It was quite a National Farmers Union convention in Santa Fe, a beautiful, historical city that has been on my bucket list for many years. Many thanks to the Kansas members who agreed to be voting delegates for you-all: Herb Bartel, Patrica Bartel, Mary Fund, Chris Schmidt and Sherri Schmidt. They took their responsibility seriously [...]
Henry Strnad, lifetime Kansas Farmers Union member and 2013 Ruth Hirsch Award recipient, passed away February 25, 2014 following a brief illness. This photo was taken in the mid 1970s, during a threshing bee the Strnad family hosted on their farm near Munden, KS in Republic County. The new Munden Community Center and the Zion [...]
A few months ago, KFUF was awarded a grant from our friends at Farm Aid to support KFU’s Kansas Beginning Farmers Coalition through the Cultivating Connections: Creating a Beginning Farmer and Rancher Network in Kansas project. This project will engage and inform beginning farmers and ranchers through the development of online resources, and encourage producers [...]
2014 Kansas Farmers Union Convention: Join us in “The Little Apple” The Kansas Farmers Union board of directors overwhelmingly decided at their April 14 meeting to hold the organization’s 2014 annual convention December 4-6 at the Sheraton 4 Points hotel in Manhattan, KS. Nestled in the heart of the scenic Flint Hills, Manhattan is a [...]
More than 135 students from the United States and Puerto Rico representing 35 colleges and universities participated in the National Farmers Union (NFU) College Conference on Cooperatives (CCoC) held February 13-16 in Minneapolis, MN., making it the largest CCoC in history. Three of the students hailed from Kansas, they were: Bart Karls and Roberto Chavez-Juarez, [...]
On Saturday, April 12th, KFU and the Kansas Graziers hosted a low-stress livestock handling workshop led by Dr. Lynn Locatelli in Salina. Dr. Locatelli, a livestock handling specialist, gave a deep, thoughtful presentation to a full-house eager to learn more about low stress livestock handling. Dr. Locatelli was a veterinarian in western Nebraska for 14 [...]
Kansas Farmers Union President Donn Teske and a group of KFU members recently traveled to the 112th National Farmers Union convention in Santa Fe, NM, which was held March 8-11, 2014. The four-day event drew nearly 600 family farmers, ranchers, and fishermen from across the country, and featured a number of high-profile speakers. KFU members [...]
The Kansas Legislature wrapped up its regular session Sunday, April 6, two days later than originally planned, following a controversial debate and passage of a school finance bill. What should have been a clean bill to fund poorer school districts turned into one that narrowly passed both houses after divisive debate over policy issues thrown [...]
February saw Donn jetting off to Minneapolis for a meeting of the North Central SARE Advisory Committee. The committee made final selections for awards in the Farmer Rancher and the Youth Educator grant programs. Mercedes took part in the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership’s IRS Tax Workshop for Small and Medium-Sized Nonprofit Organizations at the [...]
Three Olsburg, KS ranches will highlight working facilities that utilize low stress methods to quietly and effectively process cattle, sheep and goats on May 3, 2014. The tour will begin with registration at 9:30 AM at the Edwards Ranch, 15225 Dry Creek Road, 2.4 miles west of Olsburg and 2.9 south on Dry Creek Road. [...]
