Over the past few weeks, the Kansas City Food Circle (KCFC) and the Kansas City CSA Coalition (KCCSAC) have worked together to investigate the allegations against Bigg Blue Farm that questioned Stan and Carmen Biggs’ farming practices and market sales practices. As part of the investigation, three experienced local farmers and three members of the KCFC and KCCSAC leadership visited the farm and interviewed the Biggses at different times. Stan and Carmen Biggs cooperated with the investigation and supplied requested documentation. Bigg Blue Farm’s customers also provided valuable information.
Our conclusions are that Bigg Blue Farm is a legitimate vegetable farm and was growing a diverse variety of crops at least through the summer. The original allegations were raised too late in the season to provide conclusive evidence of an intent to mislead. However, in the course of the investigation, we did determine, through Stan Biggs’ own account, that Bigg Blue Farm did distribute peaches that were not organically grown in its community supported agriculture (CSA) shares. This latter activity violated the spirit, if not the letter, of the KCFC’s farmer pledge and the KCCSAC’s standards.
As a result, the KCFC and KCCSAC are placing Bigg Blue Farm on probation and will be monitoring their growing practices more closely. We will consider ending the probation if Bigg Blue Farm addresses the outstanding issues and agrees to return to full compliance.
Allegations against producer members of both organizations are rare. KCFC and KCCSAC producer members take great pride in providing Kansas City local, healthy and sustainable food. They also work hard to develop open, honest communication between themselves and their customers. Although the Kansas City food Circle and the Kansas City CSA Coalition are not regulatory bodies, they work hard to enhance that trusted relationship. Consumers should contact both organizations with any questions about how to eat locally and organically. A list of helpful questions consumers can ask farmers to learn more about where their food comes from and how it is grown is available on the Kansas City Food Circle website (www.kcfoodcircle.org) or by e-mailing coordinators@kcfoodcircle.org.
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A nonprofit, the Kansas City Food Circle has connected local eaters with local, organic, free-range food for over 20 years through events, education and public information. Please contact Dave Lawrence at 973-620-8427 for more information or visit us at www.kcfoodcircle.org.
The Kansas City CSA Coalition is a nonprofit organization that promotes Community Supported Agriculture initiatives in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Please contact Season Burnett at 876-237-8634 or csac.kc@gmail.com for more information, or visit us at www.kc-csac.org.
Biggs Blue Farm membership suspended
Biggs Blue Farm’s KCCSAC membership has been suspended pending an investigation into allegations regarding their growing practices. We will update you as soon as possible when we have more information available.
IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF Biggs Blue Farms’ CSA, please feel free to email us at csac.kc@gmail.com with questions and so we can contact you directly.
Thank you for your patience.
new documentary: “American Meat”
I just saw the trailer for this new documentary about the American meat system, starring Joel Salatin, the Shenandoah-valley farmer who has come to fame and fortune thanks to his philosophy of sustainable animal-husbandry and land-use practices as well as his continuing efforts to educate the public about the effects of America’s industrial food system. You might recognize him from the 2008 documentary “Food, Inc.”
I’m very much looking forward to the movie’s release; maybe we should get together and have a watch party!
We’re very excited that, at long last, the weekend of KC Cultivate’s Urban Farms and Gardens Tour has arrived — and we’re proud to say that some of our very own member CSA farmers (past and present) are participating!
NEW ROOTS FOR REFUGEES
Juniper Gardens Training Farm and Community Gardens
Cultivate Kansas City & Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas
N. 1st Street & Richmond Avenue, Kansas City, KS 66101
Cathy Bylinowski and Rachel Bonar, (913) 602-1181, cathyb@kccua.org
This Training Farm and Community Garden serves resettled refugees in the New Roots for Refugees program (co-sponsored by Catholic Charities of N.E. KCK) and residents of Juniper Gardens Apartment Complex, a public housing facility of the Housing Authority of KCK. The gardeners and farmers raise vegetables, herbs, and cut flowers on land reclaimed from demolished apartments. Organic fertilizer and soil amendment are added every year to improve soil fertility. Vegetables familiar to Americans, as well as unique varieties from the farmers’ home countries, are sold and enjoyed by customers at 8 markets across Metro area, including KCK Green Market at Juniper Gardens.
Activities: Live music by New Roots for Refugees farmers, Cooking demonstrations by farmers. Open Sunday.
Directions: From I-70 East, take exit 423, look for signs for 3rd Street. Follow 3rd Street north .9 miles to Richmond Avenue, turn right and look for the farm on your left. Look for tour parking signs.
Gibbs Road Community Farm & Burns’ Bee Farm
Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture
4223 Gibbs Road, Kansas City, KS 66106
913-831-2444, info@kccua.org, www.kccua.org
The Gibbs Road Community Farm sits on two acres in Kansas City, Kansas, growing food, farmers and community. It’s the home of Cultivate Kansas City (formerly known as the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture.) Each year the farmers harvest some 25,000 pounds of certified organic produce for market and CSA. Come see how tomatoes grown in the high tunnel out-perform the field tomatoes. Check out the farm’s no-till beds, raised beds and traditional tilled beds. Ask to see the non-stop production plan. Talk with an apprentice and find out why it’s never quiet at this farm…the interstate highway at its western border is only half the story at this bustling center for urban food production!
Activities: Live music Saturday and Sunday by Good Sam Club BBQ band (10:30-1PM) Cooking demonstration by Whole Foods, Bee colony observation with Bob Burns Honey, Children’s tent. Open Saturday & Sunday.
Directions: Take the Shawnee Drive exit off I-635, go east to 42nd, and turn left. Parkon 42nd where the signs say Farm Tour Parking. Then walk ¼ m. north on 42nd to the farm’s north entrance.
Representing the Kansas side of the State line are a couple of our past member farms: Blue Door Farm, Huns Garden, and Root Deep Urban Farm. From the UFGT’s website:
Blue Door Farm
Laura Christensen
3830 N. 55th Street, Kansas City, KS 66104
(816) 805-0362, christensen.
Laura Christensen has been farming for 5 years on her small, organic vegetable farm in Kansas City, KS. She grows on about an acre of land, which includes a high tunnel and greenhouse (new this year!). She leases the land, which is located on a former family vegetable farm that includes a great old barn, a few bee hives and a very vocal donkey. You can find her produce at the Saturday farmers market in Brookside or through a CSA share.
Activities: Live music by Dog Tree (10AM-1PM), cooking demonstration, carrot-feeding of donkey & horse. Open Sunday.
Directions: From I-635 N. take exit #6 to Parallel Parkway, go .2 miles. Go west onto Parallel Parkway, go .6 miles. Continue on Parallel Drive, go .3 mi. Continue on Parallel Parkway, go .7 miles. Turn north on N. 55th Street, go 1.9 mi to 3830 N. 55th on the left.Park in driveway or in the Little Darling Day Care parking lot just south of the farm.
Huns Garden
4730 Metropolitan Avenue, Kansas City, KS 66106
Pov Huns, (913) 961-1561
Pov and his family have been on each tour since they began in 2005, and their farm is still growing strong. If you have not yet been to their place, do yourself a favor and see how they weave a lovely tapestry of vegetables, herbs and flowers on this spacious acreage. Tulips, lilies, iris, zinnia & cosmos grace the landscape along with vegetables. Pov will talk with you about traditional Hmong ways of growing and using vegetables and herbs for health and nutrition. You just might catch his excitement for vegetables and herbs with medicinal qualities, much of which he learned from his grandmother.
Activities: Live music by Carl Prather, Clarinet & Vocals (afternoon), fresh vegetables and flower arrangements for sale, cooking demonstration. Open Sunday.
Directions: Off I-635, take the Metropolitan exit and go west .5 miles. Look for Farms & Gardens Tour signs on your right. Park in a large construction parking lot at 4700 Metropolitan Avenue. Additional parking is available at 4710 Metropolitan Avenue. Do NOT park on the street.
Root Deep Urban Farm
3219 E. 19th Street, Kansas City, MO 64127
Sherri Harvel, (816) 924-3532, rduf@copper.net, www.rootdeepurbanfarm.com
Root Deep Urban Farm is on the tour for the 3rd time and every tour her garden gets lovelier. She supplies vegetables for two markets and runs a small CSA program for a few lucky folks off a ¼ acre corner lot. Sherri has been instrumental in creating a path for others in the city to grow food where perhaps no food has grown before. She works hard and hopes hard to keep the growing going in the city. Her success in reclaiming vacant land for production of urban food has been a valuable example for others and she started it all by knocking on the neighbors’ doors and asking “How would you feel if I were to put in a vegetable garden down the street?”
Activities: Live music by June Holte & Checkered Past. Open Sunday.
Directions: From I-70, take the Exit 4/18th Street exit, go east on 18th to College, turn left on College to the intersection of 19th & College. The farm is on the corner. Park in the open corner lot or on street.
There are LOADS of other urban homesteads, community gardens, schoolyard gardens, and the like to see this weekend, so we hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity and fine weather and see what they’re doing! For the first time, the UFGT spans both Saturday AND Sunday this year (some locations are open either day, or both; check the UFGT website to make sure), from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at any of the stops on the Tour: $8 for individuals, $16 for families, or $5/person for groups of 10 or more. Tickets are good for BOTH Saturday and Sunday.
our beloved badseeds
photo credit: Emily Akins