KRC celebrates board member Karen Willey. Karen Willey is a PhD scientist and 3rd District Douglas County Commissioner who manages a 115 acre farm in eastern Kansas raising grass-fed beef cattle while restoring native pasture. She also has experience in no-till crops, cover crops, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, turkeys and bees. As an entrepreneur, Karen has created and led a variety of successful businesses including an engineering and manufacturing business, Bluestem Machine Works, Inc., with her husband and business partner Scott Eudaly. Recently Karen and friend Brad Bradley have created FarmTender, a land-linking website seeking to connect regenerative farmers with eco-friendly landowners.

Kansas Rural Center staff share their accomplishments of 2023 and give insight into what they’re looking forward to next year.

The Kansas Rural Center’s mission is 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. The three tools at the heart of KRC’s mission are research, education, and advocacy. Perhaps no piece of our work more perfectly ties those three tools together than the efforts of our Policy Analyst, Paul Johnson.

Enjoy this look back at the start of the Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops. Kansas Rural Center has been a proud supporter of this from its inception and enjoys seeing Kerri Ebert’s continued work.

Ryan Goertzen-Regier discusses his recent urban ag tour in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

The Kansas Rural Center is excited to address that need and is happy to announce that enrollment is open for our very first “Farm Beginnings” training, which will run for eight weeks from January 15 – March 10.

Dr. Elizabeth E. Heilman, Ph.D discusses mental and physical strategies to thrive through the Winter months and beyond.

Learn about leaves with direction from Katie Schmidt. This article was orginally published in Dyck Arboretum’s “Best Management Practices Blog.” Find more at dyckarboretum.org

In advance of the Kansas Common Ground screenings, Carey Gillam chats with Charlotte about her journey from ag reporter at Reuters to investigative journalist exposing secrets in the agriculture industry.

If you’re interested in running for office, there are a few key points that you might want to know before throwing your hat in the ring. You don’t have to know everything and everyone to run for office and make a difference.

The USDA has organized regional food business centers across the United States, and the Heartland Center will work across Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and a designated tribal corridor…

To date, KLT has conserved more than 40,000 acres in 22 counties, across 80 properties in Kansas, with more than 1,300 of those acres being open to the public. The Kansas Land Trust is one of thousands of land trusts across the U.S. and one of a handful in the state of Kansas.

A friend recently was reported to the city by her neighbor for not complying with the 12-inch rule on grass. The front yard was mowed, but the back/side yard was “messy” and tall. She had bought a prairie seed mix and successfully cultivated it. A city official agreed that not only were they glad she had installed her native mix, but she could keep her newly installed prairie if she made it look like it was “on purpose”.

Today, Grace Heritage Dairy provides raw milk and handmade goat cheese from the farm. Kansas laws require we sell raw products directly off of the farm as opposed to providing meet-up or delivery options, which has provided challenges of its own.

Keith queried inquisitive faces on types of plants/seedlings. He demonstrated mechanical arugula harvesting, washing, drying, and bagging. The pupils got to munch on freshly picked radishes after much mud was washed off.

The North Star of my career is perennial and continuous living cover agriculture – the idea that everything we know about the world tells us that for real long-term sustainability, we need to keep most of the ground covered with vegetation most of the time, and most of that needs to actually be in perennials.

As the Food Value Chain Coordinator, I will wear many hats to coordinate this effort. I will work to cultivate and build lasting relationships across the diverse stakeholder community by providing engagement opportunities for open dialog.

Overshoot Day is a direct challenge to Kansans and everyone across our planet. Your support and contributions to the Kansas Rural Center will allow us to continue doing the necessary work that’s been our mission for over 40 years. Join us in working toward meaningful and sustainable change for the betterment of our state and our world.

This 80 acres was 4 times the size I thought our homestead farm would be. This space would feed a lot more than our family. We would be able to feed the world one tomato at a time! It was clear, we needed a strategic plan and an order of operations. The farm would need to become a BUSINESS.