8A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2008
LOCAL
Farmers market thrives because of students, town
BY RYAN MCGEENEY
rmcgeeney@kansan.com
Three weeks into the semester, it can be hard to find a place in Lawrence removed from the elevated noise levels that come with the swell of KU students. But on the edge of Pendleton's Country
Market, four miles east of Lawrence, Bobby Sauder and Rolf Petermann tear sweet potatoes from
booth for Hoyland Farm in 2007, at first accepting free produce as payment.
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"I've been really interested in sustainable agriculture and the idea of local food economies for a couple of years now," said Kongs. "After studying it in school, I decided that I wanted to be a part of it.
the earth by hand. The only sound interrupting the ambient background of insects is the occasional pickup truck driving by on its way to pick up fresh produce.
I decided the best way to do that was to get experience growing food."
Jennifer Kongs, Topea senior,
begin working at a market retail
Pendleton's Country Market is one of at least a half-dozen local farms that regularly interact with the Lawrence community through the Lawrence Farmers' Market. The market, established in 1976, is open Saturday mornings at 8th and New Hampshire streets and Tuesday and Thursday evenings at 10th and Vermont streets, Joanna Voigt, assistant to the Market Coordinator, said it regularly featured between 60 and 70 vendors. Students have become more involved in the market as it grows.
John Pendleton, who runs the land
Rolf Petermann, a Lawrence senior who recently returned from studying abroad, overlooks a portion of Pendleton's Country Market while harvesting sweet potatoes Friday afternoon. The farm, located four miles east of Lawrence, is one of many local vendors to supply the Farmers market.
Rvan McGeenev/KANSAN
his father purchased and began farming in the 1950s, said he had never imagined that the market would come to compete for his family's primary source of revenue.
a farmers market has just exponentiately increased."
"I actually thought, 10, 15 years ago, that we would have graduated away from the farmer's market by now," said Pendleton. "But every year, the desire for people to go to
Pendleton employs the two students to help with his farming, and both are interested in sustainable practices.
"The Saturday morning market is a phenomenon that is just absolutely unbelievable," said Pendleton, who planted his first half-acre of asparagus in 1980. As the agriculture crisis of the 1980s caused his farm to shift away from livestock operations, Pendleton began raising other vegetables and flowers for direct sale at local markets.
Petermann, Lawrence senior, said he became involved with organic farming as a result of his architectural studies.
"You're growing all kinds of food that you need to survive in ways that can cut down on reliance on natural resources," Petermann said. "That's how I got interested in working out here."
Sauder, a 2007 graduate, said he found his work, picking vegetables on the 35-acre farm, the perfect foundation for his post-graduate life.
"I'm a musician, actually," said Sauder. "I'm pursuing music, and this is where I'm working while I do that. I didn't want to take on anything too serious."
of the market. Brandon Stone, a Camdenton, Mo., graduate student, mentioned Eva, his one-year-old daughter, as one motivating factor.
The farmers and other vendors found at the market enjoy a position in the Lawrence community similar to many businesses in the area, serving KU students as both employer and retailer.
Aspects of small-scale farming like organic methods and limited transportation distances are often voiced concerns of regular patrons
"With our daughter, we want
her to be eating pesticide-free, and as local as possible," said Stone. "For example, tomatoes — they travel I don't know how far from Mexico just to get to the grocery stores. It's so much better just to
get a local tomato. It tastes better, and it's better for you."
Edited by Arthur Hur
WORLD
Cairo residents angry over lack of aid
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAIRO, Egypt — Hopes diminished Sunday for finding survivors among hundreds of people believed trapped beneath massive boulders that destroyed an impoverished neighborhood on Cairo's outskirts, killing at least 32 people, including whole extended families.
Anger and resentment mounted as authorities failed for a second day to get heavy machinery into the devastated shantytown to try to
clear the large slabs that split away from the Muqattam cliffs early Saturday, Survivors among the 100,000 residents of the Dewika slum were also left to spend the night without shelter, despite government promises to provide it.
"The area turned into a mass grave," one bearded man shouted, while a tearful young woman in a black robe clutched a picture of a newlywed couple whose bodies remained trapped below.
Hundreds of anti-riot police in helmets and shields cordoned
off the area to prevent journalists and residents from approaching the site. Only young residents who have been involved in the rescue efforts were allowed to get close.
"In America, rescue workers would hurry to save a cat. Here, hundreds of human beings are buried under the rocks and nobody seems to care," said a taxi driver who was helping with the rescue but refused to give his name.
Many residents who spoke to a reporter refused to give their names, saying they felt intimidated and threatened by the security forces in the area.
Rabie Ragab, whose house overlooks the boulders, accused the government of trying to deceive the public. "The minister of housing told the media that no one would sleep in the street. You can see that we all slept in the streets."
Alleys leading up to the demolished houses were packed with women weeping and wailing while calling out names of their loved ones. One young man with a dusty face burst into tears and lay on the ground after losing his whole family.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
State television reported that another body was pulled from the rubble Sunday, bringing the death toll to 32. A security official said 46 people were treated at hospitals, but that many other people remained buried. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The densely populated shantytown, part of a sprawling slum known as Manshiyet Nasr, is sandwiched between unstable cliffs and an unused railroad track that has made it difficult to get heavy recovery machinery into the area. More than 24 hours after the incident, rescue operations were still being carried out largely by hand and by residents.
Army personnel and Civil Defense workers managed to cut into the railway track and demolish several houses to clear the way for bulldozers.
Aboul-Ela Amin Mohammed, the head of the earthquake department at the National Research Institute for Astronomy and Geophysics, said the entire plateau is in danger of further collapse.
"It is not the first time or the last time," he told The Associated Press. "The area is full of densely packed informal housing with no central sewer system. ... When the
Local residents, police and firemen searching for survivors try to clear away rubble with their bare hands and basic tools. The rock slide occurred in the outskirts of Cairo, Egypt, on Saturday.
Similar disasters happened in 1994 and 2002.
Despite the obvious danger and residents' pleas to the local council to provide safer housing, little action was taken, said Mustafa Mahmoud Sayed, a five-year resident of the slum.
sewage touches the fragile surface of the limestone it changes its consistency into a flour-like paste."
Like much of the housing, Sayyed said his one-floor house of bricks with a wood ceiling was built illegally near the cliff edge made possible by a bribe to the city council's engineer.
Hundreds of new government-provided apartments have been built just a 10-minute walk from the slums, but residents say only 5 percent is occupied because few can afford the necessary bribes.
Haidar Baghdadi, the parliamentary representative of the area, told AP that 388 apartments from this complex would be made available within 48 hours to those who lost their homes.
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