Holding a faded Smucker's jar full of steaming coffee, Daniel Dermitzel showed us around the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, a non-profit he founded along with Katherine Kelly in 2004. Dedicated to promoting urban ag, this Center develops training and research programs for farmers as well as operating a certified organic vegetable farm. On this cold March day, I looked longingly at the high tunnels on his property, thinking how much warmer it would be inside than out. He invited us into one, a huge cavern of white, with rows of newly planted tomato seedlings in the ground. The plants looked a bit under the weather. "Maybe you can tell me what the problem is!" Daniel seemed truly open to suggestions which, it seems, is the nature of this place. It's all about experimentation, trying things together to see what works and what doesn't.
Originally from Braunschweig, Germany, Daniel gave up his day job in television news in sunny southern California to get back to the land. And here he is, in Kansas City of all places, in the land. And as a German, he struck me as someone who is always pensive about the meaning of existence, about what it means to farm. "I discovered something when I began farming here," he announced to our little crowd. "You can't cheat. We in society get away with cheating a lot, cheating in so many ways, but here, there is no way to cheat. Taking shortcuts like that is perhaps part of being human but we can learn from nature. If you don't water the plants, they die. If you don't take care of your garden, you have nothing. In farming, if we take shortcuts, we usually pay some kind of price for that later. " He paused while he thought about what he just said. "Ah well," he mumbled as he scratched his head, looking like he just wanted to finish his coffee before he said another thing.
When I called him later to ask him to expand on that concept, he was reluctant to comment too much, instead saying, "There's a change that we're all going through. We have to combine our desire and understanding for change in this time with caution and care. There's a lot invested in some sort of change. People are looking for some kind of answer. Is our work here at the KC Center of Urban Ag part of the answer?" He didn't seem too sure. Although no one alone is THE answer, I think they are onto something big.
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