Rushford, Minn. — Farmers in southeastern Minnesota hope to capitalize on a growing interest in local foods, and have launched a trucking business to haul their produce direct to office buildings in the Twin Cities.

Jack Hedin owns Featherstone Farm, an organic farm in Rushford. In the cold sorting room, workers sort potatoes, leeks and other produce in boxes and weigh them.

Hedin said they have produce from Rock Spring Farm and more on the way from other farms, as well as several pallets of his own produce.

Hedin started the trucking business to solve a problem. He had a lot of people asking for his produce, but they wanted CSA boxes, which stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

In CSA, customers commit to buy a farm’s produce for the season. Every week they get a box of produce directly from the farm. The problem is how to get all that food to all of those customers.

"By their very nature, CSA members are scattered all over a metropolitan area and they pick up at many small sites," Hedin said. "They don’t want to be backed up at a warehouse somewhere in line with a forklift to get their produce."

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