Filed under: Farmer Stories, Food + Health | Tags: agriculture, Brookside Market, Community, farm, farmer, farmers market, food, greenhouse, Juniper Gardens training farm, Kansas City, kansas city center for urban agriculture, KCCUA, local, local food movement, local foods, organic, refugee, salmonella, small business, urban agriculture, urban farming
Katherine Kelly in the leafy greenhouse at KCCUA.
Katherine chats with each customer at the spring transplant sale.
From our perch on top of a stack of soggy hay bales, six-year-old Evangeline Ellingsworth and I can see the entirety of the farm that is her stomping ground. Beyond the curved hoophouses and still–barren fields, lie ranch style houses, a school, and the buzzing freeway. The farm is smack in the center of an urban environment.
Six-year-old Evangeline Ellingsworth, daughter of KCCUA farm manager Alicia Ellingsworth, makes the farm her playground.
Evangeline, daughter of farm manager Alicia Ellingsworth, explains to me the workings of the urban farm where she is growing up.
“Well,” she says, “Katherine is kind of the boss around here.”
From our high position, we can see the woman herself, framed in the doorway of the greenhouse. Katherine Kelly is the co-founder, executive director and soul of Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture—a working farm and community center. She stands in her characteristic position, one leg up as she talks to folks milling around the spring transplant sale. With the farm’s responsibility on her shoulders, Katherine is busy. But she has time for a chat with everyone this busy Saturday afternoon– the farm crew, her customers, the refugee women she teaches to farm for a living.
“Have you ever had a boss who hugs you and you cry on?” asks Evangeline’s mom, farm manager Alicia Ellingsworth. “I see Katherine hug ten people a day.”
Katherine kindles the community spirit of the farm. She originally founded the farm to satisfy her own desire to live in the city and farm at the same time. However, her history as a community organizer kicked in as soon as she began to meet other farmers. In talking, she heard a common theme: “It used to be, if you were a farmer, you had grown up in it,” she said. “There is no longer the experience base or industrial infrastructure that there used to be.”
With Katherine’s hard work, development and apprenticeship programs strengthening local agricultural infrastructure sprung up around KCCUA. One project is the Juniper Gardens Training Farm, where local farmers helps refugee woman negotiate the challenges of starting an urban farm.
“They are all about relationships,” Katherine said. “Farmers are not classroom people. We all learn really well by thinking problems out loud with each other.”
From policymakers to religious leaders, Katherine speaks with everyone about the growing movement supporting local food, a movement she fully believes in.
“Agriculture is a connecting activity,” she said. “We are the very immediate part of people’s decision to be healthy and to live well and to take care of their family and friends.”
Katherine points a customer to fresh, home-grown greens at the spring transplant sale.
KCCUA’s many programs mean that Katherine spends an equal amount of time in the office organizing as actually in the dirt. Sometimes it’s a hard balance. Katherine worries about her produce until the Saturday morning market. As she walked quickly through the greenhouse with me on a Friday afternoon, I complimented her on what looked to me like Eden: rows of leafy greens and blooming flowers.
“Oh, I see a lot of problems out there,” she said with a wry smile.
Only the next morning in the pre-dawn chill, as the farm crew packed the vegetables for market, did she finally relax.
Katherine listens to the questions of a fellow farmer.
“I think things are going to be all right,” she said.
Katherine’s customers know the care she takes with her produce. KCCUA’s fresh-tasting tomatoes have the farm’s own guarantee, a guarantee customers value after recent salmonella outbreaks in food produced by large corporations. Even organic labels do not have that personal guarantee: according to a New York Times article, large corporations produce 25% of organic foods. At the Saturday morning farmers market, Katherine meets customers who have raised their children on her produce. She supports people, she feeds them. It is one and the same.
Plants grow and relationships grow together at this farm. Back in the greenhouse, a Hmong woman, Kim, solemnly waters her budding greens. Angela, a cheerful woman who runs a church youth garden, trims plants with two young girls. The girls are timidly friendly, telling me shyly that they love harvest time. Angela prepares the food that they’ve grown into such delicacies as red cabbage with apple. She is proud to be teaching these young girls about farming. Everyone is sharing stories, asking advice, and learning. At the heart is Katherine. She is the go-to person for everything.
“She is my best farming friend,” says Angela.
“You do this because it suits you,” Katherine said. “It fits what you want to create in the world.”
— Brenna Daldorph
Filed under: Farmer Stories, Food + Health, Justice + Outreach, Local Events + Action, Nature + Travel, Science + Tech | Tags: African American farmers, CSA, fruit, J-14, J-14 Agricultural Enterprises, Joe Jennings, Kansas City, urban agriculture, vegetables, you pick, Youth Volunteer Corps, youth volunteers
Every place he’s lived, there has always been one constant in Joe Jennings’ life: farming. Today that farming takes place on 8.5 acres in Kansas City, Kansas; only about fifteen minutes from downtown, J-14 Agricultural Enterprises seems a world apart. The acreage produces everything from beans to broccoli, garlic to onions, strawberries, apples, pears, plums, and peaches. There are often animals, such as rabbits and pigs – although Joe plans on getting rid of the latter, clearing out the pigpen space, and planting more greens.
Joe, 81, is no stranger to farm life. The second of fifteen children, he grew up on a farm near Houston, Texas during the Great Depression. That time left an impression: as a small child, he remembers being in town and asking his mom about the line of people outside a nearby building; she told him it was a soup line and, not understanding the significance, Joe asked how he could get in the line for soup. In 1946, the family got its first tractor and Joe often missed school that year helping to plow. After earning a certificate in carpentry from Prairie View A. & M., Joe was drafted into the Army and then spent over thirty-seven years in the Air Force Reserves. He moved to Kansas City in 1970 to take a job with the school system and worked there until his 1999 “retirement.” He’s still busy, though, but he doesn’t consider his farm a job – in fact he says that he doesn’t have a “job, I have a joy, j-o-y.”
Within a week of moving to Kansas, Joe’s had a one acre farm. When he originally bought his current location in 1997, he planned on using the land to build houses but, because of problems with the city, he instead decided to turn it into a farm. You might think that 8.5 acres would be plenty to take care of; but, since 1994 Joe also has owned a 211 acre farm in Texas where he has 75 head of cattle.
Since 2000, Joe has run J-14 as a you pick CSA operation, which means after paying the subscription fee ($300 for 2009) and getting a key to his gate, you can go in whenever you want and pick as much as you want – up to 500 pounds! As Joe’s quick to point out, that’s a much better deal than you’d find in any grocery store. And he’s right; recent comparisons point to CSAs as better choices financially (and for other reasons, too). At peak production, Joe can feed 150 families, but he always ends up with a lot extra. That extra gets turned into “love packages” that he takes to elderly members of the community. He tells of going into area nursing homes, finding the oldest residents, and presenting them with his homegrown produce.
During the summer, Joe helps teens – or rather they help each other. Groups of Youth Volunteer Corps members can be found working the fields and, while this helps J-14, it also helps the volunteers. Studies have shown that youth who volunteer are more likely to also volunteer as adults, as well as to donate. Youth volunteers also are less likely to choose unhealthy lifestyles, tend to have greater self-esteem, and tend to have a more positive attitude than non-volunteers.
Whether he’s working with teenagers or giving out “love packages,” Joe follows the same philosophy. “Who did you help today?” he asks, “If you didn’t help anyone, you didn’t help yourself.”
~Mary Beth
Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action, Nature + Travel, Society + Media | Tags: agriculture, Brookside Market, Community, farming, food, Health, indians, judy wicks, Kansas City, KCCUA, local business, market, organic, pilgrims, small business, sustainable agriculture, Thanksgiving, white dog cafe
KCCUA is like the Thanksgiving table: a place where all Kansas City residents can come together
There is nothing more American than Thanksgiving when Americans of all colors and religions gather around dinners symbolizing the first Thanksgiving. On that historic day, Pilgrims and Indians broke bread at the same rough-hewn table. The table, however, was not where they first interacted. They first worked together in the fields. The story goes that Squanto reached out to the starving newcomers. His people taught the pilgrims how to grow squash and corn and beans; how to survive in a harsh land. The two groups were probably suspicious at first, but over wet earth and hoes, over back-aches and beanpoles, they came together in this act of making life-sustaining food.
Our quintessential American holiday is still about harvest and community, about sharing food and growing it together. Wouldn’t it be nice if all of America still had that spirit? But these days, big business strips the caring and interaction from food production.
Not so at the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture. In my visits to the center, I watched diverse Kansas City residents interact with each other at all levels of food production. I saw a six-year-old help with planting. I saw mother and son lend a hand in washing vegetables, and I saw customers visit KCCUA’s market stall on a bright Saturday morning. Community and food production are one and the same at KCCUA, just like at Plymouth Plantation.
KCCUA doesn’t exist off of the grid in a hippy land. Instead, it is a successful part of the local economy: providing stable jobs and adding to community wealth and self-reliance. As a small, independent business, KCCUA exemplifies an American ideal. Moreover, KCCUA promotes vitality and interaction within the Kansas City community through farmer’s apprenticeship programs and community events.
“At its heart, our movement for local living economies is about love,” wrote Judy Wicks, author of Good Morning, Beautiful Business. “Business has been corrupted as an instrument of greed rather than used to serve the public good. You know that business is beautiful when we put our creativity, care and energy into producing products and services our community needs.”
The farmers at KCCUA make it their business to foster and feed the Kansas City community, bringing together people as diverse as those who gathered at the first Thanksgiving table. In that act, the farm exemplifies the true culture of America.
— Brenna Daldorph, group 3
Image courtesy of http://fragranceoftruth.wordpress.com
Filed under: Business + Politics, Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: Brookside Market, Cafe Trio, CSA, farmers market, heirloom tomatoes, J-14 Agricultural Enterprises, Kansas City, kansas city center for urban agriculture, KCCUA, Kurlbaum's Heirloom Tomatoes, McGonigal's, Michael Smith's, Paseo Boulevard, restaurants, troostwood youth garden, urban agriculture, urban farms, Webster House
There are as many different types of consumers of local food as there are different types of urban farmers and different types of food grown. Consumers with different needs can all benefit from urban farming. Three farms on the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture farm tour explain this perfectly. Kurlbaum’s Heirloom Tomatoes, J-14 Agricultural Enterprises and the Troostwood Youth Garden and provide food for many different kinds of people.
Kurlbaum’s heirloom tomatoes are sold locally at McGonigal’s, Brookside Market, and many Kansas City restaurants including Michael Smith’s in the crossroads, Café Trio in midtown and Webster House downtown. By selling to many different places Co-owner Liz Kurlbaum can have better control over the price and feed a larger group of people. While this urban farmer chooses to sell their product mostly to restaurants, Joe Jennings at J-14 Agricultural Enterprises has a different approach.
Jennings has developed a community based CSA where potential customers can pay 300$ for up to 500 pounds of produce. Extra food is taken to elderly community members, including some in nursing homes. Jennings also uses some of the food grown for his family.
The Troostwood Youth Garden is the only place that fresh vegetables are available in the busy Paseo Blvd. neighborhood in Kansas City. This local produce can be bought there Monday through Saturday before dark. Troostwood feeds the community as well as educates them about the importance of eating healthy and knowing where food really comes from.
These different urban farms show that everyone can eat well with the help of urban farmers. Whether someone is eating at a restaurant, buying a large supply of food for their family, or trying to find something fresh in a busy neighborhood, urban farming is helping people enjoy food that is local, healthy and delicious.
~ Tyler Waugh, Group 4 blog post
Farmer’s market photo credit.
Filed under: Design + Architecture, Food + Health, Local Events + Action, Society + Media | Tags: farm location, garden, J-14 Agricultural Enterprises, Kansas City, Kurlbaum's Heirloom Tomatoes, land use, troostwood youth garden, urban agriculture, urban farming, vegetables
Farming no longer has to be about fields and barns. Right in middle of an urban district, on a plot of land next to a storefront or parking lot, an urban garden can sprout and bring a new source of food and sense of community. The saying in real-estate is location, location, location, but urban agriculture ignores such advice and finds a way to flourish. 
Suburban
Deep in the suburbs, urban farmers have an opportunity to grow vegetable inside and transfer them to their yards when the seedlings are ready. Suburban homes are typically bigger and easier to climate control. Any room in the house, even the basement, can be turned into a grow area with some inexpensive grow lamps and tables. That’s how Liz and Sky Kurlbaum — of Kurlbaum’s Heirloom Tomatoes — operate their business. In their basement, right next to their washer and dryer, the Kurlbaums have traded in a table to fold their clothes on, for a make-shift greenhouse that supports thousands of seedlings. If suburban farmers are worried about the electric bill, it’s possible to start seeds in small, starter containers available at any garden store.
Rural
Right outside the city is also an ideal location to start an urban farm. For starters, land tends to be less expensive and more acreage tends to be available, not to mention more manageable. On a small farm about 15 minutes from downtown Kansas City, Joe Jennings of J-14 Agricultural Enterprises grows a wide variety of veggies as well as some fruit using about 8 acres. Because of the space available, Joe is even able to occasionally raise select livestock to complement his produce such as pigs.
Urban
Urban agriculture has previously had to fight to overcome the image that farming is something that has to be done in the country and brought into the city. Even a vacant lot, entirely surrounded by concrete can make the perfect urban farm. The Troostwood Youth Garden, located on Paseo Boulevard, fits this description precisely: It’s situated on a traffic-jammed street between houses and the occasional gas station. A major advantage (but disadvantage to the neighborhood) is that the Troostwood Youth Garden has very few produce competitors. Urban neighborhoods lacking grocery stores or farmers market sincerely reap the benefits of such a community center that promotes healthy eating. Neighboring Rockhurts university realised this and has supported the garden since its germination in 1999.
~ Bryan Dykman, Group 4 blog post
Urban corn photo credit.
Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: farmers’ market, Kansas City, kansas city center for urban agriculture, local food, organic food, sustainable food, underground farming, urban agriculture, Urban Agriculture Conference, urban farming, vertical farm
Photo Credits: Sachiko Miyakawa These are inside the green house of the farm.
The farm is a certified organic farm in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Daniel Dermitzel operates the firm. He also serves as the associate director of Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture to promote fresh and healthy food in the city.
Along with the increasing awareness of food safety and environmentalism, urban agriculture like Dermitzel’s farm is gaining attention across the country. Urban agriculture is the practice of raising food locally, especially within or around cities. It reduces consumption of fossil fuels and pollution from shipping and provides fresh vegetables, fruits and meat to city residents. According to the Urban Agriculture Conference,urban agriculture supports food security, provides employment and income to cities, and offers a learning experience for school children. Also, products are often sold in farmers’ markets, encouraging communications between consumers and producers. Urban agriculture activates community.
But not all cities can afford land for farming. In some places, landowners can make more money lending the land for other businesses. Increasing efficiency and profits of farms is necessary to develop urban agriculture.
BBC reports scientists at Columbia University proposed a future of urban agriculture in New York City. The “vertical farm,” a 30-story skyscraper with glass walls would feature farms for varieties of crops and livestock. Energy would come from a solar panel and fuel made from the farm’s waste would provide energy. Wastewater would be recycled in the complex.
TreeHugger features an underground farming in downtown Tokyo. Although the farm’s purpose is rather a display and experiment, the underground farming is an example of unlimited possibilities for the future of urban agriculture.
By Sachiko Miyakawa
J500 Media and the Environment 
