Green Thumb Club hosted Summer Garden Club started in July for 6 weeks, with smaller attendance due to COVID-19, but had a good mix of curriculum including pollinator (had a bee keeper visit) and planting. They recently started the Club back up in the school year on Tues/Thurs afternoons with about 30 students participating.
  • Lessons are learned as students are exposed to new products and varieties – such as colored carrots – and they are encouraged to try new things!

As many of you know, the Coalition is a great way to stay engaged in our local food system, including participating in our five priority project teams: Community Gardens, Farm to School, Farmers Market, Food Waste, and Market Development (formally Food Hub). See brief updates from our other project teams below:

Community Gardens Team – This “team” is still in search of a leader, but until then, we’d like to highlight a local garden doing some great work. The Worth County Fairgrounds’s 4-H Garden expanded their participation this year due to COVID-19 having 12 4-H gardens and 9 Master Gardener gardens. Some of the gardens were opened up to the community for open harvesting, and all of them provide fantastic connection between generations. They are exploring adding another garden location at a local senior living community to expand that experience.

Farm to School Team – (See above highlight on Fall Coalition meeting)

If you’re interested in getting involved in our Farm to School Project Team efforts, contact Michelle Sackville, ISU Extension – Franklin County or Marie Boyd, Healthy Harvest of North Iowa.

Farmers Market Team – Our local markets weathered the initial impacts of COVID-19 with operating full-season markets, but with additional precautions including masks, hand-sanitizer, and extra distance between vendors. The first few weeks witnessed a limit on the type of vendors/no extra activities, but was expanded by early June. New programing in Mason City and Clear Lake are a new ‘Curbside Market‘ online ordering system with curbside pick-up, a new Double-Up Food Bucks pilot, and an adapted PoP Club (Power of Produce) for kids with a grab’n’go pick-up option were all successful. While activities at markets were limited, there’s still lots of great innovation at these markets to keep customers engaged and excited about local offerings!

If you are involved in a market that wants to collaborate with others and/or want to be connected into what’s happening, contact Marie to get involved this with this!

Market Development (Formally Food Hub)  Team – North Iowa Fresh (NIF) is wrapping up their regular season for it’s Bounty Box Program (a weekly fruit/veggie multi-farm CSA with optional add-ons like meat, breads, honey, etc) and shared they have had their best season ever. NIF is excited for the growth, between CSA demand as well as new Farm to School ordering.  They  are planning to continue to grow in 2021.

They successfully added additional drop sites this year in the Sheffield/Hampton, Forest City, and Charles City areas, as well as their existing routes to Mason City, Clear Lake, Garner, Belmond, and Clarion. They also began a new partnership for distribution of fresh veggies to the Hawkeye Harvest Food Bank in Mason City.

Learn more on their website or reach out to Andrea Evelizer, Broker for North Iowa Fresh, LLC. Note: this ‘team’ is looking to expand into more of a general conversation around market development in North Iowa – so if you are interested – shoot us a note to info@healthyharvestni.com.

Food Waste Team  – Reducing food waste is something everyone can do. Healthy Harvest partnered with NetZro to see what YOU do in your kitchen to prevent waste by encouraging folks to use for their leftover peels, cores, rinds, stems, or upcycled ingredients in a recipe or technique in our Whole Harvest Recipe Contest this Summer. Participants were encouraged to enter their recipes for a chance to be featured on our website and win awesome prizes!

Some contest recipes included:

To get involved in Food Waste efforts, reach out to Sue Marshall at NetZro, Mike Yore at Sodexo, or Sarah DeBour at Cerro Gordo Extension.

Next Coalition Meeting

Our ‘Winter’ meeting in December will highlight a conversation on our Local Food Supply Chain in North Iowa, and provide time for project team updates. Our meeting will be held a Zoom Call – open to all who are interested in discussing current happenings for local food in North Iowa! Plus we’d LOVE to hear your local food updates and questions!

Producer Profile Highlight

We recently caught up with Julie and Jeff Tegland from J&J Drydock Shrimp to get some  insight into their operation and what farming means to them, read more about their farm below:

How do you describe your farm? We are a small, family owned business.

When did your farm get started? We set up the “shrimp building” in the summer of 2014 and were ready for our first babies in October 2014.

Why did you start your operation? It sounded interesting and we were excited to offer fresh shrimp in Iowa.

What is your vision for your farm? To continue to provide fresh shrimp locally.

What is the biggest success you have found That we have a market in our area and are so fortunate to have returning customers.

What is the biggest barrier(s) you have encountered? The cost of expansion.

What, if anything, has helped your business attempt to overcome challenges? Being able to network with other shrimp farmers.

How, if at all, has COVID-19 impacted your farm business?  Our ability to get the baby shrimp. We ordered babies in Feb 2020 and could not get them until the end of May.

What advice would you offer anyone looking to get started in local food farming? Reach out to local organizations for assistance such as Healthy Harvest of North IA, IA State Extension Office, and the Coalition to Support Farmers.

Any parting words that you’d like to share with the local food/farm community? Thank you for your business and continued support!  We have been fortunate to have our customers refer us to their friends and family!

 

Reach out to Jeff and Julie Tegland at J&J Drydock Shrimp:

  • Phone: (641) 581 – 5259
  • Email: jnjtglnd@wctatel.net
  • Facebook: @JJShrimp
  • Physical Address: 15487 370th Street, Forest City Iowa 50436

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…. 

 

 

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