10C
Thursday, May 3, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Adding value to asparagus
By Gary Patton Kansan staff writer
On a blustery spring morning, the Pendleton farm, about three miles east of Lawrence, resembles a stereotypical Kansas farm.
a stove top oven
Shadowed by a pair of silver silos, a muddy-wheeled John Deere tractor rests alongside a gray barn. The wind whistles across acres of flat farmland, sporadically smacking an open barn door against its frame.
But away from the wind, inside the barn, observers quickly can recognize that this is no regular Kangas farm.
Kansas farm.
Sacks of asparagus roots, 100 to a bag, cover most of the floor of the barn, which serves as the Pendleton's country store. Boxes of bagged blue corn chips, 12 bags to a box, sit in an 8-foot-high cardboard pyramid.
And Karen Pendleton, 32, explains that she makes and sells cookies made from asparagus, paper notecards from asparagus and do-it-yourself asparagus home business. Typical Kansas farm products.
Pendleton and her husband, John, 34, were named innovators of the year for 1989 by the State Board of Agriculture. They have made their mark by marketing the 500-650-acre farm in a different way.
They began diversifying in 1981 when they planted an acre and a half of asparagus in addition to their staple crops of milo, corn, soybeans and wheat. Karen Pendleton said she got the idea from her customers to try making and selling different products.
"People would come out here to our market, buy $10 of asparagus,
hand me a $20 bill and say, 'What else can I buy?' "she said. "It didn't take me long to say to myself, 'We're going to find something.'"
Since then, they have found that they can add value to their 20 acres of asparagus and acres of other crops by processing them into other products.
They say they are not looking to expand the family business despite a lot of encouragement to do so.
"There are only so many hours in the day," Karen Pendleton said. "We're not out to compete with Frito Lay.
"I'm a farmer and I want to stay a farmer. I'm not looking at building a food-processing plant in my back yard. We can stay small, diversify our products and still be profitable."
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