Tolkkinen: Surrounded by crops in Minnesota farm country, but with little to eat

MORRIS, MINN. - In Faith Lutheran Church on Monday, volunteers ladled hearty helpings of mashed potatoes and Swedish meatballs onto dinner plates.

A lengthy line of diners waited to eat: retirees, families, women from a group home, students, staff from the University of Minnesota-Morris.

Six times a year, Morris offers a free community meal. It's a way to bring people together for conversation. But increasingly, it tides people over to their next meal.

In a study presented during a food forum on Monday, university researchers found that many Morris residents and their neighbors in a five-county area in west-central Minnesota skimp by on food: They are unable to afford adequate or balanced meals, have skipped or cut meals, not eaten for entire days, and in some cases lost weight because they didn't have food. Still others said they worried about being able to afford enough food in coming months.

Speakers at the forum laid the problem squarely on the doorstep of modern agriculture.

"Our system incentivizes two crops: corn and beans," said Scott DeMuth, regional foods system organizer with the Land Stewardship Project, which helped organize the forum. "You gotta go bigger, or you gotta get out."

In the modern system, farms consolidate, leaving fewer farms, fewer people, and fewer kids in school. Long gone are the days farmers grew for their own communities. Now, most of the bounty of those five agricultural counties is trucked away to become animal feed or ethanol. Tens of thousands of beef cattle, hundreds of thousands of hogs and pigs, the milk from tens of thousands of dairy cows enters massive processing centers designed to serve the needs of millions of people, not thousands. When the food returns in packages of ground beef or cartons of milk, or when it arrives via a shaky global food supply chain, it is increasingly unaffordable.

These five counties — Douglas, Grant, Pope, Stevens and Traverse — encompass 3,135 square miles, about the size of the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. But the region is home to a fraction of the population, only 71,000 people.

Farms were once common here. From 1910 to 1963, the university served as an agriculture school. And maybe the university itself led the move to fewer farms, as farmers learned more efficient ways of raising food, enabling them to become agricultural powerhouses.

Nowadays, most residents drive 40 miles or more to Alexandria to buy groceries from Walmart, which opened in 1991, or Aldi, which opened in 2014. The study found that about half the grocery stores in those five counties have closed since 1990.

Those who try to grow produce for local customers face major headwinds.

Years ago, Ron Roller of rural Otter Tail County sold kale to 30 area restaurants. But a bigger vendor promised those restaurants a discount, and overnight, Roller lost his customers.

"We almost quit," he said.

Even if food is available through local farmers, odds are, those most in need can't afford it. Growing food is expensive, from the price of farmland (more than $15,000 an acre in some parts of Minnesota) to the cost of labor, which is hard to come by.

Local growers trying to feed their communities don't get the federal subsidies offered to corn and soybean growers. Most of them can't or don't want to grow in the quantities of a massive single-product producer like tomato growers in Florida or California. So that means produce at the local farmers market might be more expensive than that sold in the store. (Although it will probably taste better.)

Wes Halbur of Steadfast Farm in Dundee, Minn., said crop insurance is too expensive for his small operation. For about eight years, he and his wife have grown garden produce, popcorn, dried beans and meat for three local farmers markets. Local grocery stores have declined to carry their goods, mostly out of concern about legalities.

"It's usually met with kind of a 'Well, certifications,' this and that, and lack of understanding of what you can sell as a smaller, local producer versus what you can't," he said.

Better access to markets would help his operation, he said. He's been trying to market oats for human consumption, but hasn't gotten any solid leads.

The local foods movement is hopeful about changing the industry. But it's been hopeful for decades. Local growers come and go once they realize how hard the work is and how little money it generates. Honestly, society needs to get serious about how we want our food to be grown. If we want our local food suppliers to succeed, we need to make it happen.

Morris' study recommends ways to help both local growers and those who can't afford enough to eat, such as creating food hubs and local food processors. One recommendation, written in the months before Elon Musk took to the stage with a chainsaw, sounds heart-breakingly poignant.

It is a request for more federal food aid.