New leadership and a new vision was on display during the recent North Dakota Farmers’ Market & Growers Association’s local foods conference held in Carrington.
It was the first time in its 21-year history that the conference was held in the fall rather than late winter. Attendance was down because some farmers’ markets were still going on, but it was an attempt to switch things up to see what the result might be and for local producers to use their own food for meals.
A number of things happened during the three-day conference, it had two high-powered keynote speakers, the board of directors was modified and the relationship with the North Dakota Department of Agriculture was solidified.
One of the things that was important was to have a full board of directors and this is only the second year in the past several years that’s happened. North Dakota is split into four quadrants with two directors from each section. There is also one at-large director.
From the northeast it’s Dawn Rognerud from Grand Forks and Janelle Anderson from Rolette. From the northwest, it’s Desiree Carlson from Glenburn and Julia Seiller from Williston. From the southwest it’s Jonathan Moser and Sue Balcom, both from Mandan and from the southeast, it’s Eric Hegg from Fargo and Quinn Renfandt as selected by the membership. Bonnie Munsch of Bismarck was re-elected as the at-large director.
In a later board meeting, Renfandt was selected as the new president, Carlson the vice president and secretary-treasurer Mike Pretzer of Taylor will stay on until the end of the year. Keith Knudson of Lake Metigoshe remains executive director.
One of the keynote speakers at this event was Vance Corum, a man who has started 250 farmers markets in California, Oregon and Washington. One of the markets he started in California now has an annual income of nearly $300 million.
Corum’s ideas for North Dakota markets were quite practical, and often times were ideas that none of the membership considered. In addition, Corum focused on the dollars and cents as opposed to the labor of love that most of us have endured.
But through it all, Corum, who was also the keynote speaker in 2006 in Fargo, insisted that if all else fails, customer service is the most important part of any farmers’ market.
The second keynote speaker was Brian Kropszeck, a professor from the University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point.
His message was quite different and one of the first question he asked the attendees was, “what does resiliency have to do with farmers’ markets?”
Because he is a psychology professor, his session was about the mind being stronger than the body and that if you put your mind to it, not only can you become a vendor or create a farmers’ market, but you can be successful by just putting enough thought into it.
Other items of interest included a panel discussion on canning and preserving that was not only well attended, but had by far the most discussion. There was a session on a proposed food hub in Minot that would supply small-town grocery stores. There was a one-hour session on the status of farmers’ markets in North Dakota, a session was held on food safety and lastly, an in-house farmers’ market was held in the Chieftain Hotel in Carrington with the public invited.
The special market had only six vendors, but each walked away calling it a successful day for business.
Moving forward, the board talked about a number of things to not only boost attendance, but to solidify the relationship between the board and local markets across the state.
Among the ideas; hold the conference with grape growers and/or Pride of Dakota, bring in more specialty speakers and demonstrators and interact more with member markets and independent markets.
