MANKATO — Southern Minnesota’s food and agriculture industry representatives gathered this week to build connections and discuss the future of one of the region’s largest economic drivers.
Food and agriculture generated about $4 billion in private industry sales in Blue Earth and Nicollet counties last year, accounting for roughly one-quarter of all regional sales, said Holly Callaghan, economic development specialist for GreenSeam.
Attendees representing area agriculture, education, utilities, economic development, nonprofits and others met Thursday for the Greater Mankato Food and Ag Networking Social. The networking reception followed a day of business retention and expansion visits conducted by GreenSeam and the Regional Economic Development Alliance, commonly known as REDA.
Callaghan said the business retention and expansion visits are intended to strengthen communication between economic development organizations and existing businesses while identifying opportunities for collaboration and support, saying part of the work is to be a point of connection for all parts of the industry.
“This is an opportunity for the faces of the powerhouse, whether they’re from the production sector, or supply chain and distribution, or professional services or education to kind of come together for new conversations, new collisions that can create new growth and new opportunities in the food and ag sector here,” she said.
Jessica Rollins, executive director of Farmamerica in Waseca, said events like the networking social create opportunities for professionals across industries to reconnect and build relationships outside their workplaces.
“With a small staff as a nonprofit, I feel like sometimes I’m just in a little silo bubble,” she said.
Farmamerica works to educate students about the connection between agriculture, natural resources and everyday consumer products through field trips and hands-on activities.
Rollins said more than 1,000 students participated in Farmamerica field trips during the past month. She said many students initially associate products only with retail stores before learning more about how agriculture and natural resources contribute to the production process.
“I wish people understood that everything starts on a farm or as a natural resource. Everything in our lives stems back to those two spaces,” she said.
Operating as a business unit of Greater Mankato Growth, GreenSeam works throughout southern Minnesota to support the food and agriculture sector.
Trudy Wastweet, founder of New Ulm-based consulting firm TruDirection, said she first became involved with GreenSeam events while working for another agriculture nonprofit. She recently launched her consulting business after more than two decades working in nonprofit agricultural management and now focuses on helping organizations with management development, personnel issues and business strategy.
“GreenSeam is the conduit to, if you will, the movers and shakers and the people in the agriculture sector of this region,” she said.
Wastweet said workforce management and employee engagement remain major challenges for many organizations in agriculture and related industries. She also discussed how advances in agricultural technology can sometimes be misunderstood by consumers despite broader public acceptance of technology in everyday life.
Sponsoring the event was Great River Energy. As its manager of economic development services, Tom Lambrecht said the company works with member cooperatives to support business expansion, energy-efficiency projects and community infrastructure development, noting the company recently assisted with financing support for a dairy expansion project in Kandiyohi County that included robotic milking technology and other efficiency improvements.
Chance Briscoe, chief executive officer of BENCO Electric — the other event sponsor — said the cooperative serves about 20,000 electric meters across south-central Minnesota, providing retail electric distribution services to farms, rural homes and businesses throughout the region.
Other upcoming regional events include the South Central Minnesota Workforce Summit June 17 at the Courtyard by Marriott in Mankato and GreenSeam’s Celebration of Ag networking event planned for July 29 at ISG Field.