The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is teaming up with the United Way of Southwest Michigan, the Benton Harbor Fruit Market, and the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission for a regional listening session on March 16 to talk with local growers about the future of agriculture in the region.
Southwest Michigan Planning Commission Director John Egelhaaf tells us MDARD wants to talk to growers about its Farm to Family grant program, which seeks to help producers grow.
“It’s a pretty broadly structured opportunity for folks in the grower community specifically, but I think larger in the sort of food ecosystem to solve some of the problems that they or challenges that they’re confronted by,” Egelhaaf said. “So that’s the first part of the meeting, for the MDARD piece on the Farm to Family is a lot about explaining the grant opportunity, but also significant portion of listening to the farmers.”
The other part of the meeting will be focused on how a grant obtained by Be Healthy Berrien can be used to improve the Benton Harbor Fruit Market. What would it do?
“Essentially execute a feasibility study for the fruit market to try to understand, given the present characteristics of the food ecosystem in the region, how would the fruit market site be best reimagined to fit together well with a lot of the needs that the food ecosystem sort of calls for at this point.”
Egelhaaf says with that grant in hand, a two-year study period on the market is starting now.
“All of those things are sort of assembling all of that. They’ve got a really top-notch consultant that’s working on this, and then we start opening up what the possibilities are.”
The Benton Harbor Fruit Market is currently a seasonal operation that connects growers and buyers, but Egelhaaf says it’s positioned to become much more.
“It’s really centrally located. It’s very accessible to major transportation hubs, transportation lines. It’s right there by the airport, where there’s possibilities with that. So it goes on and on. It just feels like there’s lots of untapped potential there.”
The March 16 listening session at the Southwest Michigan Planning Commission office is intended mostly for farmers. Anyone interested in attending should contact the MSU Extension office in Benton Harbor.
