Shop Kansas Farms Continues Growing with Regional Food Hubs

Launched by Kansas Farm Bureau member Rick McNary as a Facebook page during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shop Kansas Farms continues to grow, with a goal now of developing regional food systems.

Shop Kansas Farms

McNary started Shop Kansas Farms in 2020 to help farmers who had lost their traditional markets due to COVID-19-related school, university, restaurant and hotel closures. He was also looking to provide a farm-to-fork connection for consumers hungry for local farm products, especially in areas where shoppers faced empty grocery store meat counters. In 2022, Kansas Farm Bureau purchased Shop Kansas Farms, with McNary still very much involved, and is expanding the program to include regional food systems that encompass the production, processing and distribution of food products in a local area. These “Harvest Hubs” involve entire communities including farmers, processors, distributors, retailers and consumers.

Border Queen Harvest Hub

In 2023, a meeting between staff from Shop Kansas Farms and the Patterson Family Foundation resulted in a nearly $300,000 grant from the foundation, allowing Shop Kansas Farms to create its first Harvest Hub. The grant provided funding for a website, an executive director and two years of consultation from Kansas Farm Bureau and Shop Kansas Farms. The money also allows the hub to host monthly regional town halls.

Understanding the importance of community support for the first hub, Shop Kansas Farms early on sought out community leaders and engaged with the Sumner County economic development director and the county commissioners. The commissioners’ endorsement of the idea came with funding for a part-time staffer to help build the hub’s contact resource management system.

Since most of the hub’s biggest supporters were located in the city of Caldwell, nicknamed the “Border Queen” for its proximity to the Oklahoma border, the hub was named the Border Queen Harvest Hub.

Buzz Around the Hub

There are now more than 150 farms and ranches accessible via the Border Queen Harvest Hub’s robust website. The hub also brings the food system to life via town halls, where consumers and farmers can learn more about the hub, and their “Market of Farms,” which brings vendors and consumers from all over the state together to make local foods available for purchase. And farm tours showcase seasonal offerings at some of the hub’s participating farms.

Sedgwick County Harvest Hub

With a nearly $300,000 grant from the Kansas Health Foundation, Shop Kansas Farms is launching the next Harvest Hub in Sedgwick County, in which Wichita, Kansas’ largest city, is located.

Community Connections

Each of the hubs will be funded and launched separately, but they’re all as much about community connections as they are about supporting farmers and ranchers. The digital component allows consumers to follow the steps between farm and fork, which enhances food system transparency, fosters trust and encourages community engagement. It also instills local pride and, with its focus on local purchasing, helps keep the regional food system resilient and growing. The hubs’ events, like town halls, farm tours and the markets of farms provide another dimension to the overall community experience.