We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katie Nixon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katie below.
Hi Katie, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I am led by passion and tempered by practical thinking. I have always had a deep love of nature and knew from a young age that I wanted to spend my life working with nature in some way. As a child we would make the long trek across Kansas traveling from Kansas City to the mountains in Colorado. This helped me develop my love of nature. It took me leaving my home and traveling all over the world to appreciate the beauty of the place that fed by body and spirit growing up. I grew up with the privilege of having two loving parents and not wanting for much. This comfort and security allowed me to listening to myself and dream. Even though I did not appreciate it at the time (especially in my teens), my mother was a fantastic role model. She was always engaged in some purpose, from the Parent Teachers Association to the head of the Board of Directors for a local non-profit. She showed me how to be a good community minded citizen. My Dad taught me the importance of hard work, but the more influential experience he gave me was the garden. My Dad loved his garden. In the summer, he would come home from his suit and tie office job, immediately change into his overalls and head out to work the tomato plants. There is nothing quite like a homegrown tomato or the satisfaction that comes from growing them.
When I was 18, I went off to Western Washington University (WWU) with a plan to get an environmental studies degree. I was always a B (sometimes A) student and the reality of pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree hit me hard, especially the advanced math. One of the reasons I choose WWU was because one of the colleges in the university was a liberal arts college (Fairhaven), which lined up with my learning style better. As I discovered when I got there, they also had a student run farm, The Outback Farm. After spending some time in the Outback, I fell in love with sustainable agriculture and the people I found there. I let go of my environmental studies degree and pursued a degree designed around the Outback Farm and sustainable agriculture.
I know it sounds cliché and also a little trite, but there is no other way to say it. . . I have had the privilege of following my passion and I have not regretted it.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am a food systems cultivator actively farming and working to build a resilient local food system. Along with my husband, I co-operate Green Gate Family Farm in Wheatland, Missouri. We started our farm in 2010 and are certified organic and Real Organic Project Certified. Our farm operates year-round, utilizing protected spaces (High Tunnels) to grow over 300 types of plants from which we harvest fruits, vegetables, cut flowers and fresh herbs. In addition, we raise poultry for eggs and offer chicken and duck eggs for sale. We sell through a CSA (community Supported Agriculture), Online, the Kansas City Food Hud, restaurants, and KC area Whole Foods stores.
In my off-farm job at New Growth, I am the Food Systems Director working to build connections and resiliency in the local food system. In my role as a food systems leader, I have been able to help secure over $6.2M in grant funding to support this work. Our most recent and biggest project to date is co-directing the Heartland Regional Food Business Center with our partners at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. This five-state effort will help elevate our work and connect food and farm businesses to the incredible resources available throughout the region.
A big piece of my work that weaves food systems and farming together is the Kansas City Food Hub. I was one of five farmer co-founders of this Cooperative Association and am currently the Board president and CEO. Through this 30-member farmer cooperative we have opened new markets for small farmers and are making local food accessible to more buyers, especially schools.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
These are three of the top things that come to mind for finding my purpose and the journey that I am on:
Flexibility- It’s important to have goals and plans, but if I had not allowed for those plans to change based on what life was throwing at me, I would not be where I am today. After I graduated from university, I ended up traveling the world working and living in other countries for about 10 years. I always had at least one landing destination in mind when heading to a new place, but after that I let the experiences and the people I met guide me to my next destination. As a result, I ended up learning a lot about myself and being able to be there for others. I did some WWOOFing (Willing Workers On Organic Farmers) and that was also a formative experience. I needed that flexible mind set when showing up on a WWOOF farm because I had no idea what would be in store when I arrived. My travels taught me the power of flexibility and listening to the intuition that get stronger the more you let that flexibility guide you.
Curiosity- Never be satisfied, always be curious. The mind set I bring to the work and to farming is always how do we make it better. I had a great tomato season this year, excellent, now how do I make it even better next year? We just figured out how to get the logistics worked out for a big school client and we had our first delivery, excellent, now how do we get the next school client on board? I recently read a quote from George Washington Carver that sums this up nicely “Start where you are, with what you have. Make something of it and never be satisfied.” Be curious to learn, to grow, to find new partners, to find new things in yourself, and to find new solutions.
Showing up – As I become more rooting in the work of building food systems, so much of it is just about showing-up. Food systems work is complicated and really big. There are so many paths that can be taken and a lot that is out of your control, especially things that have to do with national and global issues that have a negative effect on our local food system. In order to make any kind of ripple in this work you have to keep showing up and be committed for the long run. I think people in this work know who I am not because I so great or anything like that, but because I have been here working on these issues for over 15 years now. I keep showing up for the conversations and offering to engage in solutions. The second thing about showing-up is also about being there for the other people and organizations in this work. Collaboration makes food system work happen. I cannot and don’t want to do any of this alone. I am constantly reaching out and seeing how I can show up for others. A large portion of the $6.2M in grant funding that I have helped secure over the past 15 years has gone through our organization and out to partners so that we can be funded to do the work together.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I’m not going to lie to you or myself and say “this is all so easy” or “just follow your passion everything will turn out alright.” I work really hard to engage in this work and try to make some kind of difference. I do get burnt out, I do get tired, and don’t get enough sleep in the long days of summer. When this happens, I usually try to push through it and take time just to rest. In summer, when there are very long days, I take a midafternoon nap. It took a while for me to give permission to myself for this, but once I did, it really does help me feel better.
About 6 years ago, my husband and I started doing Yoga in the mornings. Nothing fancy, just 20 mins from the instructor on the TV. This helps me be ready for the day and sets a mode that I am taking care of myself and connecting with my partner. The other practice that brings me joy and piece of mind is being grateful. It might be 6pm and I still have 10 things that need to get done before dark, but if I take a second to appreciate the nature around me, maybe by watching the woodpecker busy in the tree on the fence line or gazing at the horizon and soaking in the green of nature, it just calms me down and I can more peacefully approach my remaining tasks.
I am really bad at saying “no” when called to be part of something. Instead of trying to change this part of me and make myself say “no” when I have too much going on, I have developed a team of people that can work with me to accomplish all of the things I have said “yes” to. I have a fantastic staff on the farm that is well trained and can pick up the slack if I have too many commitments. I also have an excellent staff in our food systems program that can easily fill in for things where I am not available. I do sometimes feel FOMO (fear of missing out) in these cases where I cannot participate, but at least I know that we are showing up for our partners and that my farm customers are not going to be disappointed.
Contact Info:
- Website: Newgrowthmo.org and greengatefamilyfarm.com
- Instagram: @green_gate_family_farm
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-m-nixon/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@newgrowthmo
