States promoting agriculture is common. Among the vessels used are state departments of agriculture and state farm bureaus. And in the case of the Jayhawk State, its state farm bureau offers an avenue for producers to promote and sell their goods and value-added products — as Kylie Stout explains.

“When we speak with farmers that we work with, their number one challenge is marketing. How can we reach more consumers? How can we do that with minimal effort when they have been working all day, providing labor to create the products or work the cattle?”

That led to Kansas Farm Bureau developing an online store: Shop Kansas Farms.

“A lot of times they work with us just to outsource that, because we can do it and we can provide a bigger outreach that they’re not able to do on their own. And we put on direct-to-marketing workshops for them. We try to bring all the resources and partner with other organizations to make sure they have every tool available to them in their toolkit.”

The convenience factor of sales avenues like Shop Kansas Farms is not lost on Kylie — or those producers who utilize their online presence.

“A lot of the farmers that we work with don’t want to commit to a weekly farmers market. They want to be home with their family — makes sense. And so we provide a digital platform for farmers to be able to sell their products, 24/7, to consumers.”

Nor is the irony lost that Kansas farm goods and value-added products, the day we visited with Kylie, were being sold not just at a farmers market — but the Great American Farmers Market in Washington, D.C., earlier this summer. Yet she says many producers are aware they:

“Need to use all access points available to them to be able to market their products. So this is one avenue. Being at a farmers market, the online availability is another. Shipping nationwide is another. Wholesale models and grocery stores is one way.”

To diversify revenue streams as well as make connections with customers — even if virtually — in part, it’s education. Not just about the source of food, but Kansas agriculture. While a state perhaps best known for wheat, small grains and beef:

“The sandhill plum jelly. The sandhill plum is the Kansas state fruit, thanks to a group of fifth graders who wrote to the governor and said this should be our state fruit. So, it grows wild out in the western fields of Kansas, and we’re proud to be promoting it in our nation’s capital. It is, I think, a little bit sweeter than a regular plum. But of course, in the jelly context, it’s going to be sweeter because of the added sugars that make it so great on a piece of toast in the morning for your breakfast.”