Photos by Noah Fish Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin had the directors of Frogtown Farm in St. Paul, Minn., at his farm in Northfield, Minn., to teach them about regenerative practices like the ones that HaslettMarroquin has perfected.
REGENERATIVE REVOLUTION Poultry system expands from SE Minnesota
By Noah Fish | Forum News Service
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s a farmer, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin would tell you himself that he produces nothing. Nature does all the work. However what Haslett-Marroquin can be credited for is leading a regional deployment of his patented regenerative poultry system, and managing systems development, infrastructure and farms operating under it. Haslett-Marroquin and the Tree-Range system have turned southeast Minnesota into the epicenter of a budding movement in regenerative agriculture in the Midwest and beyond. The mission of the system is to deploy regenerative poultry at scale in the bordering region southwestern Wisconsin, northeastern Iowa and southeast Minnesota. Haslett-Marroquin said so far what’s been done is the organization of foundational support for the system and its infrastructure. Fundamental to that infrastructure is deployment of poultry processing. Haslett-Marroquin said after a few years of work, the first poultry processing facility in Stacyville, Iowa, was purchased and is now in the Page 14 – November 2020 – West Central Tribune
process of becoming operational, with plans to open for processing next year. “As we open that plant, we are scaling up from a few hundred-thousand chickens at the start to around 1 million chickens when it’s fully deployed,” Haslett-Marroquin said. “That would bring us to about 200 production units, and that means between 50-75 farms.” Six farms using the Tree-Range system are already established in the region. Haslett-Marroquin said that by next fall, there will be 10 fully-operating farms and another 10 in the pipeline. They are seeking more farmers in the region that want to become part of the system. Haslett-Marroquin hopes construction at a future regional industrial park in Albert Lea, Minn., will be underway within the next five years. The city of Albert Lea is already a partner on the project, which he said will process more than just poultry but an aggregate of other sectors in the region by farms practicing regenerative agriculture at a system-level.
