EAST CHAIN — Project 1590, the well-known community organization with a mission to enhance the vitality, livability and health within Martin County, held its second annual “From the Ground Up” event Thursday evening at Hugoson Pork near East Chain.

The farm-to-table event is meant to directly connect farmers and ag businesses with other influential non-ag industries and people within local communities. Heather Hawkins of Project 1590 was available to discuss how the event came to be, and why it is so important to the Martin County community.

“This originated with Project 1590, and essentially the idea evolved from conversations because we believe that agriculture is our economic engine in the community,” she said. “We couldn’t live without our farmers and we’re so appreciative of what they do.

“What’s interesting is that most of us don’t know very much about farming and the technology involved, so while we have some great pork and other items in our homes, we really don’t know how it got there.

“So part of this event is for us to connect with our farmers so that we can learn more about the work that they do and then honor them as we continue to grow our community from the ground up. We thought it was neat that Project 1590 is a grassroots group of people that wanted some new things in our area, and we are also growing things from the ground up.”

Hawkins said the location for the event moves from year to year, as an effort to move people around the county in order for them to see working farm locations. Vendors also were moved to the front and center of the event rather than being spread out as they were in 2016. Those vendors included NuWay Cooperative, Valero, and Martin County Corn and Soybean Growers, along with several others.

The meal was provided by Sons of Butchers Barbecue, a professional competition BBQ team competing out of Marshall. The program also included a live auction for four fruit pies, each containing a key on the bottom. Whoever won the pies earned a chance to unlock a box containing tickets to the Championship Club at Target Field, a dinner at The Butcher and the Boar in downtown Minneapolis, and then a hotel stay.

“It’s just a new flavor,” Hawkins said. “We just have a kind of down-home picnic style that’s a little less formal. The idea of having people sitting together family-style is that there’s going to be this evolving conversation about how ag relates to all of us and what we do.”

Angie Toothaker of Hugoson Pork stated they were happy to be hosting the event.

“I think they just wanted to represent a working family farm,” she said. “So they asked us to host and we were honored to do it. We don’t have pigs on the property any longer, but we do have a working feed mill, and we’re a fifth generation farm going back to 1889.”

Rochelle Krusemark was also out with the Martin County Corn and Soybean Growers promoting high oleic soybeans.

“High oleic soybeans are going to be crushed here in Fairmont and then further processed and sold through CHS here in Martin County,” she said. “Some of the properties of the high oleic oil is that it’s zero trans fat, half the saturated fat of regular commodity soybeans, and so it’s a healthy alternative to regular vegetable oil in the food service industry.”

The idea for “From the Ground Up,” originated with Wanda Patsche, a farmer in Martin County. She is an advocate for education about agriculture and has her own blog dedicated to the subject called Minnesota Farm Living. Patsche was able to share the origins of the event.

“So about a year and a half ago, I was in Hawkins Chevrolet and Steve Hawkins came out to talk to me,” she said. “So I told him about another project that I was working on with an organization called Common Ground. It was the same concept of a banquet out in the field and connecting ag people with non-ag people. So later that afternoon, he gave me a call and said we needed to do that, so that was kind of how it started.”

The event was also created as a fundraiser for Project 1590 and FFA chapters from Martin County West, Truman and Fairmont schools.

At the end of the event, Lynn Becker gave a special announcement.

“The farm where we’re standing is one of more than 150 pig farms in Martin County,” he said. “Martin County farmers sold more than 1.7 million market hogs in 2016, and sales from those pigs were almost $250 million. So we’re really here to celebrate ag production in this county, and we are the largest pork-producing county in the state.”

“So we are proudly presenting Martin County as the Bacon Capital of the USA.”

Becker’s announcement was met with a round of applause, just as the sun began to set over the fields of corn surrounding the farm.