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Published: Friday, October 27, 2000
Minnesota farmers hoping to reap big benefits from trip
Going with Ventura is a boon, they say
JIM RAGSDALE STAFF WRITER
Art Brandli came to Mexico with a little bit of Minnesota and a very big dream.
Brandli is a farmer from Warroad, Minn., board chairman of FarmConnect, a new Minnesota farm cooperative, and one of several dozen private business
people on the Minnesota trade mission to Mexico this week. He pulled out his specimen of Warroad-in-a-baggie during a visit to a Guadalajara egg processing plant on Wednesday when the plant managers said the magic
word.
Canola.
Brandli not only grows the stuff; he brought a sample from the bins back home to show how happy and productive Guadalajara chickens would be
dining on northern Minnesota canola meal. It is Brandli's dream, and FarmConnect's vision, that the new cooperative can become the custom-grower of choice, providing specific crops and livestock for individual
customer's needs -- wherever those customers are.
``The manager said, `Can you get me 2,000 metric tons per month, 12 months out of the year?' '' Brandli recalled. ``I gave him my card.''
Brandli and Brent Sorenson, CEO of the Crookston-based alliance of 650 crop and livestock producers, are giving and getting a lot of business cards
this week. While Gov. Jesse Ventura and his trade and agricultural aides visit with presidents and give speeches at glittering business luncheons,
business people like Brandli are trolling in the governor's wake, making contacts they hope will pay off in years to come.
``The first thing is relationships,'' said Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson, who is leading a group of about 30 food-related business people
on the farm portion of the trade trip. Hugoson said Minnesotans coming to Mexico simply to unload products may be disappointed. But he said ``if you
show up with the idea that there are things that can benefit both sides,'' farmers have a greater opportunity for long-term success.
While farmers like Brandli and Sorenson could have come to Mexico on their own, the visibility of a Ventura trip gets the Minnesotans noticed. ``He opens
the door a little easier than we can open the door,'' Brandli said.
Carl Wittenburg, who represents Northern Pride, a turkey processing cooperative based in Thief River Falls, Minn., said the doors opened by the
trade mission brought him into contact with Mexican companies that may want to do a joint processing venture in Mexico. While Northern Pride already sells dark-meat products in Mexico, Wittenberg said Minnesota's
labor shortage -- and Mexico's low wages -- suggest that a Mexico-based processor would benefit both sides of the border.
``Everything I've done this week was started by them inviting me on this trip,'' Wittenburg said.
On Thursday, the governor's last full day in Mexico, Ventura, his aides and the private business people toured a corn-processing plant, visited a
livestock center and attended a lunch given by officials of the state of Jalisco, where Guadalajara is located. Today, Ventura is scheduled to meet with
Jalisco's governor, do his regular radio program from Mexico, then fly back to Minnesota.
At the livestock center, the governor and first lady Terry Ventura, who raises and trains horses at the family's home in Maple Grove, watched a demonstration of horsemanship by charros, the descendants of Mexico's
traditional cowboys. Terry Ventura put an Aztec horse through its paces in the arena, and the Venturas and the Minnesota group then drank toasts to
their hosts with the product that made the state of Jalisco famous: tequila.
At the visit to the corn processing plant, managers said Minnesota is one of the major producers of the facility's raw material. They said the corn floats
down the Mississippi on barges, is loaded onto ships for the trip to Veracruz on Mexico's eastern coast, and is loaded into rail cars for the trip to
Guadalajara. When plant officials noted that some of the corn is damaged through all the handling, Brandli took that as his cue.
He said he thinks FarmConnect producers could grow to order and ship a product that would be just what the Guadalajara processor need. In the
same way, he said, Minnesota farmers could begin to have a direct connection with their customers, tailoring their production as the client's need changes.
``Where this is heading is extremely thrilling,'' Brandli said.
Jim Ragsdale, who covers state government, can be reached at jragsdale@pioneerpress.com
or (651) 228-5529.
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