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Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture
by Dawn 
This quick stop on our way to MJ Ranch was a lot of information compacted into a little bit of time, quite like the KCCUA itself. A whole lotta farm on a small two acre urban lot. It’s amazing what they do here! KCCUA is a nonprofit organization here in Kansas City helping urban farmers to “run strong and productive businesses.” Their goals are:
- Improve Resident’s access to fresh and healthy food
- Develop stronger communities
- Build sustainable and productive urban farms
- Educate community members and policy makers about benefits of urban agriculture
We were given a tour of the certified organic demonstration farm by Dan Dermitzel. He told us about their programs and their CSA (from the 2 acre farm) while showing us a vegetable I’ve never seen growing!  Okra- it was beautiful! These tightly wound unopened flowers will open, fall off, and presto- okra! Dan also crawled out into a patch of sweet potatoes, reached in and pulled us up a real good looking one.
The programs here are intended to support the entrepreneurial urban farmer. They are also in the process of planning an incubator program in a public park, we should all check back to their website to see what progress they have made. It sounds like they might be adding one more wonderful program to their already inspiring list.
We were joined on this tour by Lisa Markley (who happens to be on their board), Sarah (who is a CSA member here at KCCUA), Dave Lawrence, Jim Markley, and others.
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