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Kansas City, Missouri, created a new microgrant this year to help local farms and gardens continue to provide fresh food to the public.
Jason Copling started his operation at George Washington Carver Urban Farm five years ago on an empty lot with a foot of gravel.
Over the last five years, he has created rich soil by breaking down wood chips. He even dug a man-made pond for a water source.
Today, he grows cabbages, beans, peppers, tomatoes, beets, squashes and different types of fruit.
The farm practices Community Supported Agriculture, a program where members of the community buy a share of the farm before the season begins. Buying in means customers receive a box full of fresh vegetables every week.
The farm also sells to restaurants and consumers at farmers markets.
Copling's urban farm has come a long way, but his mission is far from over.
“I’ve always been motivated to try to be part of the solution, and I believe that solution is not just the local agriculture, but affordable local agriculture,” Copling said.
He believes a community truly thrives when food is grown locally for all to eat. The passion is always there, but often on a shoestring budget.
“Your whole budget gets eaten up with just maintenance," he said. "So it can be very hard to make enough money to add another layer of infrastructure, or to improve something that may be significant but it broke."
Kansas City, Missouri, heard the struggles of local farmers and launched the Promoting Local Agriculture and Neighborhood Transformation (PLANT) Microgrant Program. PLANT seeks to invest directly into local growers and the food system by offering up to $5,000 to starting farms and up to $10,000 to farms that are two years or older.
Applicants must prove how their work increases access to local food and outline what the funding would be used for. Projects will be monitored three times throughout the year by the city’s food systems coordinator and urban agriculture concierge, including one in-person visit.
Chief Environmental Officer Jensen Adams says the grant was spearheaded by Councilwoman Melissa Patterson Hazley, who ensured $150,000 was set aside from the city’s annual budget.
The PLANT microgrant, along with two grant-funded city positions, is a result of the Climate Protection and Resilience Plan the city adopted in 2022.
“The PLANT grant came out of a recognition that we have an increasing amount of extreme weather, flooding, heat, and that it’s affecting the supply chains that provide food to our community," Adams said. "At the same time, we recognize that there were increasing needs — people needed access to food. The cost of groceries was increasing, and we wanted to make certain that we provided more resources for that."
Cultivate KC, a nonprofit organization that helped the city develop this grant, says it could not have come at a more critical time as federal funding freezes and cuts plague the farming community.
“You know, grants that had already been awarded, funding that had been committed and contracts that were signed,” said Ami Freeberg, Cultivate KC’s director of strategy and partnerships. “The cost of land is increasing in the city, the cost of all the inputs and supplies are increasing, and you can’t really increase what you’re charging for the produce a whole lot.”
Freeberg believes the increased effort to support local farmers began with a dire realization during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We saw some empty grocery store shelves, and I think that was the tipping point for some agencies, like the USDA, to start investing more in local and regional food systems," Freeberg said. "And I think that conversation has finally made it to City Hall."
Aside from the economic and environmental impacts of investing in the local food system, Freeberg says the health impacts cannot be ignored.
Back on the George Washington Carver Farm, Copling is heartened to see the increase in support from the city and will be applying for the PLANT microgrant.
Going forward, Copling hopes more empty lots can be filled with the promise of grants like these.
“Maybe we’re turning a corner,” Copling said.
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