Banking on KC – Dina Newman of Kansas City Black Urban Growers
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Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Dina Newman, the founder and CEO of Kansas City Black Urban Growers, also known as KC BUGS. Dina is also the director of UMKC's Center for Neighborhoods.
Welcome back, Dina.
Dina Newman:
Thank you for having me, Kelly.
Kelly Scanlon:
So much has been going on since we talked four or five years ago. KC BUGS, what a great organization. It focuses on helping Black communities create their own healthy and affordable food system.
So tell us what inspired you to start it and your vision for it?
Dina Newman:
So back in 2011, 2012, at the time, urban farming was not as sexy as it is now, but there was certainly a need in our communities of concern, and I was working in a neighborhood association, was considered a food desert, and I was working under a grant that was looking at equitable food access for these communities. And I noticed that there were only a handful of Black folks doing the work. There were people who were like seniors who had a garden, they knew how to do it, but as far as those that were really interested in taking it to the next level, there were only a handful of us.
I said... With Katherine Kelly, I have to give credit where credit is due, Katherine Kelly was the director of Cultivate KC at the time and the founder. So Katherine and I got together and was having a conversation and said, "What would it look like to bring Black growers together, focusing on those same issues that we are seeing in our community?" Food access was one, jobs was another, youth was another. So we just began to brainstorm, and there were nine of us. We started out as an affinity group, no money, but we had a vision. And that vision was how do we, in our communities, make sure that the food system is equitable and that folks are getting fed? And we gathered around and we met for quite a few years with that vision in mind-
Kelly Scanlon:
Very much at a grassroots level, very informal.
Dina Newman:
Oh. Very, very, very informal. Very grassroots. So we didn't have any money, but we certainly had a vision, and we just started meeting every month. Every few weeks we would get together. And we were looking at what was going on across the country, and we heard about this organization called Black Urban Growers, BUGS, and it was like, well, what do they do? And we began to do our research and realized they're doing what we're doing, but on a much larger scale. So we were able to attend a BUGS conference out in California, and we came back just energized and ready to go. So that's the kind of origin story.
Kelly Scanlon:
So considering the challenges of food insecurity in urban areas, which you've already mentioned, how does KC BUGS address those issues specifically within the Black community in Kansas City? How do you accomplish what you see as your vision?
Dina Newman:
KC BUGS, we are a resource mapping organization. BUGS in and of itself does not have a farm. We don't plan to get a farm. What we do is support those who already have farms and gardens. That is our vision, that's our passion. And that looks different depending on the farmer. We have growers growing in a pot on a porch, tomato plant, and then we have folks who have several acres of land.
What's been interesting, it's been focused on urban, but we are getting calls and emails from our rural brothers and sisters, how do we become this coalition of Black growers to be able to address the issues that, depending, again, on what's happening in the-
Kelly Scanlon:
When you say you've got everybody, from someone who grows a tomato plant in a pot on their porch to large or small farms, so you've got this wide range of folks you're working with, how is it that they... I mean, all kinds of questions here. How do they find out about you? How is it that you reach out to them? I mean, what makes the whole thing work?
Dina Newman:
Good question. So word of mouth. Our youngest grower is 16. Our oldest is 80.
Kelly Scanlon:
Oh, fun.
Dina Newman:
And we have something we call meet and greet. So every other month we meet up and every time, Kelly, we've had at least two new people show up. That's a way we are able to come together. And again, mostly word of mouth, social media.
Kelly Scanlon:
More and more people are becoming aware of what you do. Each month you see new faces at the meetings, at the meetups that you have. What is it that you're offering that is so attractive?
Dina Newman:
A safe, brave space for people that are like-minded, that are able to share cultural stories and history, a place where we can commensurate with each other, but also, we're able to share the challenges and the successes of what it means to be a Black grower. In, what is it, 1920, the state of Missouri had 2,000 Black farmers. In 2017, there were only 207.
Kelly Scanlon:
Oh, huge drop off.
Dina Newman:
Yes. There's been a huge drop. And I think it's even smaller than 207. So as a group, we are coming together, talking about how do we do this work, particularly in our Black communities, from a cultural mindset and viewpoint?
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. And some of that fall off in numbers is probably due to what farmers in general have faced over the last several decades. The smaller farmers in particular have declined, but with Black farmers there have been systemic barriers.
Dina Newman:
There you go.
Kelly Scanlon:
Land access, funding. So what kind of strategies has KC BUGS used to navigate or help mitigate those kinds of barriers and challenges?
Dina Newman:
Like you said, funding's huge, a loss of land. So we've been able to secure grant funding to do the Just-in-Time micro-grant, because sometimes you just need that, just in time money. While we know that a farmer could use $50,000 or even $5,000, sometimes a $500 grant will help them buy some seeds, help them pay for a water bill.
So we're able to offer those grants, which have been extremely attractive. But also the training. We're able to really focus in on different trainings that the growers are really needing.
Kelly Scanlon:
Like advancements in agriculture that are techniques, things like that?
Dina Newman:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Dina Newman:
Absolutely. And in fact, it's changing, right? We have a member that... Actually, he's doing agrivoltaics. So that's solar and farming.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. And there's a term for that.
Dina Newman:
Agrivoltaics. So things are changing. And we had a young man. He was 16. And so when we have these meet and greets, we ask, "What are your skills, gifts, and talents? What can you offer back to this group and to the community?" And at our last meeting, this young man stood up, I think he's about 26, 27, and he says, "I can do ethnobotany." And we're just like, "Whoa, what?" Ethnobotany. And he's looking at that relationship between plants and medicine or plants and textiles, and it was just like, wow.
So things are changing. It's not just putting something in the ground and harvesting and cooking and eating it. We are looking at different ways of scaling this work up.
Kelly Scanlon:
Sure. So that it has applications outside of the very important issue that you're trying to address, which is affordable and available food.
Dina Newman:
Absolutely.
Kelly Scanlon:
But like you say, textiles and-
Dina Newman:
Medicines. Exactly.
Kelly Scanlon:
... other fields too, where agriculture plays a very, very important role. Do you see at these meetings people coming in that can offer you resources?
Dina Newman:
Absolutely. That's the beauty, I think, of what we're doing because there's a lot of resource sharing amongst each other. Not just the knowledge, but we'll have someone come in and say, "Hey, I heard about this grant," or, "I heard about this funding opportunity," Or, "Guess what? Next Saturday at 2:00, I am free. Do you need me to come help you pull weeds or help you put something in the ground?" So we have this beautiful, almost familial relationship amongst the growers. So yeah, absolutely.
Kelly Scanlon:
How many growers would you say are actively involved?
Dina Newman:
Our distribution list is 95. And I've got to tell you, when we first started, there were 12 of us. We are at 95 and growing. Just got an email the other day from a farmer in Freeman, Missouri. Never even heard of Freeman, Missouri. He has two acres, but he had heard about us. So he reaches out and he's asking, "How do I get involved? And also, how can you help me?" And we're just thrilled. Just thrilled.
Kelly Scanlon:
So you talked a lot about these monthly meetups and people can come and exchange ideas and offer resources and present challenges and things like that, but do you have any formal programming that you offer?
Dina Newman:
In partnership with some of our partners, so I'm thinking of KC Farm School, we are doing, I mean, really deep trainings, and I'll give you an example. There was not too long ago how to build a high tunnel. That was hands-on, very experiential learning, getting out there, putting together a high tunnel because one of our farmers received a high tunnel from an urban farm that had gone bust.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. So this city girl that you're talking to has no idea what a high tunnel is, so I'm sure some of our listeners don't either. What is a high tunnel?
Dina Newman:
Okay. So you know the kind of dome-shaped... Imagine a greenhouse dome shape-
Kelly Scanlon:
I'm sure I've seen those. That's a high tunnel.
Dina Newman:
on top...
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay.
Dina Newman:
Yes, that is called a high... And then they have also low tunnels where they're much smaller. Because we are in the Midwest, people are trying to figure out how to grow year-round on an urban lot. And if you don't have a greenhouse with electricity, quite often, they will look at a high tunnel.
We have a partnership with Lincoln University and we are helping to put people through certifications. So four of our growers right now are being certified to be organic growers, which is extremely expensive, very time-consuming. But we are thrilled to death that four of those folks are going through it because when they get that certification, that opens a whole new door. So who knows? They could sell their produce at Whole Foods.
We also have growers who've gone through certification, and two of them received poultry handling certification. So I have two growers, if you need chicken information or duck information, I've got the people for you.
Kelly Scanlon:
So this extends to livestock and animals, not just plant-based agriculture.
Dina Newman:
That's correct. That's correct.
Kelly Scanlon:
It's obvious from what you have been saying that representation in agriculture is critically important. So how is your organization, KC BUGS, working to ensure that Black voices are heard and represented, not just in your neighborhood meetings that you're having or your monthly meetups that you're having, but at a national level from a legislative and advocacy standpoint?
Dina Newman:
So right now in Kansas City, we are looking to revise the Urban Ag Code. So this was done 2010, maybe. It is now time to renew it. So BUGS is... We're at the table. We are having conversations with Councilwoman Patterson-Hazley. In fact, we are meeting tomorrow to look at new policy. When this was first created, and again, kudos to Katherine Kelly, who was the leader with all of this, there are things happening now in the ag field that we didn't think 10, 15 years ago that we're seeing now.
Kelly Scanlon:
For example?
Dina Newman:
Composting.
Kelly Scanlon:
Oh, okay,
Dina Newman:
Composting. And there's a big brouhaha right now happening with that, but we were not thinking that and wrapping that in the urban ag world. So we're having these conversations, not just what happens today, but 20 years from now, in the urban ag space, what is that going to look like? So we are at that table, we're representing.
What my farmers say to me is, "I'm in the field, Dina, I need you to be where I can't be. I need you to be the voice." USDA had the very first National Urban Ag Conference a couple of months ago.
Kelly Scanlon:
So just the first one?
Dina Newman:
The first one.
Kelly Scanlon:
Wow.
Dina Newman:
There were, I think they said 700 people. We were in Detroit. It was amazing. There were so many politicians there, but there was a lot of networking from all across the country. I was pleasantly surprised how many were people of color. We are partnering with other organizations who are working on policy change and advocacy.
So yes, to your question, we are making sure that we get a seat at the table. And if we don't get a seat at the table, like, I guess, Fannie Lou Hamer says, "I'll bring my own chair," right?
Kelly Scanlon:
Yes.
Dina Newman:
We are there.
Kelly Scanlon:
I mentioned earlier that you're the director of the UMKC Center for Neighborhoods. How do you integrate your role there to foster community development through urban agriculture?
Dina Newman:
Every urban farm is in a neighborhood or in a community. What we talk about, we actually had a training on this with the Ivanhoe neighborhood. How do you be a good neighbor as a farmer? We did a training on that because there are issues. It's not maybe just enough that you're going to offer me some fruits and vegetables. We may have more traffic, we may have whatever. And how are you not just contributing to yourself, but how are you contributing to this community? So wearing my Center for Neighborhoods hat, we look at that. How do you be a good neighbor? How do you get a win-win situation? How does this work for everyone involved?
Kelly Scanlon:
Sure. And you've had to build consensus on so many other issues. That background has probably served you very well in this role too.
Dina Newman:
Yes. Yes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Yeah. So for many years, as you said, you were grassroots, you were very informal, but then you actually became a nonprofit in 2022, so just a couple of years ago. So how has KC BUGS evolved from those early grassroots years to the opportunities that a nonprofit status might afford? How's that changed things?
Dina Newman:
Again, when we started as the affinity group of nine, no money, very, very, very grassroots, building that vision. Fast-forward to 2022, a funder heard me... I was on a panel discussion and I was talking about this work, and I was like, "We need a Black backbone organization." There's Cultivate KC, who we partner with. There's other organizations here locally and they're great friends and we work with together, but at that time, I felt like we really needed to have our own backbone organization.
And where we have advanced since then, we've been able to get other funders to believe in the work that we're doing, build partnerships locally and outside of Kansas City, and able to tell our story. So I think people were looking at opportunities, particularly as it applies to on a community level, how can we help with some of the issues that we're seeing, particularly with food insecurity?
Kelly Scanlon:
You mentioned partnerships. We've talked about some of the partnerships you have legislatively and within the neighborhoods, but you mentioned Cultivate KC, KC Farm School, but what are some of the other organizations that you collaborate with or national groups that have helped move your vision forward?
Dina Newman:
We are really proud to be able to partner with Lincoln University. In fact, is it next week? There are 18 Black growers going to Lincoln University to do a train the trainer. KC Healthy Kids.
One thing that I'm really proud of is we've actually partnered with a neighborhood association. So South Round Top Neighborhood Association. It's on the east side of Kansas City, very small neighborhood, but we were able to give them a Just-in-Time grant. They built two raised beds on a once vacant lot, and they are so proud of that and they're trying to build that out. But I love the fact when we can work with neighborhood associations.
Kelly Scanlon:
So looking to the future, what are some of the projects or goals that you'd like to achieve in the next few years through KC BUGS?
Dina Newman:
We need a full-time director. I wear two hats, so full-time director. We really want to host the National BUGS Conference in Kansas City.
Kelly Scanlon:
Oh wow.
Dina Newman:
That's huge.
Kelly Scanlon:
That is huge. It's a big undertaking.
Dina Newman:
It's huge. But we would love to do that. More kind of closer at home, we are looking to host the very first Black urban farm and garden tour. Want to do that, and we're actually partnering with Cultivate KC on that.
Kelly Scanlon:
What would that look like?
Dina Newman:
I think there are a lot of people that don't realize how many Black farmers are in the area. So one thing, exposure. Secondly, again, connecting inside and outside people, I guess, to these resources of locally-grown food right there in the area.
Right? Again, we still have neighborhoods that are considered food deserts. And putting some of our growers on the map. They're kind of quietly doing that work. But I think that exposure would be amazing for their businesses. We call them agripreneurs. Most of the farmers that we have, it's not a hobby. There are some who are really trying to scale up and make it into a profitable business. A few have, not a lot. But those opportunities would kind of spotlight their business.
Kelly Scanlon:
When we started today, you mentioned the food deserts and food justice, but you also mentioned a focus on jobs and on youth. So I don't want to let you get away without talking to us about how what you're doing is helping those two efforts.
Dina Newman:
We have had so many parents and even a few youth say, "Can you start a junior BUGS?" And I'm like, "Well, I know there are other organizations. We don't want to recreate the wheel, we certainly don't want to step on anyone's toes. How would we be different?" So I'm actually talking to one of our 16-year-old growers, who's also a beekeeper, by the way, and asking him to think about what would that look like as a junior BUGS program. But our youth are important.
One of our growers, Toni, has been doing schoolyard gardens for years. Toni has six gardens that she's responsible for. In every single meeting, Kelly, she stands up, and we are all like, "We know, Toni," but she stands up and talks about the importance of our kids have to know where food comes from. They have to know. And I mean, that is her rally cry. And she's like, "I am 70-something years old. I'm not going to be able to keep doing this. We have to bring up the next generation." And that's what we like to say too. With BUGS, we are bringing up the next generation of Black farmers.
So the youth are extremely important in this work, and there's really good green jobs out there, there's ag jobs out there, that a lot of our students are not exposed to. So when we have that opportunity... In fact, we're going to be talking to some kids at a school in a few weeks. One of our growers is also a drone pilot. So she's been able to use her drone... So if you have your farm and you need a drone picture, she's able to do that. So she's going to go talk to some kids about marrying that work and how it can be cool and sexy and profitable, right? So yeah, that's really important.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. Lighter note now. You're obviously passionate about urban agriculture. I don't know if you're a grower though. If you are, do you have a favorite plant or a vegetable to grow?
Dina Newman:
I have some raised beds and I have a potato patch. And I have to admit, I can really grow potatoes.
Kelly Scanlon:
Potatoes.
Dina Newman:
Potatoes. But that's really nothing to brag about because anybody can grow potatoes. My favorite vegetable is cucumber, but I cannot grow them.
Kelly Scanlon:
What happens? Do they not flower?
Dina Newman:
It's like every stink bug or cucumber beetle in Kansas City-
Kelly Scanlon:
So the pests get to them.
Dina Newman:
And I'm growing organically. You need potatoes, I'm your person.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. Now, for anybody who's interested in finding out more about KC BUGS, you have a website with a lot of information on it and ways to get involved. So tell us about that.
Dina Newman:
Www.kcblackurbangrowers.com. Check out our website. We're also on Twitter and Instagram and Facebook.
Kelly Scanlon:
Okay. Well, thank you so much for sticking with us. I mean, so many years to be sort of a side project that you take it to that next level on getting the nonprofit status, and now you're looking nationally at collaborations to take it even bigger. So thank you very much for all the work that you do on this very important topic.
Dina Newman:
Thank you for having me, Kelly.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Dina Newman, founder and CEO of Kansas City's Black Urban Growers, for joining us on this episode of Banking on KC.
Today, Dina discussed the organization's impactful work, from supporting Black growers in food deserts, to offering hands-on training and micro-grants that help sustain local farms. KC BUGS' mission is clear, to empower communities with equitable food access, foster youth interest in agriculture, and create job opportunities that build a stronger Kansas City area.
At Country Club Bank, we support local initiatives that improve our community's wellbeing. KC BUGS' focus on accessible, nutritious food, and economic growth aligns with our commitment to help Kansas Citians thrive.
Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank, Member FDIC.