Route 1 helps farmers of color put down roots

NINA MOINI: Temperatures across the state we know have been downright frigid all week. The gardeners, who take advantage of Minnesota's hardy soil, are nowhere near planting their crops for the summer. But the farmers at Route 1 Farms are already deep into harvesting their lettuce and herbs for the winter. They're growing food through a new project of theirs that includes a creative way of indoor farming. The organization specifically focuses on supporting emerging farmers of color in the state. And Route 1 Farm's executive director, Marcus Carpenter, joins us now on the line to tell us all about it. Marcus, thank you so much for coming on today.

MARCUS CARPENTER: Hi, Nina. Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having me.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. I was poking around your website earlier, and Route 1, I'm really struck by-- it's many things, right? It's not just farming. It's economics. It's hunger. It's health and culture. Can you tell us a little bit about how something like farming and teaching others to farm can really be transformational for people in so many ways?

MARCUS CARPENTER: Yeah, Nina, I think, with farming and the ability to be able to make it sustainable is one of the most important ways that we can really do all of those things that you mentioned, right? And so at Route 1, what we try to do is we really focus on increasing food access. But the way that we do that is by supporting farmers and helping them grow their business. So it's really a way that we can increase economic development. We can increase health equity. And then we can also decrease things like high blood pressure, sugar diabetes, chronic liver disease, and all those things, those food-related ailments that we have. So it really is an integrated system.

NINA MOINI: And can you tell us a little bit about how you first came to start Route 1 farms?

MARCUS CARPENTER: Yeah, so back during 2020, I spent the previous 20 years of my career working in large corporations. And when the world stopped, at that time, we really had an opportunity to look at what were some of the challenges facing our community and facing the state of Minnesota? And one of the things that we found was that there just weren't enough Black, Brown, and Indigenous producers growing culturally relevant food that would be going into those communities.

And so that's where we started, Nina. We dug into that challenge, and we said, hey, we need to figure out how do we, not only grow more good food, but grow good farmers? And the way that we do that is through really three significant programs. We have our Emerging Farmers Institute, which is how do we teach these farmers how to grow their business, right? Most of them know how to grow a great tomato and a great head of lettuce. But really, we focus on marketing plans and crop planning and things like weed control and pest control and those types of things.

And then we also have our Seeds to Success Youth Academy, which allows our young people to come out and get their hands in the dirt, right? And so we really help them illuminate their future that way. And then, last but not least, we focus on the market development. And that's the part that we really try to emphasize, Nina, is the fact that we have a ton of people that are growing good food. In fact, as a global society, we grow over three times the amount of food that we need. But it's how do we get it into the marketplace? What are those market development opportunities? And what are the challenges affecting the food system? And that's really where the crux of the issue lies.

NINA MOINI: Right, so it's just providing support that goes beyond-- you mentioned when you have your hands in the dirt. When you are talking to people about this, are they people who have had interest in farming before? Or are you ever introducing people to the idea of farming? And how are they reacting when they are getting their hands dirty and just being with nature that way and being with the soil?

MARCUS CARPENTER: Sure. Yeah, it's all of the above. I was fortunate enough to have a background of my family being farmers. It goes back four generations. But it's really being able to introduce that next generation to farming. And that's how we keep that legacy going.

So most of the time, when gardeners or folks who haven't been involved in farming get just a taste of it, they really find out that it's a really cool thing. And for us, we oftentimes introduce farming techniques, farm culture, farm history through our indoor freight farm that you mentioned.

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

MARCUS CARPENTER: And so-- so yeah, so once we--

NINA MOINI: Tell me about that.

MARCUS CARPENTER: Sure. Well, our freight farm, it's an 8 by 40 foot indoor hydroponic space where we're able to grow over 200 pounds of fresh produce per week. And so it actually equates to about 2 and 1/2 acres of farmland.

NINA MOINI: Wow.

MARCUS CARPENTER: And it has over 100 different sensors. It has all this different technological equipment in it. And, like I said, it really gives an opportunity for folks to see farming at a different angle. And oftentimes, that's where we see those light bulbs go off to say, hey, this freight farm, all we need is electricity and water, and we can really put these things anywhere we want. We can put them in food deserts. We can put them around the country in places that need food. And we can create a hyper local campus within our communities that allows people to have access to that food year round.

NINA MOINI: That's so cool, and I'm just learning about this. And I'm curious if this idea of indoor farming and what you're talking about, being able to plop something down where it's needed, have people been doing a lot of that? Or is that more the future? Or what got you interested in that?

MARCUS CARPENTER: Yeah, we truly believe it's the future because, as we were discussing earlier, Nina, with farming, there's several different parts of farming. There's the production aspect, there's transportation, there's warehousing, there's retailing, there's education. And what we're trying to do at Route 1 is really do that all underneath one umbrella. And so far we've had some success. And so, with this whole idea of indoor hydroponic farming, we see it as the future in the sense of there's only so much farmland available.

And the challenges-- we could do a whole show on the challenges that exist in being able to give folks access to land. But instead of having our populations that are in most need come out to the farm to learn about farming, to learn about growing food, our concept is let's take all of these farming concepts. And let's take it to the people, right? Let's take it right down in the middle of our urban centers.

And so, in 2025, we'll be launching what we call our Urban Agriculture and Conservation Campus. And it's this model that if we take a city block, or even less than a city block, we're able to do all of those things. We are able to do the education. We're able to do the commerce, the indoor growing and the outdoor growing all on one plot of land. And the benefit of that is we're able to bring communities together. We're able to farm together, speak together. And we'll be bringing the soil back to life in some communities where it's really, really needed.

NINA MOINI: That sounds wonderful. Congratulations on all of that. Some of the people-- so you're bringing the services to people, and then you're helping people to become farmers themselves. Some of the people who've come through the Route 1 Farm program, where are they now? And what's it like to see them continue on and really become settled into that role?

MARCUS CARPENTER: Yeah, well, they're actually still farming. Their farms have grown. We have two farm properties on the Western side of Minnesota. But our entire platform allows for farmers to join us from all across the state of Minnesota and across the country. But what we're really looking to do, Nina, is we're looking to help these people who love to farm. We're really trying to encourage them and give them the opportunity to do that 365 days of the year.

And so, through this concept of the freight farm and of this approach towards indoor farming, we're able to do that. And I would say where the rubber really meets the road, Nina, and what we're trying to accomplish is this is really an economic development challenge, right? So when you look at agriculture in Minnesota, it's $106 billion industry. Although, it's less than 1% are people of color.

So when you talk about, hey, how do we build communities? How do we increase economic development? How do we put more dollars in the pockets of small business owners? Agriculture provides that opportunity for communities across the state. And so that's what we're focusing on.

NINA MOINI: Amazing. Marcus, thank you. I hope you'll come back and share with us how things are going later this year. Really appreciate your time.

MARCUS CARPENTER: Thank you so much, Nina.

NINA MOINI: That was Marcus carpenter, the executive director of the organization Route 1 Farm based in Hamel, Minnesota.