When Justine Greve and Robert Riley co-founded Full Circle Sustainability in Topeka, Kansas, in 2023, they dreamed of building a one-stop shop for sustainable living: a place where Topekans could buy local food, restock their household products, and learn about composting and recycling.
Earlier this year, the nonprofit received $46,309 in grant funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Heartland Regional Food Business Center. The funds allowed Full Circle to buy new display coolers and freezers, expanding its capacity to sell meat and produce from small Kansas farmers.
Full Circle Sustainability maintains a full cooler for Topekans and plans to buy it using grant funds.
The new equipment made an immediate difference.
“Since getting the freezers, we’ve started working with another meat producer, filled the cooler space that we got and drastically increased meat sales,” Greve said.
But after the Heartland Food Business Center was defunded in July, organizations across Kansas that relied on it for technical support, grants and outreach have been left without a key source of assistance.
The Heartland Food Business Center served six states: Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma and a few counties in northwest Arkansas. It was part of a national USDA initiative aimed at strengthening regional food systems by supporting small farms and food businesses.
Tom Buller, executive director of the Kansas Rural Center, said the regional breakdown for the Heartland Center came out of an interesting process.
“Depending on what part of the USDA you work with, they have all kinds of different regional breakdowns,” Buller said. “State lines don’t define food systems very neatly, so drawing those is curious.”
The Heartland Center’s Kansas branches
In Kansas, the program was led by two long-established partners: the Kansas Rural Center and K-State Research and Extension.
Marlin Bates, the K-State Douglas County Extension director, said the extension handled food-based businesses while the rural center focused on farm-based ones. He said the partnership allowed both organizations to “complement each other quite well.”
Food business entrepreneurs work at the 2025 Food Business Startup Summit hosted by K-State Extension and the Heartland Regional Food Business Center on Sept. 12 in Lawrence.
Bates said the K-State Extension partners with businesses that work in value-added food processing, like food manufacturers, grocery stores or people establishing incubator kitchens. These kitchens help food entrepreneurs get situated in a commercial kitchen without having to set one up themselves.
“We had resource navigators, people who could work directly with food and farm-based entrepreneurs to build or expand their businesses,” Bates said.
Through the Heartland Center, K-State Extension provided one-on-one technical assistance, business training and capacity-building across the food system.
Buller said the program’s structure had planned to split funding from the Heartland Center 50-50 between organizations and business builder grants.
He explained that some of the grants had been approved but had yet to be distributed when the USDA terminated the program.
“We had done one of three planned rounds of that grant and had a list of awardees that we had announced, but we were waiting for approval,” Buller said.
Buller said because the center already had settled on awardees, the grants were allowed to be distributed even after the Heartland Center’s termination. But because of the grant freeze, he said businesses are working on a tight timeline. He said grant awardees only have until May to spend their funds.
Despite being able to carry forward with some of the program, Buller said the funding loss still caused a large disruption. He said while the Heartland Regional Food Business Center technically no longer exists, there’s still the Heartland Food Business Coalition.
“All of the key partners agreed to continue working together,” Buller said. “It’ll be a lot looser, and we don’t have the funding to support that effort. So, it’s just kind of working together as we can.”
Challenges with food business partnerships
Bates said the extension maintained contracts with partners including the Kansas Small Business Development Center, the Kansas Department of Agriculture’s “From the Land of Kansas” program, the Kansas Value Added Foods Lab and Shop Kansas Farms.
“We recognized that we’re not technical experts in all areas,” Bates said. “So, we actually had subcontracts through that grant with a handful of other organizations in the state who also work with food and farm-related businesses.”
When the Heartland Center lost its funding, Bates said, the extension also lost the ability to offset the costs of services like nutritional labeling and shelf-stabilization testing.
“We’ll still be able to make referrals,” Bates said. “But the benefits to the entrepreneur are significantly reduced.”
Both K-State Extension and the Kansas Rural Center used the funding to create educational initiatives.
Bates said one of the most successful was the Food Business Startup Summit, a three-day event in Lawrence that brought together entrepreneurs from across the state with attorneys, accountants, mental health professionals and experienced producers.
Though the Heartland Food Business Center ended, some local organizations are still trying to maintain their work with smaller budgets.
“K-State Extension has been in existence for over 100 years, and working in the agriculture sector has always been a piece of how we’ve done that work,” Bates said.
He said the extension draws inspiration from scientist/inventor George Washington Carver and the Tuskegee Institute by translating technical information to agriculture producers.
“We’re not going to stop doing that,” Bates said. “We’ve always done that. That’s part of our bread and butter.”
For small businesses like Full Circle Sustainability, the funding’s end has created uncertainty about how to sustain growth.
“We were notified in February that we were finalists, but the funding was frozen so we couldn’t spend any money until about a month ago,” Greve said.
The organization used the grant to increase its local meat and produce sales, but future expansion plans, such as a walk-in cooler and a statewide food hub network, now depend on new grants through the Kansas Department of Agriculture.
Riley said the USDA program played a major role in connecting businesses and farmers.
“We’ve heard from a lot of our peers, especially many that have been around the agricultural space, that what a great funding the Heartland Center was,” Riley said. “Both in like education and technical assistance, and then obviously funding. It’s clear that they’re going to be missed as a resource.”
He added that he was frustrated that larger agricultural producers still have access to extensive federal support, while smaller operations do not.
“It’s a real bummer too because large commodity agriculture at the moment still has access to federal funds,” Riley said. “No matter the political side of the aisle, people support the small business and farmers. Put your money where your mouth is and prove it.”
Growing food system resilience
Greve said Topeka faces distinct challenges in sustainability and local food access compared to nearby cities like Lawrence or Kansas City.
“There’s nowhere to buy bulk pantry products, and there’s nowhere to buy anything without packaging,” she said. “The county recycling access is somewhat limited, if you live in an apartment; [the city] took away all of the community recycling drop-off bins.”
To fill those gaps, Full Circle Sustainability has added composting, online ordering and home delivery to reach more residents.
The organization is now pursuing new funding to connect with the Kansas City Food Hub to exchange goods and strengthen regional supply chains.
“That one’s gonna take a little longer to implement and get the right kind of funding partners in line,” Riley said. “But there’s just been great early enthusiasm and early steps have been promising.”
Despite funding challenges, Bates said there are reasons for optimism. Programs such as Growing Growers, which trains new farmers in fruit and vegetable production, continue to operate with support from multiple partners, including the Kansas Rural Center.
He also pointed to Douglas County and Lawrence as an example of how local support can sustain small agriculture.
“We have a vibrant, now 50-year-old farmers market, so there are direct-to-consumer market opportunities right here,” Bates said. “Having a consumer co-op that also just celebrated its 50th birthday also comes into play. They’re examples of how that works and why it’s maybe a risk worth taking.”
Elliot Akerstrom is a senior at the University of Kansas from Topeka, studying journalism and environmental studies.