Dear farmers and ranchers,
We drive past golden wheat fields in June and hum about America the beautiful and amber waves of grain.
We crank up Kenny Chesney and sing “She Thinks my Tractor’s Sexy,” though most of us wouldn’t have a clue how to turn one on and use whatever implements you pull behind it. And we believe the Ram truck Super Bowl commercial with Paul Harvey’s “On the Eighth Day God Made a Farmer” is still the best commercial, ever.
We love going to farmers markets but understand they aren’t always easy to access because of timing or distance.
However, you can shop online using the Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) digital farmers market for easier access to local food. There are two different digital platforms we use.
I’ve been involved in various efforts to feed hungry people for more than 20 years both here in America and abroad. As you can imagine, I’ve seen it all — from great organizations providing life-saving meals to corrupt governments weaponizing hunger against their own people.
Once, when I returned from the world’s largest refugee camp near the Somalia border, I fell into a state of depression at the enormity of the problem. I couldn’t do enough.
I enjoy a banana each morning with my breakfast. I have no idea where it comes from but can safely bet it, like many calories I consume, has traveled an average of 1,500 miles to reach my plate. That’s the beauty of our international food system — we can enjoy food from all over the world.
The Andover Market of Farms, sponsored and hosted by The Heritage at Andover, was a success for both vendors and consumers.
First-time vendor Anna Tucker of Diamond T Livestock near Gypsum said, “All staff was extremely helpful from sign up to tear down. They answered any and all questions I had as I was a new vendor. We also really appreciated how well the market was advertised, and I’m excited to participate in future events."
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.