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. 

After almost four years since our launch, we have discovered a growing interest in consumers purchasing food directly from local farms and ranches. This is known as direct-to-consumer sales. Our Facebook group gains several hundred members each month as we now have more than 167,000 people who want to purchase their food this way.

Grocery stores, too, are vital to the success of Kansas farmers and ranchers. Many of the products they produce go to grocery stores and while they’re a convenient hub for consumers, they are also crucial to the success of towns and communities across the state.

If you have never purchased directly from a farm or ranch, here are 10 reasons you should.

1. You know exactly where your food comes from, how it is raised, how it is processed and why it tastes so good. This concept of knowing where your food comes from is often called identity preservation, which basically means you can trace the origin of the food source and the steps it has gone through to reach your plate. For a growing number of consumers, this is becoming more important. 

2. You get to personally know the farmer/rancher/grower who grows it. One unique difference of purchasing locally is you meet or visit on the phone with the people who are growing your food. While I am grateful for our wonderful grocery stores that carry products from all over the world, my purchases there are a transaction, but when I buy from a local farmer, they are relational. 

3. You help rural Kansas prosper. Sometime stop by the small towns of McCune or Leon and see how local farms, rural grocery stores and even the public schools are working together to provide locally grown food in unique ways for their residents.

4. You help family farms keep the farm in the family. According to a recent speech I heard Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack give, America has lost 541,000 small family farms since 1981. This concept of buying locally grown food is a positive solution to help keep small family farms viable.

5. You know you are directly impacting the local farmer. Farmers also depend on international exports for their revenues, too, but purchasing locally gives you the sense that you are directly, not indirectly, supporting the local farmer. That doesn’t matter to many, but, if you’re like me, it matters to me and apparently an estimated 20 percent of the population who want to know where my food comes from. 

6. You have new stories to tell others about the farmers you know and how your food is raised. One of the best results of watching the interaction in our SKF network has been the friendships developed and the stories people now share about their new-found farm and ranch friends. I often tell my farming and ranching friends that I like them so much I tell my friends about them.

7. You learn about the various ways in which animals and plants are raised for food. Since farmers and ranchers barely make up 2 percent of the population, there’s a good chance your friends and family have no idea how their food is raised. I purposefully take my grandchildren who live in the city on our own Farm and Ranch tour, so they know how their food is grown.

8. You are encouraging a free-market economy. A free market is an economic system where prices are determined by unrestricted competition between privately owned businesses. For many in agriculture, they have no control over the prices they receive. The farmer who dumps a load of grain at the co-op or sends a load of cattle to the packer has no control over the price they receive. While some might have the capacity to wait to sell it when the price is right, for many they take whatever the current price is, which is determined by a complex international market they have no control over. However, in direct-to-consumer sales, the farmer or rancher can set his or her own price and keep more of the profit margins. 

9. You give small family farms hope. The farming and ranching business is a complex business based largely on the idea of going big or going home. The margins are so tight it has become a volume game, meaning you have to farm more land, grow more crops, raise more livestock and continually grow bigger in order to sustain. 

10. And the greatest bonus... you fall in love with Kansas farm and ranch families who grow the food you eat!

Rick McNary is a leader in bringing people together to build community and reduce hunger in sustainable ways. This article first appeared in the Kansas Living Magazine.