Driftless Foods. Using the Region's Rich Resources for "The Art Of he Possible"

Published December, 2009

The "Locavore Movement", the world of growing and eating local food, is an idea whose time has come. The increasing demand for locally grown and locally processed food-stuffs often outstrips the supply, providing a bright spot in a dark 2009 national economy. The plan shuns large-scale "factory farming" in favor of a more sustainable model for smaller-scale agriculture, which utilizes smart business practices designed to produce steady, long-term growth.

The three-phase food initiative would put as much as $25 million into several local food facilities. Current plans call for development of entrepreneurial-style food businesses, which include: an individual quick frozen (IQF) vegetable processing plant; centers to process local poultry, goats and sheep; hydroponic food production; and a regional pet food line.

The business model for this county-wide project is being drawn by Rick Terrien, the director of the Iowa County Area Economic Development Corp., and Mark Olson of Renaissance Farm near Spring Green, who turns the fresh herbs he grows on three acres into seven product lines he markets nationally.

Terrien says a coordinated county-wide food initiative is a better economic development strategy for Wisconsin"s rural counties than "chasing smokestacks" and trying to attract big companies. "We want to turn Iowa County into a 763 square mile (business) incubator," he said.

From a producer's point of view, the concept will allow the grower to take raw agricultural products to a nearby facility and have them processed on a scale that is economical, which allows the producer to compete in a larger market. Terrien suggests that innovative Iowa County agricultural enterprises could serve a population of about 35 million people living within a regional market area.

In recent months, the Driftless Foods advocates have worked to establish an IQF vegetable processing plan in Highland, designed to run at a freezing rate of 2,000 pounds per hour. The output of such a plant would help with a problem: as much as half of the state's harvested produce is wasted because of bruises, early frost and is thus "not perfect". This produce however, can be used in a quick freezing facility, to make salsas and other products. Over a single growing season, some 385 acres would flow through the plant, providing 1.5 million pounds of IQF finished product.

The new IQF facility is essential to developing other parts of the plan.

Seen initially as a three-year; project, the current project plan calls for a total of six centers, all of them stand-alone businesses, but inter-dependent, as an "appropriately scaled, self-sustaining network."

Management of these facilities would be structured as a hybrid blend of non-profit and proft-making entrepreneurial models.

It's a grand idea, still in the "What If?" stage, but the outline offers economic good sense for Iowa County because it builds upon resources the county already possesses. So the "What If?" could well become "Can Do!"