Current Endowed Chairs
Noreen Thomas is a long-term organic farmer in Moorhead, MN. Doubting Thomas Farm specializing in farming and marketing niche grains and Indigenous foods for chefs and catering needs. Her time in the Endowed Chair will be working to develop of a hub focused on specialty grains, including buckwheat, millet, sorghum, rye, winter wheat, and red & purple corn. The hub is a group of 10 farmers working together to market grains that will be produced in large enough quantities to sell value-added products such as milling, flaking, and custom mixes of grains. Noreen brings sensory evaluation skills, marketing experience and knowledge of food safety standards. She will get contracts reviewed to ensure all agreements are legal and sound. And communications and website development will help build awareness of their products.
Paul Sobocinski, Julio Tena, and Tom Nuessmeier are working on a project known as The Bottleneck Project. This work focuses on small meat processing resiliency in Minnesota by addressing the vitality of small-town butcher shops for farmers, especially sustainable farmers engaged in direct marketing and the importance of these butcher shops in the fabric of rural communities. A key part of their work will be to engage with the immigrant community to develop training opportunities that can lead to entrepreneurship. In the past, the team has worked together to research “bottleneck” issues in meat processing including lack of experienced workers and the lack of next generation business buyers for existing owners wishing to retire. They have developed a Structured Apprentice program to provide meat processing training, proficiency and business management for candidates that include BIPOC communities. The next phase of their work in the Endowed Chair will be to identify, screen and place candidates with existing businesses with owners looking to retire, and support those who seek to reopen closed businesses, or possibly build one from the ground up.
Scott Peters and Daniel O'Connell were jointly awarded the School of Agriculture Endowed Chair in Agricultural Systems. Scott, who received his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1998, is a professor in the Department of Global Development at Cornell University. Dan, Ph.D. from Cornell University, serves as the Executive Director of the Central Valley Partnership, based in Fresno, California. During their two-year tenure in the Endowed Chair position, they will use participatory action research to illuminate, document, analyze, and publicize core lessons from a 35 year partnership between farmers, community activists, government, and University of Minnesota faculty, staff, administrators, and students. Their work will narrate a history spanning time and geography that begins with Minnesota's farmers and communities pushing to strengthen the university and its public mission of democratic revival and community well being. Scott and Dan will generate a variety of publications that will be intentionally designed as resources for current work on issues of justice, sovereignty, equity, and sustainability in food and farming systems, in and beyond the state of Minnesota. 2022-2026
To reach any of the Chair holders or for more information, please contact the MISA office: misamail@umn.edu, 612-625-8235 or toll free 800-909-MISA (6472).
MISA
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