May 07, 2025
By Rick McNary
It was five years ago on April 28 that I launched the Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) Facebook group after my wife told me the meat counter was empty at the grocery store, a result of supply chain interruptions due to COVID-19.
We had just dined on beef we purchased from a local farm, and I knew they, along with other farmers and ranchers I had met while writing their stories for Kansas Living magazine, had more to sell. As I created the Facebook group, the purpose was, “To connect you to the wonderful farm and ranch families of Kansas so you can purchase the food they raise.”
More than 5,000 people joined in the first 24 hours and it was a wild-west, social media rodeo. In the first week, more than 50,000 members joined, many discovering for the first time they could purchase food straight from the farm down the road.
However, the keyboard warriors started attacking farmers, each other, the government, politicians and a few came after me. I felt like a little kid seeing a plug in a dam and wondering what would happen if I pulled it. I pulled it, the dam burst and suddenly I was drowning in a social media flood.
Rescued from the river
Meagan Cramer and Nancy Brown of Kansas Farm Bureau (KFB) came to my rescue. I had been writing for Meagan for five years for Kansas Living magazine and had told her I was starting Shop Kansas Farms so, as she watched it go crazy, asked if I needed help. Oh my, did I need help!
Shop Kansas Farms does not exist today without Meagan Cramer and Nancy Brown. They put the infrastructure in place to make sure people behaved and created helpful guides for consumers. Soon, Olivia Fletcher joined and those three terrific people are the reason SKF still thrives.
Keeping it civil
One of the most challenging aspects has been to keep it civil. Although some have argued they can say whatever they want because of freedom of speech, I say, “Think of it like this: I created this site so it’s like a house I built. If you come into my house and start trashing me, insulting my children, kicking my dog and disparaging my wife, I will ask you to leave. You are not free to be hateful here. You want to be hateful? Go start your own site.”
Staying true to our mission
There has been a temptation to “mission creep” by allowing farmers to sell things other than food such as equipment, feed, crafts they make, or live animals. We also have consumers asking, “Does anyone out here have a rabbit we can come pet?” Our site is about buying food from Kansas farms.
Farmers, ranchers and growers have grown their businesses
Behind the scenes of SKF, we had a lot of decisions about what was allowed on our site and our motto was to prosper and protect farmers. My greatest joy is when a farmer tells me they made a lot of money because of Shop Kansas Farms.
We provide easier access to find local food
We have learned that farmers are great at growing food, and we’re here to help them market and advertise. We help make it easy for consumers to find them.
Currently, we have nearly 170,000 members in the Facebook group and that number grows each week. That would be like filling Arrowhead stadium twice with consumers wanting to purchase from farmers. Not only do we have the SKF Facebook group, but we also have a website that is like an online shopping mall so people can find farmers near them. We don’t sell the farmer’s products, but we give them a space, for free, where people can easily find them.
People have fallen in love with farmers and ranchers
I began to fall in love with Kansas farmers and ranchers when I began writing about them in 2015. I often had conversations with Meagan about ways in which I could help people fall in love with them like I have. Their values of family, faith, community, hard work, hope and producing the food we eat are the threads that ties the fabric of our state together. Agriculture is the No. 1 business in Kansas by contributing $57 billion to our economy and the best thing, they feed us.
Our plans to make access easier for consumers to purchase from and prosper farmers
In addition to our Facebook group and website, we’ve added a new tool to make access easier through our Harvest Hub model. We have launched the Border Queen Harvest Hub in Caldwell, thanks to a grant from the Patterson Family Foundation and we’re launching the Sedgwick County Harvest Hub, thanks to a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation. A Harvest Hub is a community-based approach that creates economic opportunities for farms and ranches by establishing both a digital hub (website) and a physical system of production, processing and distribution of local food that can be purchased by local, regional and national consumers.
Our goal is to make more people fall in love with Kansas farmers, ranchers and growers, which will in turn, grow their respective businesses.