minnesota

John Miller got the call at 12:45 a.m. on Sept. 7, 2007.

Freeborn Lumber Company – the business John’s grandfather bought in 1946 and John purchased from his father in 1986 – was burning to the ground.  Less than 30 minutes later, the nearly 100-year-old building was destroyed. Lightning struck a phone line next to a gas line and that was it. Firefighters arrived less than five minutes after getting called, but there was nothing they could do.

Dr. Steven Mulder can’t enter Harmony River Living Center in rural Minnesota without smiling.

The CEO and president of Hutchinson Area Health Care wore an especially large smile during a dedication ceremony for the new senior living facility in late February. “When we broke ground, we imagined what could be,” Mulder said. “We didn’t imagine this.”

On a farm in small-town Pierz, Minnesota, Tom and Jenni Smude are breaking new ground in the cooking oil business. Tom and Jenni started Smude’s Natural Sunflower Oil in February of 2010 and have enjoyed the ride ever since. What began as an idea to grow a drought-tolerant crop transformed into a rural small-business success story with the potential to become something even bigger.

If you’re looking to shatter any preconceived notions you might have about rural Minnesota, take a trip to Elgin and spend some time with Dr. Julee Kingsley and Dr. Colleen Urbain.

Pat Longmire has owned a grocery store in Spring Grove, Minn., for 22 years. He knows customers want fresh produce, quality meats and weekly deals that save a buck here and there.

But he wasn’t sure how customers would react after he put glass doors on the coolers in the store. Longmire didn’t have to worry for long, however. “The response was overwhelmingly positive,” he said.

While most people associate farmers markets with fresh fruits and vegetables, farmers and ranchers actually bring a much more diverse range of products to the table every week. This year’s portfolio of grant recipients under the Farmers Market Promotion Program, administered by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), reflected that diversity in its range of projects. Among the grant recipients are several enterprises in the Midwest that overcome barriers for small livestock producers to get their healthy meat options into local markets.

Some of USDA’s international employees were in the United States last month, exchanging information with their stateside counterparts and learning firsthand how U.S. agricultural systems and processes work.

When the final wall was raised on Jessi Mattila’s new home, it symbolized another step toward homeownership for the mother of three in Mountain Iron, Minn. It also symbolized the strength of a new partnership between USDA Rural Development and the Habitat for Humanity.

Rural Development is financing Mattila’s home through its direct home loan program and the North St. Louis County Habitat for Humanity is partnering with the Mattila family to provide support through the building process.

At two town hall meetings in Minnesota this week with Food Safety and Inspection Service employees, I had the pleasure of unveiling a new plan for food safety over the next five years. I’m very excited about our new Strategic Plan for FY 2011 through FY 2016, which will serve as the agency’s roadmap to ensuring that food produced under FSIS’ authority is safe for the American public.

This Strategic Plan should allow every single person in FSIS to have a direct line of sight between what they do every day and our objectives, and each of us should see ourselves as accountable to the public for protecting them from foodborne illnesses. We are putting forward detailed strategies and measureable tactics to reduce foodborne illness and chart our progress over the next five years, so this will serve as a foundation document for both the long-range and day-to-day operations of the Agency.

For almost 50 years, ProWorks Inc. has provided valuable day services to Minnesota adults living with disabilities. For the last 30 years, ProWorks has counted the USDA as one of its partners.

ProWorks started as a pilot project in 1962 in the basement of an old school building in West Central Minnesota. About 30 years ago, ProWorks used a USDA Rural Development loan to build its current facility in Litchfield, Minn. ProWorks also has a facility in nearby Dassel.