KANSAS CITY, Mo. — More than 200 urban farmers and food activists gathered Feb. 1 for Cultivate KC’s 20th annual Farmers and Friends Meeting.
Held each winter during the farmers’ offseason, the slower pace of winter provides an ideal time for farmers to gather and reflect on the past year, plan for the upcoming growing season and connect with peers without the demands of seasonal farm work.
In addition to the many established farmers, the event draws aspiring growers looking to build or improve a home garden or access mentors, knowledge and networking opportunities to navigate the challenges of starting an urban farm. Breakout sessions are tailored to every skill set, whether the established farmer or someone new to agriculture.
The topic for this year’s event was “The Past, Present and Future of Farming in Kansas City.”
The event started as it always does with a potluck pie breakfast. Tables were filled with home-baked pies running the gamut from traditional favorites like pumpkin pie, apple galette and blackberry cobbler to specialty fruits such as huckleberry or strawberry rhubarb pie.
After breakfast was the presentation of this year’s John Kaiahua Mentorship Award to Mike Pearl, a fourth-generation farmer on land that’s been in his family for 134 years, to celebrate his commitment to mentorship and farming.
Breakout sessions began after the opening announcements and included topics such as:
- “Routes for Roots: Building Connections for Land Access.”
- “Beyond Direct-to-Consumer and Wholesale: Maximizing Sales Through Value Add, Buyer Guarantees, Agritourism, and Partnerships.”
- “Promoting your Farm: Make Your Online Presence Work for You.”
- “Better Together: Models of Cooperative Aggregation to Unlock New Markets.”
- “From Grants to Growth: Funding Challenges & Opportunities in Agriculture.”
- “You’ve Got This: Tools for Managing and Improving Mental Health on the Farm.”
Throughout the day, attendees stopped to chat with vendors, pick up free seed packets or step into the storytelling lounge. Some of the vendors on hand included American Farmland Trust, Compost KC, Kansas City Food Hub, New Growth and numerous others on-hand to educate and pass out informational literature.
The event ended with keynote speakers Tepfirah Rushdan and Patrice Brown.
About Cultivate KC
“Cultivate Kansas City is a nonprofit based in Kansas City, Mo., but we work on both sides of the state line,” said Eric Hemphill, metro farms and food systems program manager for Cultivate Kansas City. “We help farmers with various needs, organize workshops and events, provide bulk orders and have a mini grant program. Our signature event is the Farmers and Friends Meeting, held every January or February. We’re celebrating our 20th year this year, so it’s a chance for farmers — at a time when they’re maybe not growing as much — to take a chance to get together, talk about the issues that we’re all mutually facing and how we might go about solving some of those issues.”
