Regional Industry & News

NORTHFIELD, Minn. — Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin stood under a tent at Salvatierra Farms on Sept. 17 and thanked the people who helped build the Tree-Range poultry system from nothing, and afterwards, he got honest about how long it has taken.

"Way, way, way too long," Haslett-Marroquin said when asked if growth had been slower than he expected.

The Regenerative Agriculture Alliance hosted a dinner at the Northfield farm for its funders, partners, farmers, customers and staff. Haslett-Marroquin, director of innovation and strategy for the alliance, told the crowd it was a first for the group.

"It's the first time we're actually doing a Thanksgiving sort of dinner, as opposed to a regular business meeting with farmers and funders and other people who come out," he said.

The evening came six years after Agweek first visited Haslett-Marroquin to report on his patented Tree-Range system, which raises chickens under a canopy of perennials such as hazelnuts and elderberries.

Slower than planned

In October 2020, Haslett-Marroquin had six farms using the system and said there would be 10 fully operating farms by the next fall, with another 10 in the pipeline. He projected that once the processing plant in Stacyville, Iowa, was fully deployed, the system would grow to around 1 million chickens across 50 to 75 farms.

Today, 13 farms are producing in the system, Haslett-Marroquin said, with more coming on board. About 70,000 birds went through the Stacyville facility this year, the same as in 2024.

He said the biggest hurdle has been convincing farmers to try something new.

"It's like you tell a corn grower to grow cabbage instead, right? It's like, no, thank you. I know how to do corn," he said. "A lot of people are very scared of changing what they are doing and having to relearn something."

The alliance also made its own errors, he said.

"We made mistakes strategically as to how to reproduce and scale the system, and we learned those lessons," Haslett-Marroquin said. "Now we are ready for a whole new, completely brand new strategy that is based on what we know works."

New targets

The new goal is 250,000 chickens, and Haslett-Marroquin said the alliance should be well along in building the infrastructure by the end of 2027, so it can produce close to that level in 2028. That volume would be the break-even point, he said.

At Salvatierra Farms, two more production units are planned for next year, bringing the farm to five units at a minimum of 4,500 chickens each. Haslett-Marroquin said that would put the farm at a commercial level, and that the alliance will also deploy more farms of that size and recruit farmers interested in smaller operations.

Farms must be within three and a half hours of the Stacyville plant, which puts southern Minnesota, northeast Iowa and parts of Wisconsin in range. Some current farms are in Wisconsin.

The Stacyville plant also does custom processing for around 50 farms outside the Tree-Range system. Haslett-Marroquin said nobody else in the area offers that service, so the plant provides it as a community service.

The for-profit side, Regenerative Food Processing LLC, operates the Tree-Range Farms brand along with processing, marketing and distribution.

The farmer's return

Haslett-Marroquin said for a Tree-Range farmer raising 4,500 chickens a year in a single production unit, in flocks of 1,500, can clear $12,000 to $16,000 a year per unit if they follow the protocols.

"That to me is about as good as it gets in the economy that farmers are struggling with right now," he said.

Built on partners

In his remarks, Haslett-Marroquin traced the operation back to 2018, when he had left another organization and had no money. Mark Muller, who was leaving the McKnight Foundation, got him $100,000.

"We didn't have a penny," Haslett-Marroquin said.

That money has since been leveraged into roughly $30 million worth of property, plant and equipment across the alliance's Midwest network, he said.

He recognized General Mills, which financed a brooder building on the farm, and United Natural Foods Inc., which provided a grant for farmer infrastructure. He also recognized Nick Hernandez, founder of Makoce Agriculture on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the alliance's first regional development partner to replicate the system.

Haslett-Marroquin also remembered Colin Cureton of the Forever Green Initiative, who died earlier this year. A sycamore tree is planted in his memory behind the pond at Salvatierra Farms.

A partnership with the Catholic Church, which Haslett-Marroquin has pursued for several years, is also moving forward. The day before the dinner, the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, who run an 80-acre farm operation, came to Salvatierra Farms for a full day of training.

'It tastes like chicken'

The meal was prepared by chef Beth Dooley, who said she built the menu so the chicken would be the focus.

"I didn't do a whole lot to this chicken. It just tastes good the way it is," Dooley said.

Dooley said birds raised outdoors develop more muscle and flavor than conventional supermarket chicken.

"I like that it tastes like chicken," she said.