In this issue:

- Annual Meeting Turns Into Mini Design Charrette

- Collecting Vegetable Seeds for Haitian Farmers

- For 2010 KCCUA Cultivates New Projects And Welcomes New Board

- Field Notes from the Kansas City Community Farm

- Arkansas Farmer Leads the Way to Sustainable No-Till Practices

- Tooling Kansas City Farmers for Business Success

- Manila Farmers Put Idle Urban Land to Productive Use

- Vegetable Specialist and High Tunnel Pioneer Leaves Kansas City

- Calendar of Events

---

Annual Meeting Turns Into Mini Design Charrette

Urban ag supporters from across the metro share ideas & knowledge.

 

By Semie Rogers

 

Fueled by pie and coffee, supporters of urban farming gathered last Saturday to plan neighborhoods across Kansas City full of farms and gardens.  KCCUA’s Annual Farmers' Meeting took place last Saturday at Master’s Community Church in KCK.  The meeting had two sections--developing a vision for urban ag in Kansas City and break-out sessions on vegetable production topics.

 

Katherine Kelly, KCCUA’s executive director, challenged the room to envision the impact urban farming and food production could have on our city over the next five years.  We split into groups, armed with brightly colored markers and big sheets of paper.  The goal: draw our ideas for fresh food everywhere for everyone.

 

Forty-five minutes later, the wall at the front of the room was plastered with drawings.  Carrots grew in lawns.  City blocks had markets, farms, and yards full of gardens.  Farms of all different kinds took shape.  Chickens, even goats, lived in the larger farms, providing protein and fertilizer.  Sustainable schoolyards combined recycling, wind energy, composting and vegetable production.

 

While the ideas for urban growing were varied, wild and verdant, several themes emerged from the conversation: mixed-use neighborhoods, producer equipment co-ops, urban farming as part of a continuum of sustainable practices, and processing of food for storage were at the top of the list.

 

Several groups mentioned the Rosedale neighborhood in Kansas City, KS, as a great project to show how a neighborhood focused on health and local food could thrive.  Rosedale, with a largely Hispanic population of 14,000, has no grocery store.  A Robert Woods Johnson Foundation grant is helping the neighborhood develop gardens, sidewalks, playgrounds and urban farms.  One of the groups visioning with us last Saturday suggested a green corridor on Merriam Lane with trails.  This corridor would lead to what is currently unused commercial space.  They saw unclaimed land used for community gardens, and the commercial space turned into a neighborhood-based food co-op.

 

Growers spoke of sharing major equipment that's beyond the reach of most urban farmers.  They envisioned more shared cold storage for produce, and more certified kitchens where they could expand profits by adding value to their farm products.

 

Most groups also integrated other sustainable practices in their visions, like wind turbines, composting, and rainwater collection.  And there was a sense of urgency behind all this.  The overall mood was: "Let’s grow more, in more places, with more people!  Now!"

 

We all filled out cards addressed to ourselves with one thing we’re going to do to make our urban farm vision happen and one person we’re going to get involved in urban ag.  The cards will be mailed back to us in June as a reminder to follow through on our pledge.  If you weren’t there, you can still join us.   Write down your vision for fresh, local food in Kansas City, and one thing you will do this year to make it happen.  Write down someone you want to recruit for your effort.  Then staple it on the calendar in June (or put it in your Google calendar online).  Let us know what happens!

 

You can reach Semie at semie@kccua.org.

---

Collecting Vegetable Seeds for Haitian Farmers

Urban farmer Lew Edmister wants to do something about food security in Haiti.

 

Dear Growers, Farmers, Gardeners and all others:

I want you to join me in helping Haitian farmers and gardeners get crops in the ground and easing hunger and suffering by donating seeds to them.  I implore you to read through my appeal because it offers you an opportunity to join in and be a part of something very direct, very real and very easy for all of us to do.

 

It's simple, it's SEEDS FOR HAITI!  I want to get food in the form of seeds into the hands of people who are mostly agrarian and know what to do with the seed--they'll grow food for themselves.  Granted, it will take some time but it will happen.

 

I spent a long time sifting through NGOs to find one with a longtime investment in Haiti and at least a passing bit of knowledge about where food comes from: What I found was Hope for Haiti in Naples, Fl.  I told them what I wanted to do and asked if they could be an on-the-ground distributor.  They agreed and we worked out a way to facilitate the project.

 

Haiti has three growing seasons and the next one begins in about seven weeks, so, in my mind, there's no time to delay.  Here's what I, you, we need to do:

Go to your seed boxes and pull out 25 to 30 dollars worth of veggie seeds, pack them up and send them to KCCUA, 4223 Gibbs Rd, KC, KS,  66106 or to me, Lew Edmister, 921B W 17th St, Kansas City, MO, 64108.  Every week I'll repack the seeds in bulk and send them to Hope for Haiti.  They'll take it from there.

 

You can email me or call me at (816) 842-4432.  You can call KCCUA if you need, but you know how busy they are.  This is my project so bother me if you need verification or more information.  Volunteer to help if you can.  Pass the word.  If you know other ag groups or clubs, give them the word.  A thousand people with $25 worth of seed makes a BIG pile of seed - ergo FOOD.

I thank you for your help in advance.  Happy growing.

 

Lew Edmister operates The Herb'n Gardener urban farm in Kansas City, MO.  You can also reach him at herbngardener@kc.rr.com.

---

For 2010 KCCUA Cultivates New Projects And Welcomes New Board

Rapid organizational growth and rising interest in urban ag make life interesting at KCCUA.

 

By Katherine Kelly

 

The first crop we put in for a new growing season is garlic.  We order the seed garlic mid-summer; the heavy, fragrant shipment arrives in October; we break open the bulbs and plant the biggest cloves deep in the cooling fall soil.  And now, as we head into February, the garlic blades are pushing their way through the soil and mulch, green amongst the grays and browns of winter.

 

KCCUA as an organization goes through a similar cycle.  In the fall, as some of our activities come to an end, we start new programs, expand existing ones, and develop plans for the coming growing season.  We’re now heading into the spring, and the new, sturdy shoots of 2010 are pushing their way into the sun.

 

(1) Beans ‘n Greens:  It is hard for many of us to understand why poor people suffer so disproportionally from obesity, diabetes, and diet related diseases.  It is hard for others to understand why farmers don’t just sell their produce at lower prices so more people can afford to eat their good food.  Beans ‘n Greens seeks to address both sides of this question--the one of access and affordability and the one of farmers’ needing to make something like a living income from their farm businesses.  Through a unique partnership between KCCUA, Kansas City health care foundations, university extension services, social service agencies, seven farmers’ markets, the CSA Coalition, the Kansas Rural Center, and an in-development “Veggie Mobile” program, food stamp users will be able to buy fresh produce from local farmers and get a “two-fer” value for their food stamp dollar.  Farmers will be able to afford to supply a new customer base, bringing in a new income stream of federal food stamp funds, matched dollar-for-dollar by local foundations.  A new group of people get to learn how great fresh, locally grown food tastes, and farmers get to feed people who genuinely need their products.  The program is in development, but look for the Beans ‘n Greens logo and benefits to show up at markets and in the community this season.

 

(2) 2009 was a year where urban farmers got to know their Kansas City, MO, city leaders and began to work with them in support of urban food production.  Mayor Mark Funkhauser and Council members Beth Gottstein, John Sharp, Cindy Circo, and Terry Riley all stepped forward to work with us to help the city realize the many health-related, social, and economic benefits of urban agriculture.  In 2010, we’ll be continuing this good work with the city in the area of city codes and zoning and in city-wide food planning.

 

(3) Urban Codes Revisions:  The process of proposing codes revisions to better support urban food production began last fall and will continue into spring.  A strong steering committee that includes city staff Patty Noll, Senior Urban Planner, and Patrick Egberuare and Michael Shumacher of Animal Control is focusing on specific definitions and language, and we anticipate that we’ll be heading out into the community and field-testing the proposals within the next two months.

 

(4) KCMO Food Summit:  What is a food system and why should a city care about it? are the questions we’ll be addressing hand in hand with the Mayor’s office, the city council, and city and neighborhood leadership in 2010.  In late May, the city will host a Food Summit looking at ways that a city can positively impact local food production and access to good food for the benefit of its citizens.

 

There will be much more happening in this coming year--work with individual farmers and farming operations, educational work with communities, growing vegetables, herbs, and a new crop of farm apprentices and volunteers, and all the rest of the wonderful and life-promoting work that farmers are all about and of which KCCUA is privileged to be part.

 

KCCUA Welcomes New Board Members

 

At the end of 2009, many of our founding board members rotated off the board, after five full years of board service.  Ted Carey, Kwang Kim, Sherri Harvel, Bev Pender, and Julie Xiong provided strong leadership and vision when we started KCCUA and helped guide us through the extraordinary growth of the organization.  I wish I had the space here to share with you the special contributions of each of them, but suffice it to say that their unique personalities, experiences, and wisdom shaped and will forever shape KCCUA and the character of urban agriculture in Kansas City.

 

Anticipating the turn-over we began recruiting new board members in the summer, talking to many old and new friends of the organization, and found an abundance of good candidates.  The new board is charged with leading us through the next stage of our development: our operating budget should hit $500,000 in the next year or so, our staff and our range of activities continue to expand, and we are at the earliest of stages of looking at our need for more and improved working and production space.  I’d like to introduce these new board members to you.

 

Jill DeWitt, Missouri Audubon Society, Kansas City, MO, has been a long-time environmental and community activist in Missouri.

Shannon Hoffmann, Green Acres Market, Kansas City, MO brings terrific marketing and organic food industry knowledge to us and to our farmers.

Pov Huns, Huns Garden, Kansas City, KS is a strong and innovative urban farmer we’ve come to know well over the last five years.

Dr. Hasan Naima, Dean of Math & Science and Dean of Technical Education at the Kansas City, KS, Community College offers extraordinary educational leadership as well as degrees in agriculture and agricultural engineering.

Ken Pakula, Leawood, KS, retired from Sprint and a former military officer, is one of KCCUA’s strongest supporters and will be sharing his management skills with us as we grow. 

David Smith, Assistant to the Superintendent for Communications, School District 500, Kansas City, KS is a KCCF CSA member and community leader with a deep knowledge of social and organizational change and learning.

Gwen Wurst, Community Volunteer, Kansas City, MO, brings excellent organizational and non profit experience to KCCUA, as well as a deep commitment to healthy food and communities.

Tina Wurth, Regional Educator, Lincoln University, Kansas City, MO owns her own successful soap business and has a long history of community education and engagement in Kansas City, MO on the topics of gardening, farming and urban development.

 

These new board members will join with our continuing board members in leading us into the next five years of promoting farming, food, entrepreneurship and strong communities through urban agriculture.  We look forward to working with them!

 

Reach Katherine at katherine@kccua.org.

---

 

---

Manila Farmers Put Idle Urban Lands to Productive Use

Kansas City NGO helps small growers earn money from urban agriculture.

 

Kansas City-based Christian Foundation for Children and Aging (CFCA) is an international movement serving people of all faiths living in poverty in 24 developing countries through its Hope for a Family sponsorship program. The organization helps families put food on the table, send their children to school and have a decent place to live, so that together we can end the cycle of poverty. CFCA’s Antipolo project is located on the outskirts of Manila, the Philippines, and serves more than 7,800 children, youth and elderly.

 

By Malou Navio, Antipolo Project Coordinator

 

Many CFCA-sponsored families in urban neighborhoods in Rizal Province , the Philippines , work as urban laborers as well as urban farmers. To the majority of them, working as a laborer is the main livelihood and farming is for food augmentation. For others, farming is the primary source of income and they look for a labor job after harvest to earn extra income.

 

In the community of Angono in Rizal Province , CFCA urban farmers have no lands of their own. They are frugal and hardworking. They cultivate and put to productive use public, private and easement lands that are idle or have been abandoned. They grow a variety of vegetables and root crops. They also nurture fruit trees and bananas and raise livestock to increase their income.

 

The CFCA-Antipolo project attempts to serve the needs of the sponsored rural and urban farmers. The project has a program called Likas-kayang Pagkain, or Food Sustainability Project, designed to respond to the needs of farmers. It includes training sessions and capacity building, food-for-work projects and seedling nurseries. It also provides assistance with acquiring tools, equipment, farm-helping animals, as well as leasing or acquiring land. This project promotes organic farming and growing food as a way of life.

 

The indigenous and organic way of farming is still alive in the farmers of Angono. They inherited these practices from relatives, were influenced by elders and have learned them from training sessions and seminars. Also, the farmers have started various farmer organizations that provide members a venue to talk about their welfare and intervene with land issues and concerns. These organizations play an important role in the care of the environment as well.

 

Families whose livelihood is growing Kangkong, or water cabbage, also raise fish in the lake.  Then they use the bones from the harvested fish to make fertilizer.  In this case, only the fathers do this with any older sons.  The mothers are responsible to sell what they harvest.

 

Some families farm as a family unit, the father, mother and their children working together. To connect with each other, the parents of CFCA-sponsored children in Antipolo Project form community groups of about 15 members called Kapitbahayan, comprised of families within the same neighborhood. In the Filipino language of Tagalog, Kapitbahayan is translated as “a connection of neighborhoods” and the groups meet frequently to support and encourage one another. Some Kapitbahayan also assist each other with farming activities.

 

One of the most successful Kapitbahayan in urban farming is the Kapitbahayan #10 (K 10) with the leadership of Jesse, the mother of a sponsored child.  K 10 is made up of 15 families of sponsored children and seniors. All families are members of the Mahabang Parang Crops and Livelihood Farmers Association (MAPACLIFA). The estimated land area that they farm is 15 hectares.  Each family tills an average of one hectare (approx. 2.5 acres). The area is sandwiched between, and includes land belonging to, both a first-class golf course and the world-renowned Angono Petroglyphs.

 

The families’ daily farming begins at 5 a.m. and stops at 10 a.m., then continues from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.  As a group, they help each other in soil preparation. They practice Bayanihan, meaning that those who have finished with their work early help the others who are not yet finished. Also, the early harvest is shared with those who have none yet. Seedlings are shared between group members.

 

The K 10 farmers grow the most delicious sweet potatoes, called "camote," as their major crop. Secondary crops vary and include corn, cassava, taro, yam, gourds, squash, luffa, legumes and ginger as well as other vegetables. There are bananas and fruit trees like papaya, mangoes, avocado and star apples also being nurtured. The land is only irrigated by rains.

 

Crops are planted during the rainy season from mid-May to November. The families keep their crops healthy by using organic fertilizers that they prepare by using animal manure and compost from decayed organic matter from the farm. They also plant legumes after each harvest of sweet potatoes, so they can restore the fertility of the soil. They manage pests by growing insect-repellant plants such as chamomile and oregano. They don’t spray chemicals. They also value beneficial predator insects. The predator insects help drive the pests away. Many farmers and others, including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, support the notion that organic farming fights hunger, tackles climate change and is good for farmers, consumers and the environment.

 

The K 10 farmers generally harvest their crops in the months of January, February, March, July, August, October, November and December. Lean months are April, May and September. During the harvest season, the families take orders from people in the nearby neighborhoods and subdivisions. They harvest the crops only in the quantity needed to consume for the day at home and to be sold, earning about 200 to 300 Filipino pesos, or $4 to $6.50 daily. The farmers establish regular customers called "suki" through growing organic crops known for their freshness and by using socialized selling.

 

As an organization, the K 10 farmers are vigilant and actively non-violent in their struggles, challenges and quests for secure land tenure. If this is not possible where they are, they look for lands that are left unused or abandoned while continuing their appeals for agrarian reform.

 

For more information contact CFCA at (913) 384-6500 or visit www.hopeforafamily.org.

---

Vegetable Specialist and High Tunnel Pioneer Leaves Kansas City

Former K-State Extension Agent reflects on a decade well-spent.
 

By Ted Carey

 

In August 1999, I came to Kansas City to work for K-State Research and Extension.  This was my first time in Kansas and I arrived with some preconceived notions: that Kansas was flat, and that it would be pretty rural.  I was wrong on both counts, at least for the part of Johnson County where I settled (Lenexa).  My job was to serve local and regional vegetable and fruit producers, and there was already a buzz around local food, along with growing concerns about our food system and lifestyle.

 

I came to Kansas City with a strong interest in organic and sustainable production techniques and an awareness that this area had been somewhat neglected by research and extension.  I also came to Kansas City with an interest in urban and peri-urban agriculture, both here and around the world, and its possibilities for improving our quality of life and generating livelihoods.  What I did not have when I arrived in Kansas City, was a clear idea of what the real needs and opportunities were for fruit and vegetable research and extension for our region.

 

One of the first things I did was to go out and visit farmers, stopping by farms and farmers markets to introduce myself and to get an idea of what producers needed.  At one large farmers market I remember one vendor after another telling me that they had grown all their produce themselves but that the other vendors were just peddlers who had bought their vegetables at some wholesale outlet.  I wasn’t sure what the take-home message of that was, but it did seem to indicate something about the need for (and challenges of) more local production, for stricter market management and for more educated customers.

 

One producer I met at that farmers market was Katherine Kelly, then of Full Circle Farm, and now the Director of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture.  She immediately gave me my first assignment:  to help her figure out how to extend the production season for leafy green vegetables into the heat of the summer.  Another contact I made early on was Dan Nagengast, farmer and Director of the Kansas Rural Center, who was quick to provide great lists of needs and opportunities, some of which I wish he had kept to himself, such as, for example, the Variety Trial of Processing Tomatoes (my parents almost died of heat stroke when they joined in the tomato harvest for that project during their August visit). It was the visionary producers and consumers who were pretty much my bosses during my time in Kansas.

 

It has been a wonderful ten years working in and around Kansas and Kansas City.  Interest in local food and food systems has grown and grown, impelled by so many forces, but actual local food and alternative food systems are still so tiny in the big picture of our fast food culture and global food system.  I am grateful and happy to have been able to help lay the foundation for future efforts, by, for example, helping to establish the Growing Growers Training Program which has become a fixture of the local scene (see related story in this issue of  Urban Grown), by researching and promoting high tunnels--such remarkable tools for providing crops with a favorable production environment, by serving on the Board of the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture,  by participating in the establishment of the Kansas City Food Policy Coalition, and by assisting with organizing the Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference held annually in January in St. Joseph, MO (this conference is a must for anyone thinking about growing vegetables for fun and profit).

 

While there will always be challenges--we recognize that in Kansas as you can tell from our state’s motto--I think there’s a lot to feel optimistic about as we move forward with the tasks of transforming our food system to one that provides everyone with food that is safe, healthy, fair, affordable and sustainably produced.  At the plenary session of this year's Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference, we used classroom clickers to do instant polling of the growers present.  Many interesting things came out of this survey, but the answer to one of the last questions was among the most heartening.   Ninety eight percent of those present said that they were optimistic about the future of fresh vegetable, fruit and flower production in our region.  I agree with you.

 

As I'm writing this, I have returned to work as a sweet potato breeder for the International Potato Center, and am on my way to Kumasi, Ghana.  I am visiting my colleague, Maria Andrade in Maputo, Mozambique, learning about the incredible work she and her colleagues have been doing here to develop and disseminate orange fleshed sweet potato varieties to help fight hunger and malnutrition.  I have taken off my purple t-shirt and am wearing an orange one now.  Today torrential rains flooded the city and we couldn’t go to the field to see the research plots.  People here are worried about the changing climate and the devastating effects it may have on the poor and vulnerable, and on all of us.

 

Take care, and take care of Kansas City.  I’ll be sending snippets from Sub-Saharan Africa from time to time.

 

---

Growing Growers Announces 2010 Farm Apprenticeship Program

 

By Laura Christensen

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to grow food and sell it at market?  Thinking about starting your own CSA?  Looking for work experience on a sustainable farm?  Want to learn more about small scale sustainable farming?

 

If so, you may want to consider being a Growing Growers (GG) Apprentice.  GG Apprentices work or volunteer on local organic or sustainable farms, attend monthly workshops and farm tours covering the basics of sustainable market farming, receive books and resources recommended by area growers and receive training from their host farmers.  It’s a great way to gain real-world experience in local food production and learn about the skills and work involved in running a small scale farm.

 

Apprenticeships are available on several Kansas City and Lawrence area farms, including the Kansas City Community Farm.  Both paid and volunteer apprenticeships are available.  The apprenticeship is open to people of all backgrounds and experience levels.  Apprentices must be able to commit to a schedule, be willing and able to work in the field and ready to learn “on the go”.

 

The deadline to apply for the 2010 GG Apprenticeship Program is March 1, 2010, but early application is strongly encouraged.  Tuition for 2010 is $300.00 (scholarships are available).

 

Growing Growers is a joint effort of K-State Research and Extension, the University of Missouri, KCCUA, the Kansas Rural Center and the Kansas City Food Circle.
 
For more information, go to www.growinggrowers.org or contact Laura Christensen, Program Manager, at (816) 805-0362.