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[if you have difficulties reading this
newsletter see our online version at www.kccua.org/urbangrown.htm]
URBAN GROWN
The Newsletter of the Kansas City
Center for Urban Agriculture, August 2007
In this issue:
- Networking with KC's Immigrant Farmers - Urban Farms Tour 2007: Big Turnout for Small Farms
- International Urban Ag Spotlight: Nairobi,
Kenya
- Field Notes from the KC Community Farm
- Incubating Urban Farms in City Park
- Thanks to Our Supporters
- Upcoming Events
Networking with KC's Immigrant Farmers
KCCUA works to share information on growing, marketing with farmers from around the world  That
diversity is an asset and a source of strength is taken for granted
by most organic farmers. We know that our fields are delicate
ecological systems in which the long-term health of our crops depends
on the presence of many other living organisms including beneficial
insects and fungi, earth worms and other soil organisms, pollinators,
spiders and many more. Communities of people are not much different.
Here, too, diversity is an asset, enhancing our understanding of
humankind and enriching the flow of ideas. This is why
KCCUA is so pleased to be working with farmers from many different
backgrounds, nationalities and ethnicities.
More and more of KC's small urban farmers are immigrants
from around the world who bring with them their rich agricultural
traditions and experiences. Upon arrival in the United States, they
often enter other, more lucrative professions but the desire to farm
frequently remains strong and leads them to build small, part-time
farms producing fresh produce and flowers for Kansas Citians (pictured on
left: Si Vang, local flower and vegetable grower from Laos).
Because these farmers tend use simple, yet highly efficient,
space-saving cultivation methods and tools, their farms are particularly
suitable to the urban environment.
Now the Kansas City Center for Urban
Agriculture has begun work on a project to reach out to immigrant farmers
throughout Kansas City and to conduct a one-day workshop on topics ranging
from vegetable production and marketing to business management and
networking. Our goal is to increase farm profitability and to start
the process of cross-cultural information sharing and learning. In
our experience, small farmers tend to be very innovative individuals with
a strong knack for problem solving. But demanding work and
family schedules often mean that farmers work in isolation
and disconnected from the broader community of growers. This situation
is made worse by the cultural and language barriers faced by many
immigrant farmers. This is regrettable especially since we believe
that the knowledge immigrant farmers bring from
their native countries can be valuable to all growers in Kansas City.
As we are developing a new kind of small-scale agriculture on small
plots and under increasingly extreme weather conditions we can all benefit
from the experiences growers have had under different conditions across
the globe.
To foster cross-cultural learning among KC's
urban farmers, KCCUA will spend the next few months reaching out to
immigrant communities to meet new immigrant growers, visit their farms and
invite them to the workshop scheduled for December 1. Following the
workshop--which will feature several presenters from the immigrant
farming communities--we will work with growers to develop specific
strategies to overcome some of the challenges immigrant farmers face and
to implement these strategies over the 2008 growing season.
Funding for this project comes through a grant from the North Central Risk
Management Education Center (http://www.necrme.org).
For more information about this project please
visit our website www.kccua.org
and click on "Cross Cultural Learning". We have posted
outreach flyers in several languages which we encourage anyone
to download and distribute. Translation and interpretation
will be available throughout this project. And of course, if you
know any immigrant or refugee farmers, please refer them to KCCUA.
We'd love to meet them!
To learn more about national trends in
immigrant farming please visit Heifer International's National
Immigrant Farming Initiative
website.
Big Turnout For Small Farms
More than 600 Kansas Citians visit
small growers across the metro during KCCUA's 2nd Biennial Urban
Farms Tour
On a Sunday afternoon on June 24, more than
600 people visited 11 farms in the KC metro area for a lively afternoon of
farmer talks, children's activities, and good music and company. In
Raytown, "Farmer John" led people in groups through his backyard
fields, showing what 20 plus years of farming can produce. And,
across town in Kansas City, KS, Joe Jennings dashed across his hilly rows,
showing off watermelons, greens, and more, telling stories and daring the
younger people (anyone younger than Joe's 70 plus years, that is...) to
keep up with him. At Cross Lines Community Outreach, Carey Sterrett,
the program coordinator for the Ready to Work Market Garden said that
"the people were so nice who visited! We just had a great time
showing off our garden." A steady flow of people kept
Sherri Harvel at her Root Deep Urban Farm busy, and folks marveled at
Lew Edmister's playfully abundant Herb'n Garden just up the street from
the Blue Bird Bistro. All the farmers and the farm visitors reported great
conversations, good learning, and a great afternoon all around.
Most folks managed to visit 3-4 farms, a
hardy handful visited as many as 8 plus in the five hours available!
There were visitors from all over: Lawrence, Topeka, Wichita,
Leavenworth, and just about every municipality in the metro area.
There was a delegation from local Wal-mart stores, interested in the
environmental and health aspects of urban farming; several church groups
put together mini-tours to help them develop their thinking about
church-based market gardens; a group came all the way from Lincoln,
NE, visiting from the Community CROPS organization; there was at least
one group of neighborhood association volunteers interested in how urban
farms could fit into their own communities; Slow Food sent members out
to visit these producers of amazingly good "slow food"; and
there were reporters from local television, radio, the Kansas
City Star, and even a few national magazines!
"What the numbers and varieties of
people tell me is that this interest in local farming is
becoming a movement in Kansas City," says Katherine Kelly,
co-founder of KCCUA, "People are thinking more deeply about
their food and how it shapes their lives. Industrially
produced food has made food more reliably and cheaply available,
but it has also reduced the connection that people have had over
thousands of years between food and farmer, between food and love,
between food and their own health. People coming out to visit
these urban farms says that they want a new connection to food and to
the farmer. They like the ways that urban farms make this
connection more possible and more immediate."
"Growing food in the city is an example
of the kind of integrative urban development we are going to see
more of in the future," adds Daniel Dermitzel, KCCUA's other
co-founder. "People are beginning to realize how the
segmentation of their lives and neighborhoods sometimes results in a
loss of vitality and quality of life. An urban farm invites city folks
to step out of their normal routine, to observe the age-old
activity of tending the soil, to participate as a volunteer picking
beans for an hour or two, or to simply reflect on the natural environment
and the web of life," Dermitzel says.
KCCUA was especially grateful to the
sponsors who stepped forward and generously donated to the Farms Tour,
especially Boulevard Brewery and its founder and president, John
McDonald, who quickly understood the entrepreneurial spirit of these
urban growers and committed his company's marketing director to
help promote the farmers' good work. Slow Food of Kansas
City, Les Dames D'escoffier, Planter's Lawn and Garden Store, Green
Acres, Windswept Worm Farm, Joe Jennings, the KCK Greenmarket and the
29th Street Market all gave generously and helped make the tour a
success for the community and as a fundraiser for KCCUA. And
we also want to thank Janet Moss and Joel Wakham, who used their
terrific organizing and community building skills to help make the farm
tour a success. Their consulting company, BridgeWorks, donated
many, many hours and miles and we're incredibly grateful for your big
hearts and big visions for Kansas City!
We are, of course, already laying plans for
the 2009 farm tour; so send in your thoughts and comments; we'd love to
hear from you. Email us at info@kccua.org.
International Urban Agriculture
Spotlight: Nairobi, Kenya
Urban agriculture is happening all around
the world. For some urban residents, especially in the world's
poorer countries, it is the only available means to generate income and
put food on the table. Following is a short report on urban
agriculture in Nairobi, Kenya, suggesting that urban agriculture is a
significant economic activity for which a comprehensive policy framework
is still lacking. The report was sent to us by two
urban agriculture experts with CGIAR (Consultative Group on International
Agricultural Research www.cgiar.org
) stationed in Nairobi. KCCUA thanks the authors for sharing
their insights with us. We also thank Dr. Ted Carey of Kansas
State Extension for introducing us to his former colleagues in East
Africa. We are excited about building relationships with
professionals and urban farmers around the world and hope to
occasionally share their stories with you.
 By
Nancy Karanja and Mary Njenga
NAIROBI, Kenya. Over the last few
decades, the expansion of urban centers in Kenya has been accompanied
by significant new trends in urban land use. Low-income urban and
peri-urban families who constitute 50 to 60 percent of Nairobi's
population face unemployment, exorbitant food prices and suffer health and
nutrition problems exacerbated by poor infrastructure, especially water
and sanitation facilities. Women and children are particularly
affected by these conditions; they have nowhere to go most of the time and
are forced to live under very deplorable slum conditions.
Because of this, the poor--the majority of whom have migrated form the rural areas in search of a better life in urban areas--have resorted to urban agriculture as a source of their livelihood. The presence of crops growing along the road, private plots and in public land coupled by livestock roaming in towns is a common site in African towns (pictured on left: urban plots next to the Ng'eno Estate, near Nairobi's Kibera slums). For Nairobi, there is a lot of urban agriculture taking place and Ministry of Agriculture data indicates that up to a quarter million of chicken are reared within Nairobi and also about 45,000 goats and sheep; that 50,000 bags of maize and 15,000 bags of beans are being produced annually. The majority of the farmers, 60 to 80 percent of whom are women, concentrate on the cultivation of vegetables like kale (sukumi wiki), spinach and African leafy vegetables (spider plant, amaranthus, black nightshade), because they grow quickly, are in high demand and fetch high prices. These urban farmers also use part of the produce for household consumption. Interestingly, these farmers control over 75 percent of the vegetable value-chain in urban Kenya (the sequence of business activities by which, from the perspective of the end user, value is added to a product or service) which is very high and has to do with the women's traditional responsibility for ensuring that their families have something to eat daily. Apart from the urban farmers, the majority of whom squat on small pieces of land (about 300 to 450 square feet) are the peri-urban farmers. These are traditionally rural farmers whose farming enterprises have been influenced by their closeness to the urban markets. For example, they supply 60 percent of the leafy vegetables, 70 percent of milk and poultry products in Nairobi. These farmers have security of tenure of their pieces of land and they do invest to ensure production of high quality products that meet requirements of the affluent urban society. Marketing of vegetables takes place at the backstreets of Nairobi for most of the urban produce and the city sprouts into a mega green-grocer after sunset when the city law enforcers go home. This is the market organized and dominated by the poor women from the informal settlements of Nairobi. As for the peri-urban farmers, the marketing system is a bit more complex because it involves several segments of the value-chain but most of the produce gets to formal, informal and supermarkets. Mary, a farmer in Nairobi's Kibera slums, the largest in Africa, is luckier than the others as she is able to sell all her produce at the farm gate to some of the 750,000 slum dwellers living around her. Through that she has been able to contribute to the livelihoods of 11 people who work on her farm. She has also been able to feed, clothe and educate her family of seven in addition to buying a piece of land in her rural home in western Kenya. Growing crops and keeping livestock in urban centres in Kenya would be a major source of livelihood for many, however this hasn't been realized due to the lack of a favourable legal and institutional framework. It's therefore a common practice to find roaming animals confiscated and street fights between street vegetable hawkers and city authorities. There is, however, something for farmers to hope for as the policy makers have become tolerant to the informal livelihood activities such as farming and markets as a way of achieving the millennium development goals. For instance the Ministry of Agriculture and the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute among other stakeholders have set the ball rolling by starting an initiative to develop an urban agriculture policy in Kenya.
Nancy Karanja and Mary Njenga work in
Nairobi for Urban Harvest, a global initiative on urban and peri-urban
agriculture convened by the International Potato Centre www.cipotato.org/urbanharvest; they
can be reached by email at nancy.karanja@cgiar.org and
m.njenga@cgiar.org.
Field Notes from the Kansas City
Community Farm
We are now entering the hottest part of the
growing season and this time of year dry conditions tend to combine with
increased weed, pest and disease pressures to reduce plant growth and
crop yields. Still we are pulling enormous amounts of food out of
the field each week and productivity has remained high. We have
new plantings of beans, cucumbers, zucchini, and even baby salad greens
coming along. This year for the first time we are also trying to
raise a fall crop of fava beans. A cool season crop, favas do
best in the spring but if we got our timing right and the weather
cooperates, we may have another round of this delicious legume before the
season ends. And while we are not able to harvest any salable
bunching greens (kale, collards and Swiss chard) at the moment, we did put
a fall planting of these crops in the ground just last week.
Cross your fingers there'll actually be a fall-like temperatures prior
to our farmers' market ending in mid-October.
 As
we look into the future we hope to see more high tunnels on the farm
(pictured on left is one of our tunnels planted with early tomatoes).
They have been a tremendous asset for us, especially by protecting
our early crops from the extreme weather this spring. We're
presently researching different high tunnel designs including a very
popular multi-bay design from England. So far, few growers in
our region have invested in high tunnel technology on a large scale but
the interest in these structures is definitely growing. Crops
do generally much better inside high tunnels, even during the summer
months when the structures can be quite warm. The tunnels provide
some protection from frost and other extreme weather as well as from disease
organisms and even pests. Rarely have we come across a farming
technology that has been so universally praised by anyone who's tried it.
Urban farmers, community gardens, school gardens and anyone with
limited growing space will likely find high tunnels to be one of
the easiest ways to increase yield per square foot and farm
profitability. Anyone with questions about choosing or building
a tunnel is welcome to contact KCCUA for more information. We
already operate six high tunnels at the KC Community Farm and are familiar
with many different designs and suppliers. More information is also
available at www.hightunnels.org.
Finally, on August 4th it's good-bye to our
employee and friend Dan Heryer. He is departing from Kansas City for
graduate studies at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
Dan has worked for the KC Community Farm as a volunteer in 2006 and
as a paid field worker in 2007. He has been a huge asset
around here and will be greatly missed. His commitment to
small-scale agriculture is inspiring and we look forward to welcoming him
back to Kansas City in two short years, at which time he plans
to start his own agricultural business. Thanks for all your help,
Mister Dan! Enjoy grad school!
Incubating Urban Farms in City Park
KCCUA, UG Parks & Rec discuss
new model for productive urban green space and farmer training
KCCUA is in the process of developing a partnership with the
Department of Parks and Recreation of the Unified Government of
Wyandotte County/KCK to turn portions of Coronado Park in Kansas City,
KS, into an incubator farm and community garden. The park has
been closed to the public for several years but this developing
partnership may help bring it into use once again.
An incubator farm, like other business incubators, supports
farming entrepreneurs during the start-up phase of their businesses by
offering them a variety of support
services and resources. These would include access to
quarter-acre growing plots under non-traditional lease arrangements,
shared farm equipment, cold storage, greenhouse space and other
infrastructure needed to run a small farm business. But not only
future farmers (and eaters) would benefit! Space would
be made available for community gardeners and all members of the
community would be welcome to tour the incubator farm, volunteer and
learn about food production. Longer-term ideas for the site
include an educational center with workshop and
meeting space for classes in gardening, food and nutrition, small
business development, green design and related
topics. Eventually,
Coronado Park would once again become a tremendous asset to the
greater Kansas City community as well as being an innovative example
of productive urban green space development through
public-private partnership. Look for more on this exciting
project in the near future!
Thanks to Our Supporters!
The Biennial Urban Farm Tour held Sunday June
24, 2007 was a big success. We want to thank all the individuals
and businesses for supporting our efforts; with them we are able to
continue our work of promoting community-based, small-scale,
entrepreneurial faming in urban Kansas City.
Raffle Sponsors
Eden
Alley, Ajay Sood, Succotash, Blue Bird Bistro, ParExsalonce Day Spa, Whole
Foods, Tina Hoover, Roasterie, Local Burger
Urban Farm Tour Sponsors
39th Street Community Market - Jessica
Ratcliff, Boulevard Brewery - John McDonald, Green Acres of Northland -
Urban Farm Tour Volunteers
Kim & Don Barron, Joan Benjamin, Laura
Christensen, Julie Coon, Nancy Gordon, Randy Gregg, Jessica Farmer,
Terri Nemer, Becki Weber, Steve Shmigelsky, Elizabeth Salazar, Tina
Hoover, Cheryl & Don Landes, Carol Hart, Dan Heryer, Lala Kumar,
Sonya Baughman, Phil Pisciotta, Jenn Basuel, Jerry Jost, Peggy Lowry,
Cheryl & Don Landes, Howard Lotven, Lisa Markley, PJ Quells &
Larry Davis, Jessica & Ernest Ratcliff, Chris & Rhianna Thomas,
Sarah Shmigelsky, Kelly Harris Zehr, Jenna Wilkins, Roland Aufschnaiter,
Jane Gotsch, Karin McAdams, Laura O’Brien, Dan Heryer, Nancy Gordon,
Linda Smith, Kelly Harris-Zehr, Chris & Rhianna Thomas, Warren
Kittler, Linda Smith
Urban Farm Tour Coordinators
Janet Moss - BridgeWorks, Joel Wakham -
BridgeWorks
Urban Farm Tour Hosts
Pov Huns (Huns'
Cultivators’ Circle Update
The Cultivators’ Circle is a group
of community members who are dedicated to the long-term goals of KCCUA
and the future of urban agriculture in the KC Metro area. Circle members
make a 3-year annual pledge to KCCUA. If you would like to become
a Cultivators’ Circle member, please contact Toni Gates-Grantham at
913.831.2444 or email her at toni@kccua.org.
Special thanks to the following
Cultivators’ Circle members:
Judy Ancel, Cathy Anderson, Anonymous,
Theresa & Alan Bavley, Lee Bowers, Phoebe Bunting, Judith Christy,
Robert Cunningham, Pam Davidson, Heidi Dulay, Bethany & David Klug,
Fay Laughridge, Jerry & Rory Magliano, Robin & John Maiale, Greg
& Beth Patterson, Larry & PJ, Derek Porter Studio, House of
Rocks, Sharon Scrogham, Sarah Shmigelsky, Skolnick Family, Sarah Hoffman
& John Spertus, Sarah & William Stapp, Jay & Andrea
Zwibelman
Calendar of Events
Film Screening: Crude Impact,
Thursday, August 16, 6:30 p.m. Please join ReEnergizeKC, the Thomas Hart
Benton Group of the Sierra Club, the Greens of KC, the Community of
Reason, and the Kansas City Food Circle for a free screening of Crude
Impact (www.CrudeImpact.com).
The film will be shown at the Missouri Department of Conservation's
Discovery Center, 4750 Troost in Kansas City, Missouri. Following
the screening will be a panel discussion and Q&A with representatives
from the co-sponsoring organizations. KCCUA's Katherine Kelly will
join the panel as well.
Back to School Festival, Brookside Farmers
Community Market, Saturday, August 18, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., 63rd Street
and Wornall, Kansas City, Missouri. Come for some of the freshest
organic produce around and stay for fun activities including a cooking
demo by the Executive Chef from Lidia's Italian Restaurant,
Strolling Strings from Shawnee Mission North High School and
coloring books & crayons, sidewalk chalk and hoola hoops for kids.
To subscribe or unsubscribe please send an
email to info@kccua.org
For editorial comments please contact Urban
Grown editor Daniel Dermitzel at daniel@kccua.org
The Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture
is a 501c3 not-for-profit organization.
(c) KCCUA 2007
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