By Meg Cunningham
When Makeesha Munro and her partner Travis Jones started their farm in Collins, Missouri, they didn’t expect to be traveling across the state to sell the culinary mushrooms they grow.
Jones was semiretired and looking for a way to leverage their property for additional income. One night, they decided to dive into farming mushrooms. After a few late-night online purchases, Root 54 Farm was up and running.
They made some mistakes along the way. But with the help of a now-defunded program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, they spend almost 15 hours a week traveling to various farmers markets and selling to other buyers in Sedalia, Joplin and Springfield.