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Chuck Adamson
Senior Information Specialist
573-882-6843
adamsoncw@missouri.edu
Published: Oct. 26, 2005
Story Source: Mary Hendrickson, (573) 882-7463
James Quinn, (573) 882-7511
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Troostwood Gardens, a half-acre organic garden in a downtown Kansas City, Mo., neighborhood, is not your typical small farm in the making.
Ericka Wright is no typical farmer.
Disabled from muscular dystrophy, Wright motors around her gardens - it’s not quite big enough to be deemed a farm yet - in a scooter. She cultivates peppers and other produce in a raised-bed planter. Her nephew Justin Burrell, 16, works the larger vegetable crop rows that surround the family’s two-story home. He spends his days when he’s not being home schooled hoeing weeds, digging up sweet potatoes, planting seed and picking all sorts of produce, from lettuce and mustard greens to tomatoes and eggplants.
Wright, Burrell and three other family members just completed their first year of the Growing Growers apprenticeship program. Teamed with established organic and natural-method farmers, new and aspiring growers are taught book knowledge, work the fields and create real-life marketing and business plans for small farms in the Kansas City area. The Wrights plan to double the size of their growing operation next year.
"We desperately need more market growers in the Kansas City area. We don’t have enough growers to supply all the need now," said Mary Hendrickson, an assistant professor of rural sociology with the University of Missouri Extension and a Growing Growers board member. "We’re trying to help them discover how to get into farming and figure out what the best markets and niches are for them."
Wright’s family started Troostwood Gardens on their property a couple years ago as an activity for neighborhood youths. The area was a haven for petty crimes like vandalism, symptomatic of bored teens, Wright said.
"It was something to keep them busy," she said of the garden. "We first started this as an entrepreneurial program to cut crime here."
So far Wright said they’re financially breaking even on the project, but she hopes to begin earning a profit next year. She brings in from $75 to $100 each Saturday at a market held outside the Wright home on Paseo Boulevard and 52nd Street. Harvest runs 20 or more weeks annually. Money goes toward seed, the water bill and paying neighborhood teens stipends to work during the summer.
"I don’t know if it will turn a good profit as much as it will make better neighbors," Wright said.
The family’s mentor is JJ Farms owner John Kaiahua, a retired Marine Corps Vietnam War veteran who began growing in 1980 and actively selling his products a few years after that. The Hawaiian native owns about 2 acres of land in a Kansas City neighborhood about a 10-minute drive from the Wright’s home.
He said a common mistake made by new growers is planting the wrong crops. For example, many plant strawberries because they’re popular, he said. But strawberries are high maintenance crops and prone to failure here after a few years, Kaiahua said.
Kaiahua sells his produce to a community-supported agriculture group, or CSA as it’s called, and to wholesalers and restaurant chefs seeking fresh naturally grown produce. His CSA is a group of 41 singles and families who pay a seasonal fee, starting at several hundred dollars for singles, to get Kaiahua’s harvests delivered to their homes once a week for 20 weeks.
Kaiahua grows a variety of crops. His specialty is colored sweet peppers.
"People ask me ‘How do I get into this?" Kaiahua said of organic farming. "I tell them you have to learn how to grow. You have to know your markets."
Katherine Kelly, a farmer and the Growing Growers project manager, said neighbors are buying products from the Wrights and learning about natural growing methods in the process.
Kelly said the family was unique because they were already running Troostwood Gardens, a commercial operation in the making.
"John Kaiahua and the apprenticeship training are helping them develop their gardening skills into farming skills," Kelly said.
People interested in becoming apprentices can go to www.growinggrowers.org for an application. Applications are being taken now for next year’s program starting in January. Participants can work as paid full-time apprentices or part-time volunteer apprentices.
Growing Growers is meant for people interested in starting a career as a commercial grower. A $105,000 federal grant, meant to help fund the program for three years, was recently renewed for the coming three years.
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| Ericka Wright and several of her family members are learning how to become organic farmers through the Growing Growers program. Wright, who has muscular dystrophy, started a half-acre growing operation at her Kansas City home as a constructive activity for neighborhood youth. Photo credit: MU photo by Chuck Adamson. |
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| Mary Wright inspects a pepper plant at her small farm at her Kansas City home. She, her daughter Ericka and other family members started a half-acre organic growing operation to help neighborhood youths. Photo credit: MU photo by Chuck Adamson. |
