By Eric Smith
Nestled in a quaint, quiet neighborhood among the sprawling bustle of the greater Kansas City area, Brooke Salvaggio and Dan Heryer get by, day-by-day, living a life old-time Kansas Citians would have recognized.
Salvaggio’s hands are caked in dirt from working in a field on Urbavore Urban Farm, a 13.5-acre farmstead, that, as much as it seems wildly out of place, blends into the neighborhood.
But here, near Eastwood Trafficway, vegetable gardens, fruit orchards, livestock, a small pond and tons of compost create an ecological sanctuary.
While Urbavore stands out, simultaneously being hidden in plain sight, the paths that led both Heryer and Salvaggio to this calling are every bit as intriguing.
“I grew up in suburbia and worked at the Nelson art gallery for years,” Salvaggio said. “I was a bit of a jaded teenager, and I felt the whole suburban lifestyle, climbing the ladder, the ‘American Dream,’…I was just very dissatisfied with that reality.”
Heryer, likewise, is also a Kansas City native. He grew up not far from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. His interests in not only social inequality but also the raw amount of waste produced by society, drove Heryer to initially pursue urban planning.
“I went to this orchard to work with these migrant workers and see if maybe I could write about the experience.” said Heryer.
That experience taught him that his calling was not to academia and its halls and vaulted archways, but to the soil, trowel and arduous toil.
The pair finally coalesced at a farming conference. Together they worked a 2.5 acre plot of land in a residential area near Bannister and State Line roads. Neighbors raised concerns about the chickens, goats and compost. After they wed in 2009, the two began searching for new grounds and bought the land that would become Urbavore in 2010.
The land, according to Salvaggio, was geologically ridge-top land and the topsoil had been long ago scraped away.
Were it not enough that the soil had to be reconstructed due to lack of plant-favorable nutrients, it didn’t have even basic utilities like running water for livestock.
But the one thing it had going for it, at least, was that it was cheap. Money was tight, the days were long and backbreaking.
“We were growing our own food but it was killing us,” Salvaggio said. “The methods we were using out here to grow in this really heavy, clay subsoil was so labor intensive, and we just weren’t building our soil fast enough.”
Building the soil soon became a matter of building the business.
In 2021, Heryer and Salvaggio acquired Compost Collective KC from a customer they had known. The acquisition wasn’t intended to be an extra revenue generating opportunity, but to further fuel Urbavore by collecting food waste from around the Kansas City area and turning it into useful, valuable compost instead of letting it rot in a dump.
The composting they had been doing was producing neither enough of the compost they needed, nor of the quality they needed to grow the crops they’d envisioned.
“You could spend over $100,000 a year on compost, and still not have enough.” Salvaggio said.
What started off as a boon and opportunity, soon became mired in a morass of politics and legal battles that only very recently have come to a close.
On January 8, the Kansas City Board of Zoning Adjustments overturned their prior decision regarding zoning violations against the farm, concluding a legal dogfight that hung over the family’s head for more than two years.
The victory with the zoning board, though, has done little to quell the nerves and anxiety for Salvaggio, Heryer and their family.
Salvaggio mentioned harassment both she and her family have experienced on their farm from those in the community.
“We’re definitely paranoid and stressed out,” Salvaggio said. “All we can do is keep doing the good stuff we do.”
For all the arduous, tumultuous experiences Salvaggio and Heryer have faced, it’s not all strife and gloom.
On Sunday, April 6, Urbavore hosted a volunteer event. A simple day, with a simple task. A task that brought the community on to the farm to work around the very issue that has loomed over the heads of Salvaggio and Heryer for years.
Volunteers sat around the heaping pile of compost. Five-year-old Ezra Mancilla hurriedly scurried back and forth over and around the compost pile in the bright, early afternoon sun. First, he carried a shovel, the next time he brought sacks to his aunt and other volunteers to fill.
Days like this one, with volunteers from communities across the city, reminded Salvaggio of the deeper reason why she and Heryer press onward.
“It’s important to keep it in perspective,” she said. “We always remember the one loud naysayer…even though there’s hundreds of contented, happy people.”
For more information about Urbavore Urban Farm, which sells organic produce, visit www.urbavorefarm.com.