KS Dept of Agriculture Seeking Input for 2025 Specialty Crop Block Grant

Kansas Department of Agriculture (KDA) is seeking input from growers, markets, and other stakeholders to identify and focus funding priorities for the upcoming 2025 Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBG). With the dynamic environment of specialty crop production and sales and interest and demand for local/regional-grown foods, the SCBG program continues to offer funding opportunities to support the efforts of individual and collective growing operations, processing and sales relationships, and much more.

With the rollout of the 2025 round of the SCBG anticipated in the coming months, KDA is actively seeking input from those of you in the field, in the high-tunnel and greenhouse, in the markets, with a vision of what might be possible with some support.

Click below and take a moment to fill out KDA’s short questionnaire regarding your thoughts on the needs you face in building your operations—and how KDA can focus their funding opportunities to best serve you.

KSCGA will again be working with KDA in focusing these funding opportunities and supporting our growers in the application process. Watch for more when SCBG 2025 schedules and application info are out.

KSCGA LOOKING AHEAD IN 2025

With the dedicated support of our grower members, KSCGA was able to continue our work in 2024 in networking and support while building our data management capacity needed for our long-anticipated grower/market directory (rollout anticipated January 2025). With new grant funding and, again, growing membership contribution support, 2025 promises to be a year of enhanced programming, visibility, and reach.

We continue to work on the, yes, long-anticipated Kansas Grower/Network Directory—with rollout for the Directory anticipated at our January 10 2025 Annual Meeting. With the extent of our grower data and complexities in the multiple layers of data and search fields, the Directory has been an admittedly consuming effort. We’re now in the final stages of working out some lingering details—with an in-progress user Directory showing remarkable potential in connecting growers and growers with markets (and vice versa) across our state. Watch for more on this in January 2025.

KSCGA continues to work with regional partners in developing individual and collective cultivation and sales. Now with a 2024-25 Specialty Crop Block Grant (SCBG), we’ll be ramping up our networking and support for current and new regional partners in the year ahead.

KSCGA is formally partnering with grant project efforts with K-State Extension and Growing Growers under a three-year Beginning Farmers/Ranchers Development Project (BFRDP) program. We’ll be taking a primary role in supporting and connecting new growers through networking and subsidized access to training activities.

KSCGA is also working with Kansas Department of Education under their own Specialty Crop Block Grant programming to open up local/regional produce supply connections among growers and schools across the state. We’ll be involved in their Specialty Crop orientation sessions in 2025. Look for details and registration info soon.

Your memberships are a big part of our organizational vitality. Please take a moment to join or renew your membership today. We look forward to working with our growers in 2025—and beyond.

Despite being surrounded by farmland, school districts in western Kansas struggle to source local food options to feed kids

KSCGA member grower Prairie Wind Produce of Garden City featured in a timely and revealing piece in the Hays Post—highlighting the urgency in building collective production capacity among growers of all sizes in the community: hayspost.com/posts/a34233af-043c-4fc8-b1f1-eb619375f167

Thanks to additional grant funding support from KDA/USDA, KSCGA will be continuing our partnership with regional growers and markets toward this as we move ahead in 2025.

KSCGA Excited to Partner with K-State Extension and Growing Growers in Multi-Year Project to Recruit and Support Beginning Growers in Kansas

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2024

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small today announced a more than $46 million investment in projects supporting America’s veteran, underserved, and beginning farmers and ranchers to help aspiring producers enter the business and improve their skills and knowledge to sustain their operations for years to come.

“Starting or taking over a farm takes courage, and USDA wants to make sure our next generation of farmers have the resources and support they deserve to take that leap,” said Deputy Secretary Xochitl Torres Small. “Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing investments to support beginning, underserved, and veteran farmers with technical assistance and mentoring to build successful operations. These partnerships with local experts help ensure all farmers and ranchers have fair access to USDA's programs and market opportunities.”

USDA’s Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) and 2501 Program provide education, mentoring, and technical assistance to help underserved, veteran, and beginning farmers and ranchers own and operate successful farms. These investments also help provide equitable participation in USDA agricultural programs.

Agritourism Taxation Bill Passes Kansas Legislature—Tnanks to Grower Efforts

Thanks to KSCGA grower members Bryan and Gina Zesiger (Z & M Twisted Vines Vineyard) and everyone involved in pushing recent legislation that will provide some tax relief for those involved in agricultural tourism.

We are pleased to inform you that the diligence and effort given this issue recently culminated in the passing of Senate Bill 410, which recognizes agricultural tourism as an integral part of the agricultural sector. This bill stipulates that agricultural tourism, buildings, land, and any other structures, should be taxed and evaluated as agriculture and not commercial. Given its significance, especially for farmers and ranchers across the state that participate in agricultural tourism, we believe it is crucial to ensure widespread awareness of its implications.

The Senate Bill 410, spanning 46 pages, contains pertinent information regarding agricultural tourism, specifically on page 26. Z&M Twisted Vines Vineyard would welcome interested growers to reach out to them to collaborate in disseminating information on this legislation to as many farmers and ranchers as possible.

Look for more from Z & M regarding a planned summit this summer focusing on the role and impacts and of Kansas specialty crops specialty crops, urban farming and the importance and potential of agricultural tourism in Kansas. 

Grower Member/Entrepreneur Selected to Board of Farmer Veteran Coalition of Kansas.

KSCGA grower member Brad Fourby, of Leafy Green Farm of Pittsburg, KS, has been selected for the Board of Directors of the Farmer Veteran Coalition of Kansas. As a veteran farmer and small business owner, Fourby sees the benefit in being a part of a network of grower veterans to support each others’ work in producing local foods and community development.

Brad’s work with Leafy Greens, a hydroponic high-density growing model utilizing reconditioned shipping containers, will be featured in KSCGA’s upcoming Winter 2023 Newsletter—along with a story on another KSCGA grower member who, as a Gulf War veteran, finds renewal in his cultivation efforts, as well as in his 2,300 mile Minnesota headwatere-to-Gulf of Mexico Mississippi River canoe trip

Winter 2021-2022 KSCGA Newsletter

In this season’s KSCGA Winter Newsletter, we feature:

• Garden City area growers face opportunities and challenges in changing community

• December wind events—dust storms and farm damage across the state

• 2021 year in review—and looking ahead to 2022

• KSCGA welcomes business supporters

• and much more

Preliminary 2020 Census Data Reveals Impacts on Regional Food Systems

Thanks to KSCGA member grower Steve Michel—Prairie Wind Aquatics/Farm of Garden City—for sharing preliminary 2020 Census data presented by the Finney County Economic Development Corporation. While parts of rural Kansas may be seeing a continued trend in population decline, Finney County in SW Kansas stands out as one of the fastest growing—and increasingly diverse and potentially undercounted—areas in the state.

KSCGA is working with growers and officials in the Garden City area in pursuing opportunities to expand production, visibility, and market reach for local/regionally produced fruits and vegetables. With its increasingly diverse and growing population—compounded with the likely undercount of some of the diverse demographic groups—putting remarkable strains on the predominant food distribution systems, work in Finney County may offer models for others in the coming year.

Watch for more on our work with Finney County and other Kansas growers in specialty crop production and distribution addressing changing needs and demographics. Please, if you have not already done so, become a new member or renew your KSCGA membership and help support the work ahead.

Deadline for New/Renewing memberships for raffle for premium coffees

Many of our grower members can appreciate a genuinely good cup of coffee through the morning rounds and tasks on their farms, orchards, vineyards, and gardens. KSCGA is offering incentive gifts of premium direct-trade coffee for those who join or renew their memberships and/or complete a short Kansas grower survey between November 1 , 2021 and January 12, 2022. Thanks to generous contributions from direct-trade coffee roasters around the country, we’ll be raffling off over 20 bags of premium coffees for those responding to our fall campaigns.

While many of us actively work to promote and strengthen direct relationships between growers and customers in our own communities, we’d like to take that principle and acknowledge the care and work of those producing some of our commodities, and some of our little pleasures, such as coffee, in communities far away. In the end, everything is local somewhere.

Take a moment in these fall days to join or renew your KSCGA membership for the year ahead.

• First people to join as new members and first to renew their membership at $10 and first to complete a short (9 questions) Kansas grower survey will each receive one bag of coffee from our generous donors

• First two to join at the $50 supporting level—receive a 1lb bag of cafe Campesino Chiapas, the really good stuff

• Each subsequent $10 new or renewing membership will have their name added to the raffle pool x 1

• Each $50 supporting membership will be added x 3

• Increase your odds and help KSCGA build a picture of the vision and impact of specialty crops, and specialty crop growers, by completing a short Kansas grower survey, and your name will be added x 1 (those taking the initiative to submit their surveys in earlier runs will be added to the raffle pool)

• Raffles will be held November 12, 26, December 10, 30—and January 12.

• Each participant eligible for one bag—everyone participating will have pretty good odds!

We look forward to working with all of you in the year ahead! Thanks—for all you do.

And thanks to the direct-trade coffee roasters/distributors who’ve generously donated to the KSCGA fall campaigns, including Equal Exchange, Just Coffee Cooperative, and Cafe Campesino.

Photo Credits (clockwise from top left): FairTradeProof.org, FairTradeProof.org, rhoadsroast-coffees.com, OneGreenPlanet.org, CityExpress.com, KoinoniaFarmStore.com, EqualExchange.coop, FairTradeProof.org, FairTradeProof.org

Summer 2021 KSCGA Newsletter

In this season’s KSCGA Summer Newsletter, we feature:

• Kansas vineyards and wineries expand production and reach

• Independence, KS member grower building mushroom cultivation and distribution

• KSCGA looking ahead

• and more

Many Applications in K-State Horticulture’s Hügelkultur Projects

KSCGA Project Manager Peter Pierson was recently given a tour by students and staff at K-State Horticulture’s Willow Lake Student Farm north of Manhattan. Among the research projects that stood out was their work in Hügelkultur practices. While their current work focuses on lettuce and wildflower ground cover, side and future research may yield timely information on Kansas specialty crops ranging from peaches to mushrooms.

A practice dating back hundreds of years in Europe, Hügelkultur involves building mounds, or elevated rows, of wood debris, mulch, compost, and soil for planting. In theory, the practice takes advantage of elevated temperatures in the decaying layers and varying sun exposure for frost/freeze protection and multiple crop rotations with extended growing seasons offered on some exposures. Willow Lake Student Farm’ east-west oriented rows are built with small and large stumps and logs covered with mulch, compost, and soil.

With the general east-west orientation of the rows, K-State’s Willow Lake current planting and research focuses on different local exposures’ impacts on lettuce, with soil evolution work with wildflower ground cover. They’ll also be watching for potential autumn mushroom development from spores and mycelium in the decaying wood as a companion crop with potential commercial applications.

Timely options for Kansas fruit growers may be found in anticipated future Hügelkultur research in peaches and other fruits that are prone to damage from cold temperatures and late freezes. Taking advantage of the varying sun exposure offered in this elevated row planting method, peaches may become more resistant to the extremes in weather that have taken a heavy toll the last several years. The Willow Lake researchers’ theory, though, may catch some as counterintuitive. Rather than focusing primary on the impacts of a southern exposures, Willow Lake anticipates looking at peach tree health and production on the north side exposure of the elevated rows—where spring bloom may be delayed, thus reducing the damage done by late frosts and freezes.

KSCGA will follow the work and research at the Willow Lake Student Farm and keep Kansas growers up to date on their findings and applications in your growing efforts.

Among Kansas Specialty Crop Growers Association’s immediate goals and objectives, we are in the process of developing an enhanced Kansas grower directory system in which member Kansas growers will be able to effectively network with each other, sharing information on crops, growing practices, marketing and sales, and much more.

KSCGA depends on your support to continue building our grower networking and outreach efforts. Please take the step to become a member or renew your membership today. To strengthen our reach and engagement, KSCGA membership begins at a minimal $10 contribution. For more on membership opportunities and our vision for the year ahead, please visit our website at www.kscga.org/membership.

It's That Time!

As growers across the state move into the seasons of markets, u-pick events, and other activities and efforts, Kansas Specialty Crop Growers Association would like to help promote your products and events. Drop us a line to info@kscga.org with information, links, and pictures of what you’ve got going on in your operations—and the well-deserved results of your efforts, like a piece of cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. We’ll get it out to our active and growing public Facebook page promoting specialty crops in the state. As we look ahead, KSCGA is working to greatly expand our capacity to help promote and market your products and connect you with growers across the state.

In that, KSCGA is currently working with database developers and other potential partners in developing an online directory that will not only connect member growers with a growing customer base looking for local/regional produce and other ag products, but will also connect Kansas growers with their fellow growers to share information, seek help and advice, explore new crops and practices, and simply support each other in our efforts. We’re excited about the possibilities for what envision to be an accessible, user-friendly, extensive, and genuinely effective platform to promote your operations and sales and connect you with the diverse network of growers under our KSCGA umbrella.

March 2021 KSCGA Newsletter

In our March 2021 KSCGA Newsletter, we cover:

• Vision, goals, and objectives for KSCGA in 2021 and beyond

  • Step up engagement and outreach among our grower members

  • Enhanced online directory format and capabilities to connect growers with buyers, and growers with each other

• Highlights from 2021 Great Plains Growers Conference: Navigating changing markets and marketing platforms

• KSCGA working with retail grocers and shipping industries in Buy Local-Buy Fresh campaign

• and more

Read More

Kansas Buy Local Campaign-2021

KSCGA Working with Retail Grocers Association in Buy Local Campaign

KSCGA is working with Liberty Fruit Co and the Retail Grocers Association of Greater Kansas City in creating a sales and marketing effort promoting regionally-grown produce, offering Kansas specialty crop growers of all sizes access to distribution and sales networks that can increase market reach.

As a network of growers, this program would offer large and small operations the opportunity to increase the scale and efficiency needed to expand their commercial reach. The marketing program provided by the Retail Growers Association promises to increase awareness and demand for Kansas-grown produce, and for participating farms.

KSCGA is working with partners on fair and efficient pricing and supply chain concerns. Growers will be required to have GAP certification for produce entering this pilot effort.

If you are interested (no commitment) in participating in the Buy Local Campaign, please complete and submit the form below to help us determine interest among our growers: