Westphalia Trading Company is known for its bright and beautiful chicken coops. You may have noticed them sitting along Highway 63, just outside of Westphalia, Mo. Looking like small barns and out buildings, these chicken coops are designed to optimize use of the elements for temperature control and ventilation while still keeping your chickens warm and dry.West p coop The building seen here, the small barn coop, sells for $650 and features an elevated interior and an access door for easy egg retrieval, all the while protecting your chickens from the weather and predators. Continue reading

Seed saving is just one of the many wonderful social traditions that revolve around agriculture. Call your friends, dig out your favorite recipes and make it an evening. Continue reading

It's been one year since our team put together the first AgriMissouri shopping guide. During the last 12 months it has been our privilege to promote hundreds of Missouri-made agricultural goods and services to shoppers throughout the the Show-Me State and beyond. Because the guides have garnered so much enthusiasm over the past year, we decided to expand the offerings for the 2012 holiday season. This season's guide will feature ten different gift selections in five price categories and will remain live on the web through November and December. From Dogtown Pizza, a St. Louis favorite, to a coffee gift set from The Roasterie in Kansas City, we chose gift ideas from all over Missouri, for all kinds of tastes and all kinds of wallets. Continue reading

Fresh veggies, free range chickens, eggs, turkeys, pastured lamb and hogs - who knew you could get all of that in one spot? Houston's Home Grown, LLC located in Hermann, Mo. focuses on quality food while farming in a sustainable way. Continue reading

One of the many ways our team tries to serve Missouri residents, businesses and organizations is through connecting those individuals to the information and resources they need to be successful. Recently we added a "Resource Partners" section to our AgriMissouri website, AgriMissouri.com, to provide contact information for all those industry people who support agriculture. Continue reading

It’s still roughly six months away, but this is an event you’ll want to plan to attend. The Missouri Botanical Garden, one of our premiere AgriMissouri members, will be hosting the 2012 Lantern Festival, “Light by Day, Magic by Night,” from May 26 to August 19. Continue reading

Recently at the Great Plains Growers Conference in St. Joseph, I met a University of Missouri Extension specialist, Donald Schuster. Donald works with people in agriculture who are overcoming physical and psychological impairments. At his booth, he displayed some really fascinating gardening implements that compensated for different physical impairments. An increasing number of Schuster’s clients are veterans and he is a veteran from the Vietnam era. Within Extension, Schuster is a coordinator of assistive technology services for the Missouri AgrAbility Project. He knows all too well the challenges of trying to return to regular activities after an injury has occurred.... Continue reading

When I began working for the Missouri Department of Agriculture in November, my very first AgriMissouri clients were Tracy and Latham Lewis, the owners of Black Angus Saloon products. When they contacted our team they had been successful restaurant owners for several years and wanted to take some of their most popular menu items to the retail market. Through the AgriMissouri program, we helped them do just that. We provided them with bar codes to add to their label, which features a tribute to a beloved pet. We talked about ways we can connect Black Angus products to other retail... Continue reading