High Tunnel
Pioneers
The Kansas City Community Farm
Kansas State Horticulture Research and Extension Center
Wild Onion Farms
Fahrmeier Bros Produce
Learn about one of the hottest farming tools to
extend the growing season: high tunnels. Visit a certified organic
urban farm with a CSA business, located in Kansas City’s
Argentine neighborhood. Tour a center of excellence in high
tunnel research and extension at Kansas State, showcasing single-span
and multi-bay models that cover 27,000 square feet. Learn from
the earliest adopters: a cut flower farm that sells direct to
flower arrangers and a fruit and vegetable growing using 2 acres
of Haygrove Tunnels. This tour will return at approximately
1:15 PM to drop off participants that need to return early.
The bus will then depart again for Fahrmeier Bros Produce at
1:30 PM, and make its final return at 4:30.
Flowers, Mushrooms, Cream and Butterflies
Wild Onion Farms
Wakarusa Farms
Landaria Farm
Pendleton’s Country Market
This four-stop farm tour will show you the latest
innovations, practices and strategies for producing and marketing
value-added farm products. You’ll visit a cut-flower farm,
mushroom fields, and a cheese maker where you can see goats
being milked and cheeses in various stages of draining, brining
and pressing. Taste samples of feta, mozzarella, Swiss, camembert
and cheddar fresh from the aging cave. Tour a farm/market specializing
in hydroponics and showcasing a “butterfly bio-villa”.
Returns at approximately 3:00 PM.
Good Stewardship, Good Profit
Bradley Ranch
Soaring Eagle Farms and Acme Grain
Amy’s Meats
Learn from on-the-ground experience about best
practices in land stewardship, raising cattle, and value-added
meat and grain products. Bradley Ranch has an integrated, holistic
management plan. Soaring Eagle will showcase its home-milled
grain and animal operation. Amy will explain her direct-market
meat business that serves 600 families with high quality, locally
raised and sustainably produced beef. Returns at approximately
3:00 PM.
Back to top
Experience the Tallgrass Prairie
The Konza Biological Research Station
Rannells Flinthills Prairie Preserve
Visit pristine tallgrass prairie reserves. Learn
about their fascinating biology from leading experts. The Konza
Biological Research Station is a National Science Foundation
Long Term Ecological Research site owned by the Nature Conservancy.
The Rannells Flinthills Prairie Preserve is a 2,105-acre tallgrass
prairie preserved for the sole use and benefit of range research.
During the two-hour bus ride, watch PBS’s “Last
Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie.” And put on your hiking
shoes, weather permitting. Returns at approximately 5:00 PM.
Local Chefs, Restaurants and Grocery Stores
Deer Creek Hen House Market
Local Burger
The Community Mercantile
Tour the Hen House Market, a unique collaboration
between family-owned Ball Food Stores and farmer group Good
Natured Family Farms. Learn about its “Buy Fresh Buy Local
Campaign” and sample local foods. Check out Local Burger,
the brainchild of chef entrepreneur Hilary Brown, who offers
healthy fast food in a casual environment. Its eclectic menu
has been featured in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Gourmet.
Also on tour: The Community Mercantile, which is committed to
providing an outstanding selection of natural and organic regional
foods to its community. Returns at approximately 3:00 PM.
Crops in the City
Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture
Huns Garden
JJ Farms
Troostwood Youth Gardens
Urban agriculture is alive and well and prospering
in Kansas City. This four-stop city tour takes you to a certified
organic vegetable farm that researches and demonstrates urban
production practices. Visit a Hmong-run transitional organic
farm that grows hard-to-find specialty vegetables and herbs,
serving many immigrants – and a “backyard”
CSA that leases half-acres from neighbors and feeds 40 customers.
Also on the tour: a program where youth do it all from composting
to planting to picking. Returns at approximately 3:00 PM.
Back to top
Northwest Missouri: Vegetables, Meat and
Amish Auction
Snow’s Heritage Acres
Freeman Gingerich vegetable operation
Jamesport Produce Auction
Rains Natural Meats
Visit the Amish shareholder-owned Jamesport produce
auction and an Amish vegetable grower using high tunnels and
a wood-heated greenhouse. Also on the tour are other sustainable
operations, including a 50-member CSA and Rains Natural Meats.
Please, no close-up photos of the Amish are permitted. Returns
at approximately 4:00 PM.
Pasture-Based Livestock Production
Forage Systems Research Center
Visit the internationally renowned FSRC, a center
researching forage systems for all classes of beef cattle. Its
pioneering work on forage ecology has received significant recognition
from state and federal agencies. Learn about the Green Hills
Farm Project, a farmer-to-farmer networking group to improve
grass-based livestock farming, and the project’s mobile
poultry processing unit. Hear a dairy farmer about his successful
management intensive grazing techniques. Returns at approximately
5:00 PM.
Marketing: Cattle and Nuts
Tom Craft, cattle rancher
Missouri Northern Pecan Growers
Earlswood Dairy
MO Dairy Grazing Project
Learn from experience in the cattle and nut business.
Tom Craft has raised cattle for 40 years and direct-marketed
beef for more than 15. He has perfected a management intensive
grazing system that keeps his cattle healthy and overhead costs
down. Visit the Missouri Northern Pecan Growers, formed by growers
to develop pecan markets, including premium certified organic
markets. Also on tour: a 500-cow intensive rotational grazing
dairy operation and the University of Missouri Dairy Grazing
Project. Returns at approximately 4:00 PM.
Back to top
Good Business: Diversified Livestock and
Meats Strategies
Alma Meats
WoodMood Farms
Dieckhoff Farms
Learn from successful business strategies. Alma
Meats is a major employer of the tiny town of Alma, and now
offers more than 50 value-added meat products to high-end retailers
and consumers in Kansas City and beyond. The Wood family's diversified
farm has been producing and locally marketing certified organic
beef, chickens, eggs, fruit, vegetables and row crops since
1994. When hog prices took a nose dive, the Dieckhoff family
retrofitted barns with water tanks and began producing bluegill
fingerlings for sale to large outfitters and others as feeder
fish. Returns at approximately 3:00 PM.
Milk and Bread Tour
Shatto Milk Company
Bread of Life Bakery
See success and innovation in value-added products.
Visit the Shatto Dairy, which has a glass-walled milk operation
so that tourists can see where milk comes from, and how it’s
processed and packaged. The dairy bottles in glass and markets
various milk products to local and state grocers. Also on tour:
an old-fashioned bakery that has tapped into a market hungry
for natural products, including cookies and rolls from organically
grown and freshly ground whole grains. Returns at approximately
3:00 PM.
Veggies, Bread and Wine
Rayville Baking Company,
Fair Share Farm
Jowler Creek Vineyard & Winery
Bring back the good ol’ days when you visit
a baking company with made-from-scratch goods using organic
ingredients, artisan sausages, free-range chicken, pasture-raised
pork and much more. Find out how and why a fourth generation
row-crop and cattle farmer converted to an organic vegetable
farm and CSA with 200 plus varieties of more than 50 different
vegetables and herbs. Visit the award-winning Jowler Creek Winery,
a cattle and row crop farm that is now a 3,000-vine vineyard.
Returns at approximately 3:00 PM.
Back to top
Top