Sustainable Ag Conference panel takes aim at America’s food system
The Emporia Gazette
Mark Parker, Special to The Gazette
Thursday, December 1, 2011
When it comes to making the American food system more diversified, sustainable and family farm friendly, “Happy talk doesn’t get it done,” according to Mike Callicrate, an independent cattleman, entrepreneur and political activist who was part of a panel discussion at the Kansas Rural Center’s recent Sustainable Agriculture Conference in Emporia.
“Never before has there been so much money in agriculture — you just don’t get it,” he told a large group of farmers, growers and others gathered for the event sponsored by the Kansas Rural Center.
Citing an industrialized agricultural system that stifles diversity as well as the economic potential of independent producers, Callicrate said there’s no doubt that the system is broken. “Caring about your country and caring about the community you live in — that’s how to fix it,” he asserted.
Although consumer interest in locally produced food is at an all-time high, there is extreme resistance on the part of big agriculture, Callicrate said, adding that huge sums of money are being spent to promote industrial agriculture “with the family farmer’s face on it.”
Much of that money comes from farmer-fed checkoff programs that force farmers to fund their own destruction, Callicrate contended. “The battle,” he added, “is between industrial agriculture and family farm agriculture.”
The nation needs a lot more family farms and a lot more diversification on those farms, said Callicrate, who has been the lead plaintiff in two class action lawsuits against major meat packers. Changing the current system will not be easy, he added. It must begin in local communities and with getting involved in making them better places to live.
Callicrate urged producers to get engaged in changing food and rural policies. “We need to make it easier to do the right thing and harder to do the wrong thing,” he said.
Other members of the panel discussed a wide range of challenges and opportunities facing advocates of a more sustainable food production system.
Eileen Horn, director of the Douglas County Food Policy Council, emphasized that the key to encouraging local, sustainable food production is working with other interested organizations and individuals. “Food is a consensus issue for a lot of groups and people so we can really build alliances,” she observed.
Formed in 2009, the Douglas County Food Policy Council is made up of growers, food retailers and other stakeholders. After assessing the local food system, the Council’s first recommendation was a program adopted by the Douglas County that leases vacant and under-utilized county land to local growers for a dollar per acre. The program especially helps young growers get a start and it has reduced the county’s investment in upkeep of previously unused ground.
“The good news is that these folks are accessible,” Horn said of public officials. She suggesting that people contact their own local officials to let them know that local food systems are important.
Chris Wilson, who serves as deputy secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture, outlined some of the issues facing agriculture in the state. Protecting and extending the utility of the Ogallala Aquifer remains a priority to the Department, she said. Wilson also emphasized the importance of investing in research and technological development to solve the problems of both producers and consumers. Efforts at both the University of Kansas and Kansas State University to develop renewable fuel from biomass are examples of such research, she noted.
Wilson cited several challenges facing the state, including the difficulty of recruiting farm labor and doing a better job of connecting producers and consumers.
David Coltrain, Kansas State University Research and Extension agent in the River Valley Extension District, discussed his experiences in growing and marketing vegetables. Coltrain, who had as much as 60 acres of vegetable crops in southeast Kansas, also talked about a north central Kansas specialty crop project that encourages direct marketing of food crops. He noted that there has been an increase in both locally grown food production and farmer’s markets in the region. Meeting the increasing demand for locally grown food requires skills in both production and marketing, he said, adding that there are opportunities for innovative producers.
Coltrain said that the tools being used to facilitate the connection between local growers and local consumers is effective but should be intensified: “We need to do a lot more of what we’re doing now.”
“The potential to grow is amazing,” he asserted.
State Senator Marci Francisco of Lawrence told the crowd that it is important to recognize the importance of agriculture to Kansas. Citing a focus on increasing the quantitative production of farm commodities, she suggested that it’s time to focus on food production with an eye on limited resources in the future.
Francisco also emphasized that the state needs to encourage farming practices that protect the state’s reservoirs as well as rural development. She said locally grown food production and food processing could be sources of employment in areas where the development of manufacturing is unlikely due to inadequate infrastructure, resources or work force.
Francisco, who is the Ranking Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee, also noted that there are several school lunch programs around the state that are helping connect children with food production.
The panel discussion was led by Lecompton market gardener Paul Johnson who statistically outlined the dramatic trend toward fewer and larger Kansas farms. Despite a landscape of huge farms dominating the state, Johnson noted, only about one-half of Kansas communities have a supermarket.
The Kansas Sustainable Agriculture Conference’s theme this year was “Options, Opportunities and Optimism: Cultivating Our Food and Farm Future. About 120 people attended the event held at Flint Hills Technical College in Emporia. Co-sponsors included the Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops, Kansas SARE, the Kansas Farmers Union, Kansas Wildlife Federation, Kansas Sierra club, and the Community Mercantile. The conference also received partial funding from the USDA Risk Management Agency for its workshops.
— The Kansas Rural Center is a grassroots organization committed to economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially sustainable rural culture. For more information, contact KRC by calling 785-873-3431 or by visiting the Kansas Rural Center web site, www.kansasruralcenter.org.
http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/dec/01/sustainable-ag-conference-panel-takes-aim-americas/
Teen Chef on course for career
The Emporia Gazette
By Bobbi Mlynar - Special to The Gazette
Monday, November 14, 2011
A Flint Hills Technical College student with a passion for cooking has graduated from a nationally known culinary school and is working in the Dallas area.
Aldo Sandoval of Emporia won the 2008 Best Teen Chef Contest in Dallas on April 18, 2008, when he was finishing up Marie Malone’s Culinary Arts class at the tech college. The win brought a $10,000 tuition scholarship to the Art Institutes Culinary Arts School, as well as the right to go to Las Vegas for the national competition, which involved a $50,000 tuition scholarship and being Intern for the Day in the Food Network Kitchens.
Sandoval, the son of Eva and Eduardo Sandoval of Emporia, had raised money to go to Las Vegas by cooking a mountain of individual omelets — each made to buyer preference — at the Tallgrass Cafe at the tech college. The fundraiser helped supplement the money he earned working weekends as a cook at the Golden Corral restaurant.
The prize for his second-place finish in the nationals in Vegas was a full scholarship valued at $40,000 at the International Culinary Schools of The Art Institutes in Dallas. That brought his scholarship total to $50,000.
He began classes in October 2008, and finished in a little over two and a half years, working three part-time jobs, including a year-long stint at a five-star restaurant in a luxury hotel, Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in uptown Dallas.
“I was killing myself,” he said. “... You know there’s a rush every night. You’re working fast, fast, fast, and the plating was beautiful,” he said. “I think that’s my favorite part of it. The art side of cooking. How can you decorate and how can you present that food artistically?
“You eat with your eyes first. You see something beautiful, you say, ‘I want that.’”
The Institute courses set him on the path to create foods that taste as good as they look — and to know what wines to serve with them.
“I had to take a three-month class on wines,” he said. “We had to learn all the wines over the world, liquors and spirits. I was 20 at the time when I took it, so I had to spit it out.
“But occasionally I would take sips and not spit it out,” he added.
Now Sandoval is working full-time as a personal chef assistant for a Southern Methodist University fraternity house and working part-time at the Whole Foods Market, which specializes in all-organic foods. He also gives private cooking lessons for small classes — seven or eight students — at Gourmet Galleries in the Dallas area, and occasionally caters events, like Christmas and private parties in offices and homes.
“I’ve been busy,” Sandoval said during a telephone interview on Saturday. “I just got back from catering. They have an SMU tailgating party thing, so we did barbecue for 400. It was not too bad.”
The fraternity house job gives him an opportunity to go beyond ordinary family-style cooking common in many such houses.
“I cook for rich frat boys who can afford their own personal chef,” Sandoval said. “They have a big, massive house, with a commercial kitchen.”
Breakfast, for example, can range from bacon and eggs and waffles to Eggs Benedict and other special orders.
As he gains experience and a reputation, he plans to continue working his way up to his career goal: either being a personal chef for a family or running his own small bistro-type restaurant, where he can be owner and chef.
In the interim, in addition to his jobs, he and a friend are working on recipes they hope to turn into a small business.
“Me and my friend love doing ice creams and gelatos, and we’re coming up with weird flavors,” Sandoval said. “We created goat cheese and black pepper. We also did mango and chipotle. ...”
People who tried those flavors had expected the worst from the sound of the ingredients.
“And then they try it and they say, ‘Wow! I didn’t think it could be that good,” he said. “It’s really, really good.”
Sandoval plans to sell the product at a farmers market next year.
For now, the former Emporian is staying on the course he plotted years ago, and enjoying almost everything about it.
What is it he doesn’t like?
“The thing I hate about being a chef is that you work a million hours a day,” he said, laughing. “All sorts of prep, all sorts of cooking, and then all sorts of cleaning.”
http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/nov/14/teen-chef-course-career/
Grant to provide funds to FHTC to expand Power Plant Training program
The Emporia Gazette
John Giffin, john@emporiagazette.com
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
In an attempt to match skills with workforce need, Flint Hills Technical College has partnered with six other Kansas colleges to form TRAC-7 and will received a $2,522,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to implement the program.
The Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant awarded Washburn University/Washburn Institute of Technology, FHTC, Cloud Community College, Dodge City Community College, Garden City Community College, Highland Community College and Salina Area Technical College a $20 million grant to establish a partnership to offer programs to train employees skills that will meet the employment needs of local and regional organizations.
“All seven of the institutions have a specialty program, we call them signature programs, that are primarily involved in energy,” said Dr. Dean Hollenbeck, FHTC Chief Executive Officer and President. “Those are the programs that are highlighted in the grant. For us that’s our power plant program.”
FHTC’s portion will be used to upgrade and expand the power plant technology program. With approximately 50 students enrolled in the power plant program currently, FHTC holds a partnership with the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation and Westar Energy as well as area contractors for training and placement of power plant operators. The program expansion was developed by FHTC Director of External Affairs Steve Harmon, Power Plant Technology Instructor Jeff Devilbiss, Adult Education Director Kelsey Ortiz and Ben Coltrane, among others.
“What we know about the power plants and the energy companies is that it’s an aging workforce,” said Hollenbeck. “There’s a real high percentage, I think it’s like 60 percent, in the next five to seven years in these plants all over the United States are going to have turnover from retirement.”
In order to get potential operators trained, FHTC and TRAC-7 is not only adding to their power plant program but making it more convenient to enroll and attend. With the partnership formed by TRAC-7, students can offer power plant program instruction to the sister institutions in Kansas and nationwide. Much of the training will be available on-line but there are hands-on internship components.
“We’ll be able to train, and it doesn’t matter if it’s at another institution in-state or out-of-state, and we’ll still be able to get the credit for it,” said Hollenbeck. “They’ll still be taking classes from Flint Hills Technical College. They’ll also be able to take some of their (general education) and some of the other classes at some of the other institutions.”
He continued, “The core basic for the power plant program will come through Flint Hills Technical College.”
Significant upgrades to interactive and on-line curriculum will be necessary.
“Some of the things this grant requires that we do and there is money from the grant for it, is to make smarter classrooms in a sense where we can capture things on video and distribute that to Cloud County or Dodge City,” said Power Plant Technology Instructor Jeff Devilbiss. “There will need to be some technological improvements to our ability to get that kind of stuff out.”
Also included in the expansion will be the ability to acquire stackable creditials.
“Part of the grant involves some skill set training for the adult learner,” said Devilbiss. “Also for someone who maybe didn’t finish school. Maybe they don’t have a GED or they don’t have a diploma. They can be working towards that and kind of getting some technical skills on the basic level. As their academic growth occurs, They can take this class and that class.”
Not only will the power plant training program fill positions that will be lost to retirement, but could also create jobs.
“Whenever we’ve got programs in place, first thing that business and industry and companies are asking is ‘do you have people that can fill our slot?’” said Hollenbeck. “Then they move into the state.”
With the expansion of the power plant program, FHTC is trying to get ahead of employment trends to be able to provide skill-specific workers to industries looking for employees, something it wants to continue to do.
“In this instance we are trying to get ahead of the curve,” said Hollenbeck. “We’re going to have the employees. We’re hoping that other companies come in. Sunflower is a good example. As they build and everything, we’re going to have the employees ready to hire.”
The Power Plant Technology expansion is slated to be complete by the 2013-14 school year.
http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/oct/12/grant-provide-funds-fhtc-expand-power-plant-traini/
FHTC awarded $2,522,000 Grant
The Emporia Gazette
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Flint Hills Technical College is one of seven consortium partners to be awarded a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support the collaborative efforts of community and technical colleges in Kansas to provide workers with academic and industry-recognized credentials and training to meet the need for a skilled workforce.
Flint Hills Technical College will get $2.52 million.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to bring one of FHTC’s signature programs, power plant technology, to the partnership of the seven institutions,” said Dr. Dean Hollenbeck, president of FHTC. “Our expertise in this area will allow the consortium to provide this training throughout the state and nation. The end result is more jobs and employable students for the industry.
For the project, the power plant technology program at Flint Hills Technical College will utilize the money to expand and train entry-level operators in the field of power plant generation using industry recognized credentials and industry driven competencies. The program will use regional training sites, face-to-face blended learning, modular curriculum, and technology enabled learning to produce stackable credentials.
The grant will also expand and improve the provision of training opportunities to a large geographical pool of eligible applicants. The training programs will be student-, worker- and employer-centered, rather than centered with an institution.
Washburn Institute of Technology will serve as the consortium leader for the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant.
The grant announcement represents an initial round of community college and career training funds, which are being awarded to 32 grantees across the nation. The U.S. Department of Labor is implementing and administering the program in coordination with the U.S. Department of Education.
Workforce development has strong roots in Kansas. The Kansas Board of Regents works closely with the Kansas Department of Commerce through the Regents Kansas Postsecondary Technical Education Authority to ensure the education and training efforts of the state support individuals, businesses and communities in achieving economic prosperity. Such programs underpin the nation’s ability to be competitive in preparing for a global workforce market.
This project represents a significant numbers of partners across the state, but several employer partners have specifically committed to supporting it by providing supplies and materials, internships, field training, hiring opportunities and/or serving as consultants on the program advisory boards: Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Atchison Hospital, Westar Energy Inc, Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, Ventira Bio Science, Sunflower Electrical Power Corporation, City of Arkansas City and Tyson Fresh Meats. Jill Biden; U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis; and Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter announced the grant award through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program.
The grants are part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training initiative, for which the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act included a total of $2 billion over a four-year period. This grant merges the efforts of the U. S. Department of Labor and the U. S. Department of Education toward the common goal of putting Americans to work.
Highlights: Technical Retraining to Achieve Credentials
Overview of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training grant application submitted to the Department of Labor’s
Employment and Training Administration by TRAC-7 consortium members:
• Seven public institutions of higher education in Kansas comprise an innovative consortium to develop new and better methods of providing workers with academic and industry-recognized credentials to meet the need for a skilled workforce.
• Each consortium member offers a signature program that would not otherwise be readily available to students across the state.
• Expands and improves the provision of training opportunities to a large geographical pool of eligible applicants
• Training programs are student-, worker- and employer-centered, rather than centered with the institution.
• Core courses are taken at the home campus of the student, while training-specific programs are delivered through multiple formats, including online, on-site and experiential.
• Offers a range of stackable credentials to meet the needs of new workers and workers needing retraining.
• Creates a state-wide network of learning alternatives that otherwise would not be available to eligible students.
• Works within the current IHE system structure to sustainably expand and improve the ability and capacity to deliver education and career training programs.
• Delivers career training programs that can be completed in two years or less.
• Prepare workers for employment in high-wage, high-skill high-demand occupations.
• Offers courses and programs that are more affordable, more accessible, more consumer oriented to both student and employer and more results-driven.
• Addresses the needs of employers for a skilled workforce.
http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/sep/29/fhtc-awarded-2522000-grant/
FHTC awarded a 2,522,000 Grant
The Emporia Gazette
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Emporia – Flint Hills Technical College is one of seven consortium partners to be awarded a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to support the collaborative efforts of community and technical colleges in Kansas to provide workers with academic and industry-recognized credentials and training to meet the need for a skilled workforce.
The grant will also expand and improve the provision of training opportunities to a large geographical pool of eligible applicants. The training programs will be student-, worker- and employer-centered, rather than centered with an institution.
Washburn Institute of Technology will serve as the consortium leader for the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant.
Other members in the TRAC-7 consortium include Cloud County Community College, Concordia; Dodge City Community College: Flint Hills Technical College, Emporia; Garden City Community College; Highland Community College; and Salina Area Technical College.
“We are very excited about the opportunity to bring one of FHTC’s signature programs, power plant technology, to the partnership of the seven institutions. Our expertise in this area will allow the consortium to provide this training throughout the state and nation.
The end result is more jobs and employable students for the industry,” said Dr. Dean Hollenbeck, president of FHTC.
For the project, the power plant technology program at Flint Hills Technical College will utilize the $2,522,000 to expand and train entry-level operators in the field of power plant generation using industry recognized credentials and industry driven competencies. The program will use regional training sites, face-to-face blended learning, modular curriculum, and technology enabled learning to produce stackable credentials.
The grant announcement represents an initial round of community college and career training funds, which are being awarded to 32 grantees across the nation. The U.S. Department of Labor is implementing and administering the program in coordination with the U.S. Department of Education.
Workforce development has strong roots in Kansas. The Kansas Board of Regents works closely with the Kansas Department of Commerce through the Regents Kansas Postsecondary Technical Education Authority to ensure the education and training efforts of the state support individuals, businesses and communities in achieving economic prosperity. Such programs underpin the nation’s ability to be competitive in preparing for a global workforce market.
This project represents a significant numbers of partners across the state, but several employer partners have specifically committed to supporting it by providing supplies and materials, internships, field training, hiring opportunities and/or serving as consultants on the program advisory boards: Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Atchison Hospital, Westar Energy Inc, Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, Ventira Bio Science, Sunflower Electrical Power Corporation, City of Arkansas City and Tyson Fresh Meats. Jill Biden; U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis; and Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter announced the grant award through the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) program.
The grants are part of the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training initiative, for which the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act included a total of $2 billion over a four-year period. This grant merges the efforts of the U. S. Department of Labor and the U. S. Department of Education toward the common goal of putting Americans to work.
http://www.emporiagazette.com/news/2011/sep/28/fhtc-awarded-2522000-grant/