MCPHERSON, Kan. — The third installment of the Kansas Farmer Veteran Coalition & Kansas Farmers Union Fall Farm Tour Series will begin at ProHoe Manufacturing (204 S Munden Ave. Munden, KS 66959) ProHoe hand crafts over 60 tools out of recycled agricultural disc blades and are in use in gardens from Washington to Florida. Thousands are in use by cotton growers, seed corn producers, and sugar beet and grape producers throughout the United States and Canada.
The group will then proceed to C & C Farms (downtown Scandia, KS 66966) which was established in January 2009 with the purpose of producing fresh produce year-round utilizing high tunnels. C & C is unique in that they grow their produce inside the city limits of Scandia on vacant city lots. C & C sells wholesale to other small retailers, at three-to-four Farmers Markets weekly during the summer, and one Farmers Market year-round. They also have a small retail store in Scandia and deliver CSA directly to local customers.
The third and final stop will be The Depot Market (1101 30 Road (U.S. Highway 36) Courtland, KS 66939). In 1988 Dan Kuhn began planting the Depot Orchard. All through the 90’s he farmed both the new orchard and the Applematic orchard 4 miles north. As time passed, interest in local apples began to wane and habits of canning and preserving changed. As this became apparent, Dan started growing vegetables adding watermelon and cantaloupe along the way and as time went on the vegetable and melon sales outperformed apple sales. The wholesale and retail business has grown over the years and so has the need for workers to harvest the crops. From 2007 to present The Depot Market has been using the H2A program, which allows foreign workers to legally work in the US.
A local foods lunch sponsored by Frontier Farm Credit will be served, followed by a presentation by Katelyn Stull, food safety associate with K-State Research & Extension on timely food safety topics.
This set of tours is a collaboration of Kansas Farmers Union, Kansas Farmer Veteran Coalition, Kansas Grazing Lands Coalition, K-State Research & Extension, and the Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops. All tours are open to everyone, and registration is requested to make adequate plans for lunch and handouts.
For more information on this tour, and to register, please visit www.kansasfarmersunion.org/
— Kansas Farmers Union