KRC is led by and for farmers and ranchers who strive to help each other and their rural or urban communities grow a healthy food and farming system here at home, in Kansas. We envision a future of thriving family farms, revitalized communities, a clean environment, healthy local and regional food systems, and viable livelihoods for farmers, including opportunities for the next generation who will grow our food.

Mission

The Kansas Rural Center (KRC) is a non-profit organization that promotes the long-term health of the land and its people through research, education, and advocacy. The KRC cultivates grassroots support for public policies that encourage family farming and stewardship of the soil and water. The KRC is committed to economically viable, environmentally sound, and socially sustainable agriculture and rural culture.

KRC periodically conducts research with partners including universities and colleges, farm, environmental and conservation organizations, and others to advance knowledge that will empower Kansas farmers and ranchers to adopt diversified farming systems, and we connect farmers and communities with research projects.

Current research projects include:

“Transitioning Farms and Ranches From One Family to the Next: Improving Farm Transitions with Better Programs and Services”– NCR-SARE Research and Education Grant; Collaboration with Indiana University. Identifying best management practices for transitioning farms between parties.

“Civic Agriculture for Civic Health: Southwest Kansas Food Assessment” – A combination of research and grassroots dialogue will produce a food assessment for Southwest Kansas, similar to KRC’s Feeding Kansas Report, Dec. 2014.

To learn more about our projects, please see the Projects tab in the menu at the top of the page.

From our earliest days helping farmers through the 1980’s Farm Crisis, and conducting on-farm research into sustainable farming practices, the Kansas Rural Center has provided education, resources and information to farmers, ranchers and others involved in creating healthy farm and food systems.

Through workshops, farm tours, our annual Farm and Food Conference, our publications and online resources, we provide education and information on ecologically-based farming practices, specialty crop production and marketing, enhancing biodiversity, making farm transitions, grazing management, conservation practices and principles, pollinator conservation, risk management strategies, integrating livestock into cropping systems, alternative marketing strategies, marketing, and farm and food policy and programs to enhance all of the above.

Recent education opportunities have included farm beginnings training, a moveable high tunnel construction workshop at Johnson County Community College; a series of Women in Farming workshops held across Kansas; and Feeding Kansas Dinner & Dialogue Forums. To learn more about these recent efforts and to access resources from them, please visit To learn more about our projects, please see the Projects tab in the menu at the top of the page.

Our advocacy work focuses on advancing a diversified, ecologically-based farm and food system and supporting the farmers who grow healthy food to feed Kansans. Through grassroots mobilization, our policy publications, and involvement in state and national-level farm policy conversations and initiatives, we work to support independent family farms, healthy rural communities and a safe and healthy food supply for all.

Current Advocacy Efforts

Integrated Voter Education - Funded by the Kansas Health Foundation, this project is a statewide effort aimed at increasing civic engagement. KRC works to educate and empower voters, particularly those in rural communities, around issues that impact human and community health, food access, and right livelihoods.

Policy Watch – Legislative and Policy Watch Weekly E-Updates offers updates and alerts during the Kansas legislative sessions so that constituents can contact their legislators or attend hearings.

National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition – The Kansas Rural Center is a member of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which is an alliance of grassroots organizations that advocates for federal policy reform to advance the sustainability of agriculture, food system, natural resources and rural communities.

“Community Food Solutions: Civic Agriculture for Civic Health in Kansas” – Kansas Health Foundation; This three-year project, started July 2016, will continue our work in mobilizing grassroots efforts that better incorporate Kansas farms into the food supply chain, increasing access to healthy, locally-grown foods for all Kansans.

From its inception, the Kansas Rural Center’s work has been guided by the following basic principles, which prompt the questions “who benefits?” “at whose expense?” and “what are the hidden costs?”

* A diversified family size farming system based on widespread land ownership and control of resources should prevail over industrial agriculture.

* Land ownership carries with it the responsibility of stewardship and that responsibility rests with society as a whole.

*Agriculture must be environmentally and ecologically sound, and provide for the self-renewal of our natural resources of soil and water – and people on the land.

* Farm policy should not benefit the few at the expense of the many; it should be socially responsible.

* Farm policy is food policy. How and what we eat and how our food system is organized affects our physical environment, the broader social environment, and ultimately our independence and democracy itself. As farmers and consumers we cannot pursue our narrow self interest at the expense of the hungry at home or abroad.

* The solutions to the dilemmas of agriculture must begin on individual farms and in individual families, and in local communities.

* And finally, that grassroots involvement of an informed people must determine the direction of our cultural and technological choices.