Dream and Visions cannot become realities until resources, commitments and support are mobilized. Diana Endicott is the founder and director of Good Natured Family Farms’ alliance. Diana farms with her husband Gary on a 400 acre organic and 400 acre transitional farm in southeast Kansas. She is a recipient of the National Agriculture Hall of Fame’s Honor Acre, the SBIR Tibbetts Award, and named a ‘Trailblazer’ by the Kansas City Star. She has been featured in publications such as Successful Farming, The Furrow, Rural Cooperatives, Small Farm Today, The New American Farmer, etc. Diana is published in Women and Sustainable Agriculture-Agents of Change and The Status of Women in Agriculture in Kansas- Institute for Women’s Policy Research. Diana has a BS and MS in Horticulture/Soil Science from OSU and post-graduate studies at LSU. In 1993, Diana and her husband Gary moved back to Southeast Kansas to farm and founded Rainbow Organic Farm. Gary’s great grandfather, Samuel Endicott, had one of the first homesteads in Southeast Kansas in the 1800s. In Eastern Kansas, Diana Endicott began with the organization of a farmer alliance and created a strong partnership with Balls Food Stores, a Kansas City supermarket chain of 30 stores. Focusing on consumer demand, this collaboration transcends the usual supply-demand chain of supermarkets. Through their actions, this team has shown one approach of successfully breaking out of the mold and creating a model that includes sustainable agriculture and meets the needs of all players. Their success offers the possibility of a new form of vendor-retailer discourse and action. Diana Endicott is the farmer that can lead a team to develop a White House Garden that will set the path to urban gardens across the country. These thousands of mini-White House Gardens across the country will build communities working the gardens together, extension agents teaching our youth, kids from inner city neighborhoods will have access to farm fresh fruits and vegetables, and one garden by one garden we will make an impact on our environment and our local economies.

Grant Corley of Corley Seed Farms is the quintessential American farmer. He saved his money to buy his first piece of land when he was 16 years old, and has been farming ever since. He is always learning and adjusting to new technologies and ways of doing business, while staying true to his principles. A regional agriculture expert once told Grant that no-till farming just wouldn’t work in our part of the state. Grant believed that it would, and believed that it was a better option for soil conservation, so he found ways to make no-till farming work very well here, despite the naysayers. He has been active in local soil conservation boards, the state crop improvement association and county 4-H and extension activities for many years, all while constantly growing and improving his farming business to include certified seed cleaning and sales, custom air seeding and contract production. Those who know Grant know that he has never met a stranger. He is proud of what he does and where he is from. I recently traveled to China with Grant, and even overseas, he was a smiling ambassador for American agriculture. On airplanes, at parks, and even in Tiananmen Square, I heard him telling people who asked him where he was from, “I’m from Kansas. It’s in the middle of the United States. We have a farm and we grow wheat, corn and soybeans.”