Demand for local produce grows - even in winter : KC Star

Demand for local produce is growing — even in winter - KC Star

By SUZANNE KING
Special to The Star
Local farmers sell their items at the weekly Friday evening farmers market at the Bad Seed Market in the Crossroads District.
JILL TOYOSHIBA

Local farmers sell their items at the weekly Friday evening farmers market at the Bad Seed Market in the Crossroads District. On Monday, Deb Crum tried a bite of lettuce growing in her and husband Jim Crum’s high-tunnel greenhouse west of Bonner Springs. With them was their grandson, 15-month-old William Crum.

The scene looked more like a summer morning than a darkening autumn evening. As the sun went down the Friday before Thanksgiving, customers were crowding into downtown’s Bad Seed Market to peruse bunches of fresh greens, piles of recently dug potatoes and heaps of ruby-red beets. All were grown in and around Kansas City.Demand for locally produced food is strong in Kansas City, even as winter nears.That’s why Brooke Salvaggio, who, with her husband, Daniel Heryer, owns the Bad Seed at 1909 McGee St., said she had to turn farmers away from selling at the store’s annual Thanksgiving Market. There wasn’t enough room for all who were interested in selling this late in the season.If only there were always such an overabundance of farmers on Kansas City’s local food scene.Despite appearances at many markets and restaurants, farms in and around Kansas City just aren’t keeping up with the growing demand, many observers say. “There’s kind of a feeling that we don’t have near enough farmers and we ought to have a lot more farms,” said Ted Carey, an extension specialist with Kansas State University.

That feeling has fueled a concerted effort to help farmers increase production and usher newcomers into the farming trade.Area farmers are signing up for business classes to help them operate more efficiently, finding more outlets to market their produce and doing all they can to extend the growing season so they can sell earlier in the spring and later in the fall.

“I think for a lot of small-scale growers — particularly organic or sustainable farmers — this is a passion. … It’s not something they approach as strictly a moneymaking endeavor,” said local farmer Laura Christensen. “If those small farms are going to be successful in an economic way — in addition to an environmental and social way — they need to learn the business skills.”


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