Urban farms sprout up in KC; Who’s picking the produce and why we shop those markets
For the past two years, every Saturday, Brice Young and his two children have visited the weekly market at Young Family Farm in Kansas City. They’re not related to the farmers, but they return because the inner-city growers make them feel like family.
Young’s kids enjoy digging through the bushels of freshly picked produce. He’s thankful to have healthy food options so close to home.
“We like to support urban farming and gardening,” said Young. “We feel like if the sources are available, we should eat local, so we are taking advantage of that.”
He and his children, Maverick and Zuri, like visiting different growers’ markets around the Kansas City area. He uses these weekend trips to teach his children the importance of eating healthy and to support the local growers he’s seen multiply around the metro area.
No less than a decade ago, urban farming in Kansas City was a niche venture done by a few. Today, many urban farmers, like the Young family, say the numbers have boomed.
Many sprouted up to answer problems for people who live in the urban core.
“There are so many benefits and it helps in so many ways,” said Mike Rollen, owner of Ophelia’s Blue Vine Farm on the edge of the Historic Jazz District. “It helps with community building and educational benefits for all the kids that come down here, that pick and taste the produce.”
Young likes that it’s affordable.
“With inflation and availability, especially in the metro, we struggle to find sustainable options in our own grocery stores,” Young said. “Instead of eating processed foods I would much rather go out to a garden or farm and get my food there.”
That’s pretty much the customer sentiment that area urban farmers depend on.
Urban farming roots
Rollen is a member of the Kansas City Black Urban Growers. Like many urban farmers, he was introduced to nature through an older relative. His grandmother, who his farm at 2416 Vine St., is named for, instilled a love and appreciation for growing food as he worked in her garden.
“She taught me so many incredible lessons about hard work and resilience that carried into my adult years,” he said.
Wanting to connect more with his own sons and give them the same digging-in-the-dirt experiences he grew up with, Rollen began to buy land to grow in 2014. Currently, he owns a farm in Kansas City, Kansas, and two greenhouses near the jazz district.
Rollen knows that Ophelia’s, in a lot of cases, is the only exposure many children living in some suburban and urban areas have to agriculture. Urban farming, he said, is vital to bridging the disconnect between children in urban communities and nature.
“Vine is so historic as far as Black history and I wanted be a part of this movement in Black agriculture,” said Rollen. “I built these two greenhouses down here because a lot of kids nowadays have never seen an apple on a tree, they don’t know potatoes and peanuts grow underground.”
As a board member for the Kansas City Black Urban Growers, Rollen says the community of urban farmers is small but growing. There are strong bonds between metro farming locations. Rollen said he thinks that KC urban farmers are one of the most close-knit groups he has been a part of. Everyone of them, he said, has a mission to educate and enrich the community through fresh produce.
Alana Young-Henry says the Young Family Farm, 3819 Wayne Avenue, was started by her father, who originally bought the vacant lot next door to his home to use as a play area for his children.
As the children grew up, their mother’s garden began to expand into the unused area. The family started cultivating various crops in 2012 and soon, neighbors approached them for produce. Young-Henry thinks it was then that she realized the need to become an outlet for fresh vegetables to the community.
Growing has purpose
“Food insecurity was a big part of how we started,” said Young-Henry. “When we think about the various human needs that are impacting folks in the urban core, food insecurity is a community need that needs to be addressed.”
Initially, most customers lived nearby, and now she says they serve people from all around the metro.
“We try to treat people like they’re our family here, and I think that is something that people really like about urban farms. There is this closeness and connection with the farmers and the food that people really enjoy,” she said.
As the name implies, the Young Family Farm is run by eight family members who maintain their 1.25-acre farm.
Young-Henry hopes interest continues to spread throughout the metro. She sees that her customers are more mindful of where the produce they eat came from.
Darian Davis, co-founder of The Kansas City Urban Farm Co-Op, started his farm in 2016 because he wanted to create a place where residents could work together to grow their own food and become less dependent on stores.
“I wanted to start with the foundation of sovereignty and being able to own and control your basic needs for survival,” said Davis. “We have all these vacant lots in the city that we aren’t doing anything with. We need to get the land so we can grow and share.”
Davis and his wife, Nicolette Davis, manage the farm and hold monthly volunteer days where community members come and work on the land. The location is also home to vendor events and includes a stage for live performances. The couple believes that people today are rediscovering their green thumb while simultaneously taking journeys into better health and wellness.
“I think urban farming has become a lot trendier as of late but this is nothing new,” said Nicolette Davis. “We have to return to looking at our communities like our village and we need to take care of one another and make sure our people are being fed the right stuff.”
The largest hurdle many of these urban farmers face is a lack of adequate funding. While the federal and state governments have many programs and resources for rural farmers, unfortunately that is not the case for urban farms.
Hoping for help
Many urban farmers in the Kansas City area run their operations as part-time endeavors, and say they need more staff, materials and assistance to continue growing their farms and meeting the growing demand for fresh produce.
Owners of Sankara Farms, Rayn Tenney and his partner Izula Maximillen want to see more support from the city. The pair believe that urban farmers should be supported like their rural counterparts. With no shortage of obstacles, including the lack of available land, healthy soil fit for farming and clean water, many urban farms are hoping for a win: that the city starts to see the importance of operations like theirs.
“There are plenty of challenges, farming is challenging in general,” said Tenney. “There are a lot of policy concerns on a municipal level and then sometimes they don’t consider people in the urban core farmers, they might not reach the threshold to be a farmer that is supported through certain programs.”
The Sankara farm in south KC hosts several programs that teach residents to grow their own produce. One initiative is the “Feed Ourselves to Free Ourselves” project, an apprentice program that gives hands-on experience and educates people about urban farming.
“One of the things I have been passionate about is building a relationship with soil and remediating soil,” said Maximillen. “Also having access to soil testing and how expensive that can be and how necessary it is to know what is in your soil before you start to grow.”
Findings from a study published by the Appropriate Technology Transfer for Rural Areas on urban farming in 2016 show that many urban farmers are being propelled by creating a healthier community.
“While many urban farms focus on food production for profit, a majority of urban farms also incorporate social aspects into their goals. These include farming to increase food security — particularly in low-income neighborhoods — community building, and education.”
Rollen wants to see the city create new regulations that help expand their urban farming operations. He said he hopes the city will see the benefits of growing produce in urban communities where residents face food insecurity.
“When you create a balanced system of nature it has an effect on the whole community,” said Rollen. “Now we are developing these sustainable systems you will start to see more urban farms and more people waking up and supporting.”
Additional urban farms in Kansas City, Missouri include:
- KC Urban Farm Co-Op - 5051 E Gregory Blvd,
- The Young Family Farm - 3819 Wayne Ave.
- Ophelia’s Blue Vine Farm - 2416 Vine St.
- The Sankara Farms - 11301 E 139th St.
- Global One Urban Farming - 4409 Cypress Ave.
- Ivanhoe Farmer’s Market- 3700 Woodland Ave.
- Cultivate KC - 300 E 39th St.
- Urbavore Urban Farm - 5500 Bennington Ave.
- The Urban Farming Guys - 3700 E 12th St.
- Urban Bounty Farms, Inc. - 2816 Guinotte Ave.
- Green Acres Urban Farm - 1924 Van Brunt Blvd.
- Treehouse Urban Farm - 8105 Main St.
- Antioch Urban Growers - 2727 NE 44th St.
This story was originally published July 24, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
