Rick McNary

Farmers, ranchers and growers have many enemies. From the time they plant that seed in the ground until it is harvested, numerous perils come their way. One might be insects so small and hard to detect that a farmer can lose hundreds of acres of crops before they even see the pests. Another might be too much rain or insufficient rain at the right times. Yet another might be weeds like the pigweed, which has 500,000 to 700,000 seeds in each head and can grow so tall it keeps the regular crop from receiving sunshine.

My phone rang at 2 a.m., and the voice on the other end was desperate.

“Pastor,” the man groaned. “I’m going to end it all. I left the door unlocked. I want you to come take care of my remains.”

It was in the early 1990’s and, although he didn’t attend the church I served, when you’re the only minister in a town of 400 souls, everyone calls you in an emergency.

We stepped into the surgical waiting room at Ascension Via Christi St. Francis in Wichita to wait for our daughter during her surgery. The room was packed.

The inaugural Oxford Farm Tour on Saturday, June 29, was attended by more than 100 people from as far away as Kansas City who toured each of the five farms in the Oxford area. Organizers of the event all agreed the enthusiasm and number of attendees exceeded their expectations.  

If you’ve ever gardened, the idea of raising eight acres of green beans may seem overwhelming since picking green beans is a labor-intensive job that stretches out over days because it ripens at various stages. However, Warren and Eileen Sutton of rural Norway in Republic County have figured out a way: by using a green bean variety that ripens all at once then is picked by a machine.

While many know Frederic Remington as a famous painter and sculptor of the West, few know he was once a sheep rancher in Kansas a few miles north of my home in Butler County.

Remington was born in New York and, when he turned 17, went to Yale where he played football and studied art. After his father became ill, Remington returned home where he met, and fell in love with, Eva Caten. After his father’s passing, they hoped to wed but her father would not permit her to marry Remington.

Early on a summer morning, Wanda Esping gazes out her second-story window over a field of sunflowers. Acres of yellow globes splash across land homesteaded by her ancestors along the Smoky Hill River near Lindsborg.
“Oh, Karl,” Wanda says to her husband. “Look at our girls this morning. Aren’t they beautiful? Look at the way they dance with the sun!”

Karl and Wanda began growing sunflowers shortly after the Easter Freeze of 2007 wiped out their family’s wheat crop.

One of the biggest questions I’ve been asked since I started Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) during the pandemic after discovering local grocery store shelves were empty, was whether the trend of people buying locally would continue once the pandemic restrictions eased. 

The initial rush of tens of thousands of people to our Facebook group, then our website once we launched it, gave consumers a new way to directly purchase food raised on Kansas farms. 

“What is that beautiful gold stuff in the field over there?” I asked my wife as we drove over a bridge on Highway 50 between Burrton and Hutchinson. “I’ve lived in Kansas all my life and have never seen a crop so vibrant and beautiful.”

We ran through the checklist of what crop it could be and finally settled on canola. I asked around to see who raises it and met the delightful farm family of Cameron, Jeanne, Connor and Hayden Peirce of Hutchinson.

I recently had the opportunity to represent Shop Kansas Farms (SKF) on a panel at the Agri-Pulse National Ag and Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. The conference theme was “Revitalizing Rural Revenues.”