This Kansas City, Kansas, family farms lavender with the help of addiction survivors

The Steinegers are part of a wave of nontraditional farmers in Kansas and Missouri who taking chances on niche crops — motivated by spirituality, tourism and simply giving back to their communities.
The sun was taking a break on a recent morning in July, as Joe and Jenny Steineger and their son, Ben, worked the lavender field.

Picking the best lavender stems from their 1,600 plants on a steep hill in Kansas City, Kansas, is a labor intensive job, full of stooping and bee encounters. Afterwards, there are long sessions stripping extra leaves from the stems, made a little more difficult on this morning by the rain they got the night before.