Greetings From Tom Buller

Greetings,

I’m excited to introduce myself to the Kansas Rural Center community. I know some of you already, as I have a history of engagement with KRC. My family and I moved to the Lawrence area in 2006, intent on starting a vegetable farm. I got my start farming through the Growing Growers program. I didn’t know it at the time, but KRC was one of the founding partners in developing that program and continues in its involvement to this day. After we got started growing, our farm sold many of our vegetables to the Rolling Prairie Farmers Alliance, another group that started with KRC involvement, which continues to supply locally produced food to Northeast Kansas today. Six years ago, I took on a role at KRC covering specialty crop projects and high tunnel education. So KRC has played a key role in my life here in Kansas. For the past four and a half years, I’ve had the privilege of working at K-State Research and Extension as the horticulture extension agent for Douglas County. Along the way I’ve been involved in the Lawrence Farmers Market, the KC Food Hub, and other groups. If I haven’t run into you along that journey, I hope to meet you soon.

The path I followed to get here began long ago at the University of Minnesota when I was studying rural development and American agriculture. While American agriculture is immensely productive, there are many costs to that productivity. High production lowers prices. Increasing input costs and land prices can squeeze farm operations out of business. Environmental impacts from decreasing diversity in production systems and landscapes, heavy soil disturbance and reliance on chemical inputs have devastated the soils, waterways and other ecosystems of America. Increasing reliance on capital and technology have decreased the needs for labor on the farm and, in turn, led to the hollowing out of many rural communities as people leave to seek opportunity elsewhere. While at U of M, I focused my studies on the destruction of Black farming communities. In addition to the challenges facing American agriculture at large, Black farmers are also faced by the destructive power of systemic racism.

While it can be difficult to see the opportunities in our food and farm system amidst learning about the unjust and inequitable foundation of this system, it is essential to find individuals and organizations who are also looking at these immense challenges and standing up to do something about them. I continue to look to those who have long worked to build a positive vision for the future, such as the Black Farmers and Agriculturalist Association who stood up to demand justice in the wake of Pigford v. Veneman, organic farmers and sustainable agriculture groups throughout the Midwest, and the Concerned Citizens of Tillery. Their efforts and organizing inspire me to engage these challenges in a new way and work towards building a new agriculture, from the work I do on my own farm to the work I am honored to do going forward for the Kansas Rural Center.

I’m thankful to work for an organization that has been a statewide leader in sustainable farming, local food systems and supporting thriving Kansas communities for over 40 years. Hopefully, like me, you read the mission of the Kansas Rural Center, “To promote the long-term health of the land and its people through research, education and advocacy that advance an economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just food and farming system,” and find inspiration to engage. If so, please reach out, we’d love to hear from you.

Sincerely,

Tom Buller