Informational Hearing with KS House Ag Committee
On Monday, February 7, 2022, The Kansas Food and Farm Coalition participated in an informational hearing to discuss food security and agricultural opportunities in Kansas.
The Kansas Food and Farm Coalition (FFC) is a group of long-standing Kansas nonprofit organizations concerned about our food system - from farm to fork. In recognition of how interwoven food system issues are, these organizations have come together to support policies that grow Kansas communities’ local food systems. This includes policies that support small and mid-sized farms, increase production and sales of locally grown foods, increase access to healthy food for all, and reduce food insecurity in our communities.
Partners in the Kansas Food and Farm Coalition include: Mallory Lutz, Tom Buller (pictured to the right) Kansas Rural Center, Andrea Clark
KC Healthy Kids, Harvesters Community Foods Network, Kansas Food Action Network.
Click here to view all testimony from this session.
Tom Buller’s Testimony
KANSAS RURAL CENTER 9350 E Corporate Hills Drive #781057
I’m Tom Buller, the Executive Director of the Kansas Rural Center. I’m pleased to be speaking with you today and hope we can have further dialog in the future. Since 1979, the Kansas Rural Center (KRC) has been working to promote the long-term health of the land and its people through research, education and advocacy that advance an economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just food and farming system. KRC believes that diversified farming systems hold the key to preserving, developing and maintaining a food and farming future that provides healthy food, a healthy environment and social structure, and meaningful livelihoods. In the COVID pandemic as we have seen the global supply chains shaken, we have also seen local producers stepping up and I will talk about how to support those local food system.
The Kansas Rural Center took a two-year, in-depth review of the Kansas food system and published our findings in our Feeding Kansas report in 2014. This report developed out of a deliberate and wide-ranging process of stakeholder engagement with public meetings that occurred across the state, drawing upon the experience and knowledge of 275 stakeholders from across food system sectors. Participants at these events represented all regions of Kansas and all sectors of the farm-to-fork food system. Events also included health experts, educators, business and economic advisors, and more. Many of our recommendations are the same or very similar to the recommendations that were made in the 2016 KS Local Food and Farm Task Force report. Although years have passed since both of those reports, many of the needs documented still exist and many of the recommendations still ring true.
You can find the full report online (https://kansasruralcenter.org/feeding-kansas) for a detailed analysis and discussion, but I would like to share with you the key goals and some of the policy recommendations that were developed at that time:
Goal 1: Increase opportunities to identify and advance community food solutions at the local level.
This goal was designed to help empower local food policy and food and farm councils and my colleague from the Kansas Food Action Network can provide more information about the progress on this goal.
Goal 2: Improve clarity and coordination of farm-to-fork food system policies, programs and planning.
This goal was echoed in the recommendations of the Statewide Food and Farm Task Force, to create a staff position to oversee statewide efforts to support the food system. This need is still unmet.
Goal 3: Provide supports to increase production and consumption of fruits and vegetables.
This goal was also echoed in the Food and Farm Task Force report. This provides a compelling opportunity for Kansas agriculture and a win for Kansas communities. While Kansas has an amazingly powerful farm economy, we still import much of the food consumed by Kansans, particularly in the realm of fruits and vegetables. This provides an immense opportunity to diversify our farm production and help our local economies.
Utilizing calculations with numbers from the USDA and other sources, we can estimate that around 8% of the fruits and vegetables that are consumed in Kansas might be produced in the state. In other words, we import at least 92% of the fruits and vegetables that are purchased in Kansas. If we set that alongside the total demand for fruits and vegetables in the state of around $670,000,000 each year, that leaves Kansas farmers a market opportunity to sell over $610,000,000 more products. That is based upon existing production and sales data, and we all have probably heard that we need to eat more fruits and vegetables than we do, so demand should go up. Now even though I’ve met a few people here in Kansas growing wild things like bananas, lemons, or ginger, we are not ever going to cover that total demand for fruits and vegetables. Working to make a dent in that number with the crops we can reasonably grow here could provide immense benefits for farms and communities. Studies show that dollars spent on local foods provide significant multiplier effects on local economies. So, we can help Kansas farmers diversify income streams, help Kansas economy circulate more dollars locally and help our food system become much more resilient in the face of global supply chain challenges by supporting increased fruit and vegetable production in Kansas.
Here are a few ideas on how to do that:
• Remove sales tax from farm products sold at farmers markets.
This will simplify business for farmers and help circulate more dollars in the local economy.
• Work on procurement policies should prioritize Kansas grown fruit and vegetable purchasing at state and local government agencies and in public institutions.
Adopting such policies across state agencies and institutions would drive growth in production and consumption of Kansas-grown fruits and vegetables in Kansas by influencing distributors to purchase more Kansas-grown foods and providing other economic levers. The Kansas Rural Center is currently working with partners across the state, and at the Kansas Department of Education to support increased purchasing of local farm products by Kansas schools. This includes working with both farmers to teach them how to sell to schools and helping the schools work with farmers. Providing additional support for these efforts through procurement policies would help grow the market available to local producers.
• A statewide local foods agricultural economist position should be created through K-State Research and Extension, with support from county and state public funds.
Kansas leaders and policymakers need clearer data to better understand the economic potential for and impact of different scales and types of fruit and vegetable production in Kansas. Existing and potential farmers, local food processors and distributors also need that information to guide their business planning and operations.
• Multiple regional fruit and vegetable Extension Specialist positions should be created through K-State Research and Extension Horticulture Program, with support from state public funds.
To advance commercial fruit and vegetable production and sales in Kansas, farmers and food business entrepreneurs need significantly more research-based information and high-level technical support than is currently available. Additionally, we would strongly support K-State Research and Extension hiring more people focused on local foods generally.
• Kansas’s horticultural research stations should receive stable, public funding. Long-term research is needed to increase the production and sale of fruits and vegetables in Kansas, horticulture research stations need stable public funding to sustain a baseline budget for maintaining grounds, equipment, perennial plantings, and more. In the years since this recommendation was made, K-State Research and Extension has closed one of three horticulture research stations and threatened the closing of a second due to funding shortfalls. Like with any industry, research is critical to farmers being able to succeed and we should make sure that K-State Research and Extension has the resources needed to support that.
It is worth mentioning that many of these recommendations reference, K-State Research and Extension and note that we are excited to welcome their new president Dr. Richard Linton. He comes from North Carolina State University which is a partner in the unique Center for Environmental Farming Systems, which is a leader in supporting sustainable local food systems. We hope he brings that expertise to support similar institutions here like the
Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops which could also play a key role in expanding fruit and vegetable production.
I’ll note that there are many other issues on the farm side that are needed for a sustainable food and farming system and provide opportunities for your support. I’ll highlight just a few more that are near and dear to the Kansas Rural Center. Growing the next generation of farmers by supporting beginning farmers through education and efforts to support more equitable land access are key to a sustainable food system in the future. Also, the natural resources that agriculture relies upon are critical for the long-term sustainability of the food system and we have to keep soil health and water in this conversation. There are current opportunities to act on both of these by acting on the soil health bill (HB 2310) currently in this committee and supporting full funding for the Kansas Water Plan.
Thank You.