Newsletter

Urban Food Systems Initiative Spring 2024 Newsletter

Welcome to a New Semester

The spring semester has started and we’re eagerly awaiting the arrival of the spring season. Keep scrolling to get an update about what we’ve been up to at the Urban Food Systems Initiative at K-State!

 

 

Urban Food Systems Welcomes New Graduate Research Assistants

This spring semester, we welcomed two new graduate research assistants working on the GRIP grant: Alexander Thill and Millicent Tetteh.

Alex Thill
Alexander Thill was born and raised in the KC metro area and has always had a connection to our communities that produce and care for each other. Alex went to the University of Alabama and earned his bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering. While there, he sought to understand the connections he was surrounded by — not only to his community, but to the Earth and to all life around him. Currently, Alex is a graduate research assistant on the urban food systems team, working with Cary Rivard, Ph.D. His project specifically focuses on agrivoltaics, which is solar panel energy production alongside crop cultivation. The goals of this work includes improving the economic prospect of urban agriculture, providing literature and guidance for Kansas growers on how to more effectively generate income from their land, and promoting both specialty crop production and environmental redress in Kansas communities. Interdisciplinary research and practice are essential pieces of the agrivoltaics project and research outcomes are expected to be widely-attuned to different fields. Alex’s research interests include critical-physical geography, environmental science/engineering and economic analysis in photovoltaics and agriculture.

Millicent Tetteh
Millicent Tetteh is a food scientist dedicated to ensuring food safety and sustainability. Millicent earned her bachelor’s degree in food science from the University of Ghana, where she cultivated a strong interest in food safety. During her time there, she participated in research that promoted food safety. Currently, she is pursuing a master’s degree in urban food systems while contributing to research at the Bhullar Food Safety Lab. Her research focuses on optimizing wastewater treatment methods using physical filtration and UV-C light for application in lettuce cultivation within hydroponic systems, aiming to enhance both sustainability and food safety practices. Outside of academia, Millicent is often immersed in food-related content on social media, exploring new culinary trends and techniques. She is driven by a desire to innovate and contribute to a healthier, more sustainable food system.

 

 

GRA Position Opening

Eleni Pliakoni, Ph.D., is seeking a graduate research assistant to join us at the Olathe campus this fall. This GRA will work in the postharvest physiology lab. If you’re interested, please email semra@ksu.edu with your CV/resume.

 

 

 

Registration is Live

Join us at the 2024 Urban Food Systems Symposium, hosted by The Ohio State University Extension in Columbus, Ohio on June 11-13.

 

 

Alumni Spotlight: Megan McManus

Megan served as a graduate research assistant in the UFS program from 2019-2021. During this time, Megan focused her research on specialty crop business education for small scale farmers while serving as the program coordinator for Growing Growers Kansas City. Megan’s family comes from a history of Filipino immigrant farm workers in California and CHamoru farmers indigenous to the Mariana Islands, which influenced her career shift from health care to working at Johnson County Community College's Open Petal Farm before arriving at Kansas State University.

Megan now works at the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems, or CRFS, as the farm to institution specialist. Her work centers around collaborative, statewide efforts to support the outreach, research and coordination of farm to institution projects at CRFS, including the Michigan Farm to Institution Network. She also supports Michigan farm-to-school efforts through projects, such as the evaluation of the 10 Cents a Meal program and state coordination of the Lake Michigan School Food Systems Innovation Hub.  

Megan chose the urban food systems program because she was impressed by all the different course offerings and research topics that were available to students. The curriculum incorporated environmental sciences with the economic, social and political aspects of the food system, and that holistic lens was important to her. Megan loved having the chance to gain hands-on farming experience at the Olathe Horticulture Research and Extension Center, programmatic experience with Growing Growers and even some opportunities to work with other student's research projects. Those experiences helped her connect and grow relationships with peers in the program that she is still in contact with today. Megan's paper, "Grower experience affects business education needs for a profitable specialty crop farm operation in the central United States," is available here.

 

 

OHREC Highlight

During the 2023 growing season, the Olathe Horticulture Research and Extension Center, or OHREC, donated 9,860 lbs. of produce to After the Harvest! Special thanks to the OHREC staff and UFS graduate students.

 

 

Growing Growers Kansas City

The Growing Growers program is officially entering its 20th season in 2024. Over the last 20 years, the program has supported more than 200 apprentices who have trained on sustainable specialty crop farms around the Greater Kansas City area. Highlights thus far include:

• The core curriculum of the program has been gathered into an online course with both credit and non-credit options offered.
• The program has evolved to offer two tracks to be more accessible and inclusive.
• We’ve added a “Find an Apprenticeship” tab where host farmers can list their job openings.
• We have added eight new host farms to our host farm list.
• We were awarded a grant through the Extension Foundation to support program growth and expansion in 2024.
• We look forward to welcoming 16 new apprentices for the 2024 growing season.

Visit the Growing Growers website to learn more and apply.

 

 

Growing an Equitable and Sustainable Food System

For the past two years, stakeholders from more than 16 community organizations have worked together to identify needs, conduct an assessment and chart this path to an equitable and sustainable regional food system.

“Growing an Equitable and Sustainable Food System: A Plan for Collaborative Action in Regional KC” outlines specific and collaborative steps for achieving an equitable and sustainable food system for the Kansas City area. The eight goals and 27 strategies outlined in the plan address food security, support for workers, buying local, careers in the food system, land access, infrastructure, retail markets and resources.

Cultivate KC, Groundwork NRG, KC Healthy Kids, Mid-America Regional Council and New Growth, received funding from the USDA Regional Food System Partnerships program to coordinate the effort, to conduct an assessment and make the recommendations. K-State’s Urban Food Systems Initiative has supported the project by serving on the advisory committee over the past two years.

 

Food Biz Con

Whether you are growing a food business or have an amazing idea for one, you’ll find something valuable at the 2024 Food Business Conference on March 7-8.

 

Eat Local + Organic Expo

Save the date for the annual Eat Local + Organic Expo happening on April 6 at Johnson County Community College.

 

 

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