Solar-Powered Farm Stands Soon Could Be Spotted on Roadsides

Transcript

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HOST: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live. Today in Minnesota…

ANCHOR: …if you live in Mower County, there’s a good chance you're the victim of a data breach. Then, how the sun might be able to help Minnesota farmers sell more at their roadside stands, and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources gains significant ground.

I'm Chantel SinGs.

Mower County, in Southern Minnesota, home to Hormel and Spam, now says the majority of its residents were impacted by a data breach. The county says more than 60 percent of its residents were impacted by the cyber intrusion. Hackers accessed social security numbers, financial account information, fingerprint images, and more. While the incident happened back in June, and the county has been providing updates, officials recently announced they do not have contact information for everyone who was impacted. There's more information about the breach on the Mower County website.

If you've ever driven around Greater Minnesota, you've probably passed a farmstand. They are usually simple structures often on the side of the road. But, as Britt Aamodt tells us, the University of Minnesota is helping farmers upgrade those stands with a little help from the sun.

Britt Aamodt: Could the future of agriculture include solar powered farm stands? That's a question the University of Minnesota is exploring this winter.

Daniel Handeen: To be honest, we're still in the kind of information gathering stage.

Britt Aamodt: Daniel Handeen is a research fellow with the University's Center for Sustainable Building Research. He's part of a team that's surveying farmers to see whether sales from farm stands could increase with the addition of features like coolers, lights, and payment and security systems, all powered by the sun.

Daniel Handeen: Using the benefits of modern technology to make things simpler. We're trying to incorporate kind of smart features, tools like auto payment systems or remote payment systems. We can incorporate things like solar power, so we don't necessarily have to run power out to the farm stand to be able to run things like lights and hopefully coolers. And, yes, then the last part is to be able to incorporate high-efficiency cooling equipment.

Britt Aamodt: Among the many ways farmers sell their products, farm stands have a relatively low barrier to entry. Picture a table heaped with produce at the end of a driveway.

Ryan Pesch: The best farm stand, it's one that's really, really full.

Britt Aamodt: Ryan Pesch has been farming vegetables for 25 years.

Ryan Pesch: If you just had a farm stand, only two tomatoes on there and one potato, you wouldn't come back.

Britt Aamodt: Ryan was a consultant on the farm stand project before retiring earlier this year. Now, he farms full time and runs his grocery store in Pelican Rapids. He says a solar-powered cooler could increase the number of customers.

Ryan Pesch: But if you have a very, very full farm stand, has a lot of abundance, including, you know, a mix of products that are in a cooler—wow! That's going to have sort of a more of a wow factor that people are attracted to, and they're going to come back again and again.

Daniel Handeen: What's different about this particular project is that it is intended to be, well, first and foremost, accessible.

Britt Aamodt: Daniel Handeen, again. He says building plans for the solar-powered farm stand will be freely available to download from the University of Minnesota's website.

Ryan Pesch: You can find plans from the 1930s, 40s and 50s that are really, really fun to check out, that Extension put out back in those days, you know, and it's everything from a farm stand to, you know, a poultry house to a dairy barn to a milking barn, you know, all these different plans were there. So, it really is kind of part of the university system and the land grant university system.

Britt Aamodt: That means farmers will be able to pick and choose which features make the most sense for their business.

Daniel Handeen: You can essentially be able to build the building yourself. So buildable, either by the farmer or operator that's going to be using it for sales, or alternatively, have it simple enough that a kit can be built, and you know, it can be constructed relatively quickly

Britt Aamodt: For North Star Stories, I'm Britt Aamodt.

ANCHOR: You are listening to North Star Stories.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, has permanently protected 16,000 acres of land in Northern Minnesota. It's the agency's largest acquisition in recent history. As a result, the land, which spans ten counties, will remain forested for habitat, hunting, and other outdoor recreational activities. Funds from the Minnesota Clean Water, Land, and Legacy amendment helped to fund the purchase. The newly acquired state public land belongs to all Minnesotans.

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HOST: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers dot org.