Calvin Adams, Kansas Ranch and Range Internship Program coordinator

Ranch ownership transitions can be complex, involving issues such as generational needs, tax issues, social attitudes, and recreational landowner competition.  In an effort to help simplify the process, Calvin Adams of Beloit, KS, Cade Rensink of Ada, KS, and Ted Alexander of Medicine Lodge, KS, and the Kansas Ranch and Range...

Jerry and Jane Wohletz received a NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher grant to do on-farm research trials of different weights of row cover cloth for berry production. Since the Wohletz’s were the first to try plasticulture in the region, researchers and specialists were previously unsure how heavier or lighter weights of row cover would affect berry production. For that winter at least, a one-ounce row cover produced the best results.

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Source: Lawrence Journal World, Jennifer Smith

At Wohletz Farm Fresh, 1831 North 1100 Road in rural Lawrence, strawberries are about to hit the big...

Source: High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal

The first in a series of workshops that will focus on "Food Hubs and Co-ops: How local family farms can feed our communities" will be offered April 6, 2013 9am-5pm in the Highland Community College's Klinefelter Barn, 1774 230th St., Hiawatha, Kan. The workshop will provide people who grow and enjoy locally produced food with information on how to form partnerships and food cooperatives.

"This workshop was instantly popular, and we realized we needed to develop separate workshops for the food hub and food co-op topics," said Mary Howell,...

This news story features SARE grantees, Maryam Hjersted, Steve Moring, and Charles NovoGradac, who received an NCR-SARE Farmer Rancher grant in 2009 to establish permaculture training centers and provide farm training sites for the practice of permaculture principles. The SARE grant gave the group the resources to create an effective permaculture educational program and promotional venue through their website. It supported the development of resources for the establishment of training sites for permaculture in the Kansas and Missouri area.

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Source: Lawrence...

Kaw Permaculture and the Kansas Permaculture Institute have announced their 5th Permaculture Design Certification Course. Classes begin Wednesday, September 5, 6-9pm and continue weekly until December 8 at The Learning for Life Center, 1709 S.W. Randolph Ave. Topeka, KS.

Learn how a local sustainable design system known as Permaculture promises to create an ecologically sound and economically abundant way of living which neither pollutes nor exploits our natural resources and planet.

This course consists of 72 hours of classroom and hands-on field experience leading to a Permaculture...

NCR-SARE grant recipient and Administrative Council member, Edgar Hicks, appeared in a special episode of Nebraska Stories, commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the Homestead Act. 

On May 15,1862, the Homestead Act was passed and signed into law. The act established a three-fold homestead acquisition process: filing an application, improving the land, and filing for deed of title. Any U.S. citizen, or intended citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S. Government could file an application and lay claim to 160 acres of surveyed Government land. For the next 5 years, the homesteader...

The news story below features Dan Nagengast, a speaker at the Kansas Sustainable Agriculture Conference, which was sponsored, in part, by SARE.

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Source: Insurance News

Agriculture is a fast-moving train and no one knows exactly what's up around the bend. For Dan Nagengast, reconnecting food production with food consumption is critical to keeping that train on the track.

Speaking at the Kansas Rural Center's recent Sustainable Agriculture Conference in Emporia, Nagengast laid out compelling concerns about the current industrialized approach to feeding the planet in light of a long list...

The story below highlights the Kansas Rural Center's 2011 Sustainable Agriculture Conference. The conference is co-sponsored by the Kansas SARE Professional Development Program.
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Source: Kansas Farmer

The Kansas Rural Center's 2011 Sustainable Agriculture Conference will focus on food and farm opportunities and the optimism for expanding local and regional food and farming in Kansas. The conference, titled "Options, Opportunities and Optimism: Cultivating Our Food and Farm Future," will take place Saturday, Nov. 19, from 9 to 5 p.m. at Flint Hills Technical...