Tom Buller, former manager of the downtown Lawrence Farmers Market and owner of Fuller Family Farm, has been hired as the new horticulture agent for Douglas County Research and Extension. Buller will assume his new duties April 10.

Tom Buller’s hands will soon spend much less time in the rich Kaw Valley soils of his Buller Family Farm just east of Lawrence, which he has worked for the past 12 years.

Instead, he’ll have his hands on efforts to help grow the entire Douglas County fruit and vegetable scene as the county’s new horticulture agent.

“I’ll miss that, but I’ll still do that somewhat,” he said. “I’ll be scaling back my involvement in my farm this year. I have other people helping with that who I’ll be indirectly overseeing, because I’ll be working for Extension. The opportunity to be working with farmers in general is really tempting to me.”

Buller will start April 10 as the horticultural agent for Douglas County K-State Research and Extension. He will fill the position vacant since Marlin Bates was promoted in December to director of Douglas County Extension.

Bates and Buller said the horticulture agent’s duties have been tweaked to take advantage of Buller’s background and interests. Bates will focus on working with local fruit and vegetable growers and local backyard gardeners with an emphasis on helping them commercially market their produce.

Bates said the Douglas County Extension board found in Buller an agent who could build community-wide collaborations that would bring meaningful change to the local food system.

Buller is a past and founding member of the Douglas County Food Policy Council, one-time manager of the downtown Lawrence Farmers Market, a founding member of the local Fresh Food HQ food hub, current specialty crop program manager for the Kansas Rural Center and owner of a farm that has hosted a number of extension research projects.

“Tom was an apprentice in the extension growing program, which basically teaches new farmers how to farm, and he was later a host to other new farmers on his farm,” Bates said. “In addition, we’ve been doing research projects out at his farm for several years. He knows what a farm research project looks like, he knows the needs of local producers and how to point people to the resources they need.”

Buller received his undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas in geography and moved on to the University of Minnesota for master’s level study in geography with an emphasis on agriculture and rural development.

“While I was doing that, I talked to different producers and decided I was more interested in doing that than pursuing an academic career,” he said. “My wife and I decided to move back to Lawrence. I’ve been around here since 2006, growing fruits and vegetables.”