Rick McNary

I learned a powerful idea about community in an African refugee camp near Somalia. As thousands of refugees streamed into the camp, I was surprised at how quickly they shared whatever food was given them. Our guide summed up their philosophy of a survival-based community with this Swahili phrase translated into English: “Today it’s me; tomorrow it’s you.” 

In other words, if someone had food today, they would share with someone without food knowing that tomorrow, the roles might be reversed. Their ideas of community were based on needing each other to survive.

The best award I’ve ever received was the "Friend of Agriculture" from Kansas Farm Bureau. Being considered a friend from people whom I admire, especially since I'm not a farmer, is something I want to encourage you to do, also. Here are some suggestions:

I began writing for Kansas Living magazine about farmers and ranchers in 2015 as an outsider-looking-in because I wanted to understand how agriculture works. Here is an article I wrote about what I learned about them.

This post was submitted to Kansas newspapers Sept. 28, 2023.

“What in the world is going on?”

I asked myself that question frequently after I launched the Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) Facebook group in April of 2020 during the early days of the pandemic after my wife, Christine, told me the meat counter was empty at the grocery store. 

This post was submitted to Kansas newspapers Oct. 5, 2023.

Two of the most difficult parts of managing Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) for the last three and a half years has been maintaining the original vision to connect people to farmers so they can purchase the food they raise and maintaining civility. That we have been successful with both is neither an accident nor a stroke of luck; there are underlying leadership principles that guided us through creating civility in this community.

After 40 years of sharpening my skills in building communities, whether they’re online, such as Shop Kansas Farms (SKF), or geographically defined like the small town where I live, I’m convinced farmers and ranchers understand the concept of community better than the rest of us.

Here’s why: they understand community based on survival; we understand community based on convenience. Let me explain the difference.

 “Dad, you need to build some kind of a community,” my son, Caleb, told me when the pandemic hit in 2020. “Building community is what you do best.”

He’s right. I do love a good community.

I reminded him that, suddenly, people were not allowed to be around each other and, since my idea of community involved gathering people in a physical location, I didn’t have a clue how to build one.  

“What’s that you always tell me? Commit, then figure it out?” he asked. “Commit. You’ll figure it out.”

In the late 1940s, Dorothy Lynch and her husband ran a restaurant in St. Paul, Neb. She created her own tomato-based salad dressing, which became so popular patrons would bring empty bottles for her to fill with Dorothy Lynch Home Style Dressing. Her famous dressing is now produced in a 64,000-square-foot space in St. Paul, population 351.

How many Dorothy Lynches are there in rural America that have to-die-for family recipes, but can’t produce it in their home kitchens? I firmly believe access to commercial kitchens are the key.

The tiny village of Jicaro (hee’-ka-row) Bonito sat along a river high in the mountains of Nicaragua near the border of Honduras. While delivering truckloads of food and supplies in 2005 for relief after the rains had destroyed their sesame seed crops, I met with the villagers to ask them what we could do to help them make a living. 

I learned early in the fight against hunger that there are two concepts: relief (give a person a fish) and development (teach a person to fish).