Kansans are invited to attend the upcoming “Kansas Future of Farming & Food” Town Hall on Wednesday, July 31st at Fresh Seven Coffee, 312 West Washington Street, St. Francis, Kansas, from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. The Town Hall, hosted by the Kansas Rural Center (KRC), will feature a panel of experts on our food system and farming, climate and energy, and rural/urban community needs and ways we can come together to address these needs.

Following the panel discussion, attendees will have time to respond, ask questions, and share their experiences or opinions about the issues addressed to help identify what is needed to advance opportunities in their communities and/or the region.

A complimentary dinner featuring locally sourced ingredients from Fresh Seven Coffee will be available starting at 5:30 pm with the program starting at 6 p.m. Registration is required in order to ensure an accurate count for dinner. Please register no later than Friday, July 26th at https://kansasruralcenter.org/2019townhalls Contact Caryl Hale, KRC Field Coordinator, if you have questions, at chale@kansasruralcenter.org or call 866-579-5469.

The Town Hall offers an opportunity to share information and enable community dialogue on the vision for the future we want and how we get there. The discussion will include issues critical to Kansans ranging from the impacts of weather extremes and a changing climate on our food system and farming, population loss in Kansas communities (especially of young people) and how to bring people back, and present and future economic and community opportunities.

This is the fourth of five “Future of Farming and Food” Town Halls across the state. A Town Hall will also be held in Garden City on July 30th and in Kansas City in August. Town Halls were held in Emporia and Wichita earlier this month.

Partial support for this project is provided through the Kansas Town Hall program, a partnership between Humanities Kansas and the Eisenhower Presidential Library & Museum that encourages citizens to discuss public policy issues facing Kansas today.

These Town Halls are part of KRC’s “Community Food Solutions for a Healthier Kansas” initiative and Integrated Voter Engagement project, which aims to improve the economy, community, environment, and health in Kansas by strengthening civic engagement and public policy support that better incorporate Kansas farms and communities into the state’s healthy food supply chain.

The mission of KRC, founded in 1979, is to promote the long-term health of the land and its people through community-based research, education, and advocacy that advances an economically viable, ecologically sound, and socially just food and farming system in Kansas. For more information, visit kansasruralcenter.org.