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Immigrants--America's Newest Farmers

KCCUA Connects with Immigrant Farmers to Exchange Information and Build Stronger Farms

Thanks to all who attended our 1st Immigrant and Refugee Farmer Education Day on December 1 at the Korean Presbyterian Church of Kansas in Kansas City, KS.  It was a terrific day.  Click here for the Book of Proceedings (Korean, Hmong and Spanish translations available), some slide shows shown that day as well as pictures of the event.

Funded by a grant from the North Central Risk Management Education Center, KCCUA has begun work on a project to connect with immigrant farmers throughout the Kansas City Metro.  As our city's population becomes more diverse, so does the local community of urban farmers.  Urban growers come from all around the world. Some operate very small farms behind their homes growing herbs or greens for small specialty grocery stores; others operate farms of several acres supplying a wide range of produce to local farmers markets and CSAs.  We believe that the knowledge these farmers bring from their native countries is potentially valuable to all growers in Kansas City.  As we are developing a new kind of small-scale agriculture under increasingly extreme weather conditions we can all benefit from the experiences growers have had under different conditions across the globe.

Our project involves four steps:

1. Outreach to immigrant farmers across the Metro

2. A one-day workshop and conference on vegetable production, marketing and related topics.  December 1, 2007.

3. A trip to the Great Plains Vegetable Growers Conference in St. Joseph, MO, in January 2008

4. Farm visits and technical assistance throughout the 2007 and 2008 growing seasons.

If you are or know immigrants (including American-born, bicultural individuals) who are farming or interested in starting a small urban farm, please make sure to refer them to the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture.  We are looking forward to connecting with people of as many nationalities as possible.  For additional information about immigrant farming visit Heifer International's National Immigrant Farming Initiative website.