I’ve exhibited at numerous local, national and international trade shows in my career and learned how to “read a booth” from a national marketing firm in Washington, D.C. They taught me how the human mind innately absorbs visual information in order to understand the message being portrayed.
Did you know the roots of the Shop Kansas Farms concept started more than a decade ago as a hunger-free community proposal for a National Innovation Award from The Alliance to End Hunger and Hunger Free Communities Network?
In my work in the international hunger space over the past two decades, I discovered the important role that supporting smallholder farmers had to do with ending hunger and providing food security. A smallholder farmer is defined as someone farming on five to 10 acres of land, and there are more than 570 million smallholder farmers who provide about one-third of the global food supply.
It was five years ago on April 28 that I launched the Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) Facebook group after my wife told me the meat counter was empty at the grocery store, a result of supply chain interruptions due to COVID-19.
Recent pauses in government grant funding — which helps food banks buy food from local farmers — have left many growers facing tough challenges. Growers had purchased machinery and planted crops in anticipation of a profitable harvest; they had purchased equipment to help them process the crops such as freezers and cool storage; some had taken out loans on buildings and vehicles to distribute their products.
My wife, Christine, and I decided to take our grandchildren to farms in our area in 2017 after reading a report that more than 16 million Americans believed chocolate milk came from brown cows. Although neither one of us grew up on a farm, I worked for farmers and ranchers when I was in high school and her dad, Tom Wallace, managed the Circle E Feedlot.
As I watch farm and ranch groups in Kansas respond with aid to those impacted by hurricanes Helene and Milton, I am reminded that farmers and ranchers have much to teach all of us about the value of community.
When I started writing about farmers and ranchers in 2015, I began to discover their hidden qualities that create value in quiet ways.
It is my opinion, after having traveled the world in providing food aid in disaster relief, that farmers and ranchers understand the purpose and value of creating a community.
I’ve been involved in providing hunger relief for domestic and international crises for more than 20 years, so I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly of disaster relief.
Therefore, I have a few practical tips to give if you want to help the survivors of the hurricanes.
If you are compelled to give financially, here are questions to ask.
The Caldwell Market of Farms will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 26, at the Caldwell Community Center, 119 E. First Ave.
In our ongoing effort to support rural communities, Kansas Farm Bureau (KFB) and Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) sent Kylee Stout, KFB’s business development manager, to the National Rural Grocery Institute Summit in Montgomery, Ala. this summer.
Hosted by the Hunger Solutions Institute out of Auburn and the Rural Grocery Institute out of Kansas State University, the summit brought stakeholders from across the nation to showcase creative efforts to solve the challenge of rural grocery stores.