By Bill Spiegel, Byline Editor
When you head for Kansas City next month, you have a unique chance to enjoy agriculture in Kansas–my state.
The AMS Program Committee has prepared a schedule that touches on many highlights of Kansas agriculture: beef, bread, booze and more. I promise you’ll love it.
The tour begins at 7 a.m. Saturday, August 3. Departing Kansas City, you’ll head west on a coach to the Flint Hills ranch of the award-winning Blythe Family Farms, where agvocate Debbie Lyons-Blythe and her husband, Duane, carry on a purebred Angus ranch that features 200 head of Angus cows and heifers, plus 200 crossbred cows. The family was honored in 2022 with the Progressive Partner Award from Certified Angus Beef; moreover, Debbie is a founding member of the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef. You’ll know when you approach their ranch, as their barn received the Certified Angus Beef mural earlier this decade.
You’ll love meeting Debbie and Duane, and be sure to learn from one of beef’s outstanding ambassadors about all things from cattle, to quality beef and organ donation.
Next, the tour heads to Manhattan, Kansas–The Little Apple! A stop at world famous Aggieville is not on the agenda, nor is a tour of the campus of Kansas STate University (the nation’s FIRST land-grant university!) but you’ll meet the folks at the Kansas Wheat Innovation Center, a public-private partnership between wheat growers (through the Kansas Wheat Checkoff) and K-State that aims to advance wheat breeding and genetics far past what land-grant universities have done in the past. The KWIC was built in 2012 and hosts offices for the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and other organizations, but the heart of this multi-million dollar collaboration is advanced wheat breeding and programming in state-of-the-art laboratories and greenhouses. And, the KWIC is home to the Kansas Wheat Test Kitchen, where home economist Cindy Falk has spent a career developing healthy, wholesome and homegrown bread recipes.
From Manhattan, the tour heads back to Kansas City, stopping at J. Rieger & Co. Brewery, resurrected in 2014 after prohibition shut down the world’s largest mail order whiskey purveyor nearly a century before. Founded by Jacob Rieger in in 1884 before it was mothballed, the new J. Rieger Brewery is a popular destination for Kansas Citians seeking well-crafted spirits made from local ingredients. It is in the historic and exciting Electric Park District near Kansas City’s West Bottoms-which has a rich history of its own! The tour will include one tasting before departure.
Finally, the Kansas Ag tour goers will join the Photography Workshop attendees at, Tay’s Cheesesteaks. Kent Harrison began Tay’s Burger Shack and Tay’s Cheesesteaks with sustainability in mind. All beef is sourced locally by 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef, guaranteeing flavor. Burger & cheesesteak options available for purchase.
The Kansas Ag Tour is $200, and you can hop on board via this link. And on behalf of all of the proud Kansas members of LPC and ACN: Welcome to our home state!