Author: Keenan Bishop
Major Program: Small Farm Management
Scott and Franklin Counties have seen an influx of questions from clientele about starting/beginning farming. Agents do their best to answer the initial questions, however it seems like they can never give them enough information, or the client needs to talk to another entity or person. In the preprogram survey 70% of participants wanted to make a living farming, while an additional 50% what to be self-sufficient from their farm. However, nearly 40% of them where brand new to farming.In response
Author: Nathan Rider
Beginning farmers, market gardeners, and landowners frequently find themselves overwhelmed by all of the aspects of getting started. Imagine someone bought a 5-10 acre home lot where they dream of homesteading and selling produce from a large garden. Maybe, they are retiring, inherited land, and suddenly became the steward of a much larger property. Possibly they are a young farmer leasing land for the first time to establish their business. Regardless of their experiences, they tend
Author: Emily Spencer
In March, I launched the new program Monday Marketing Minute on the Center for Crop Diversification's Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube pages. The Monday Marketing Minute is a bite-sized informational video that teaches growers about different aspects of marketing their specialty crops. Some of the videos featured are "Pulp vs. Plastic Packaging," "Tablecloth Choices for Farmers Market Vendors," "How to Make Flyers with QR Codes that Link to your Social Media Pages,&q
Author: Nat Colten
The United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service continues to report decreases in the number of farms nationwide and within Kentucky. Studies like Farms Under Threat 2040, published by the American Farmland Trust in 2022, raise concern about farmland fragmentation and development across the country. However, the fragmentation of agricultural land can also be looked at as an educational opportunity for a majority of Kentuckians who do not operate commercial far
Author: Corinne Belton
As in other communities, Shelby County is seeing a renewed interest in local foods, homegrown food production and small farming. The county has seen steady growth in land ownership in the 1-49 acre range with landowners being a mix of retirees, new-to-farming, and farmers looking to scale-back or diversify their operations away from traditional crops and livestock. 630 farms in Shelby County had a new/beginning principle producer according to the 2017 ag census. Farms reporting sales
Author: Garrard Coffey
The problem- A need for better pictures for social media and advertising for local growers and producers of agriculture productsThe educational program response-Photography class to better learn how to take pictures and edit them. The participants/target audience-Any agriculture based operator who wanted to take better pictures for their operationOther partners (if applicable)Program impact or participant response- Six participants attended our photography work shop. All 6 brought the
Author: Jeremy Williams
In 2021, the Kentucky Office of Agriculture Policy provided more funding opportunities for Harlan County farm families thru the County Agriculture Improvement Program. These funds, more than $55,000, continuing into 2022-2023, have oversite thru Kentucky Office Agriculture Policy and the Harlan County Agriculture Development Council. With the assistance of the Harlan County Agriculture and Natural Resources Agent, the local council was able to designate the funding be distributed thr
Author: David Embrey
Edmonson County is a very rural, sparsely populated county and a large percentage of that population works outside of the county. Even so, the residents of the county have a wide range of interests and needs related to agriculture. In an effort to address as many of those needs and interests as possible, the County Agent for Agriculture and Natural Resources offered a multitude of educational opportunities, that included state and regional programs such as the Southern Kentucky Pesticide Trainin
Author: Danny Adams
Wayne County hasn't had as much interest in honeybees as some surrounding counties. A few small farmers approached the Wayne County Extension Staff about getting more information regarding care for honeybees and harvesting their honey. The Wayne County Extension Staff that consists of University of Kentucky and Kentucky State University Staff held several meetings this spring concerning the care of honeybees.Through mail and Facebook the extension office informed enthusiast about upcoming be
Author: Lindsay Heyvaert
Western Kentucky University stands about 2 blocks from the Kentucky State University West Regional Office. Just over 17,500 students attend classes each day and have class hours during mealtimes. They have on-campus food options such as dining courts, coffee shops, and prepared meal stations. Aramark makes sure that these meals and snacks are easily assembled for students, but they’re not all locally sourced foods. I met with Aramark and WKU to talk about how we can support our small
Author: Jeremy Sandifer
Farming can be tough and the economics of agricultural land management can be difficult to balance against the limited availability of time and financial resources. The decision of whether and how often to apply agricultural chemicals, such as fertilizers or herbicides, can have outsized impacts on the overall profitability of small farms, particularly those operating on marginal lands. Programming efforts that address this issue have advertised and demonstrated the utility of geospatial technol
Author: William Rogers
I got the opportunity to go to Jamaica for seven days to show the college of agriculture how to use drones. So, I taught two individuals, a teacher and student worker, how to use the drones and process the data. They went on to teach twenty-five more people how to use the drones. They are seeing how many people they can get to learn how to operate the drones. Using this information they are going to research the way there beaches are changing overtime.
Author: Laura Rogers
The economic challenges the citizens of Whitley County face and to share some encouraging news regarding the Kentucky State UniversitySmall Farm Conference Eastern Kentucky Style.Per the 2022 U.S. Census, our community has struggled economically. The per capita income for the past 12 months was recorded at $20,633, and a concerning 27.6% of our population lives in poverty. These statistics indicate our residents' tough times, necessitating concerted efforts to address this pressing issue.In
Author: Marion Simon
The Kentucky State University Small Farm Program focuses outreach to small, limited-resource, minority, beginning, veteran, farmers with disabilities, non-traditional farmers, and women farmers. The program focuses on one-on-one training, outreach, and technical assistance, bus tours to conferences, meetings, outreach to the underserved farming population, and KSU's signature Third Thursday and Fourth Wednesday workshops. The State Specialist for Small Farm and Part-time Fa
Author: Whitney Carman
Since 2020, there has been a steady increase of the amount of people wanting to learn heritage techniques of living, preservation techniques, and other ways they can live off the land. One of those techniques is curing country ham. In the winter, the Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) agent was approached by a local producer and extension supporter about learning how to cure country ham. Kentucky is known for their country ham curing, so naturally there are a lot of ways and techniques. How
Author: Alexis Amorese Sheffield
With the COVID pandemic keeping many people home over the past two years, more and more families were able to rediscover homesteading skills they may not have had time or knowledge to do pre-pandemic. With this increase in interest in all things homesteading, the Boyle County Horticulture and Family & Consumer Sciences Agents created a series of classes aimed at those clientele. The agents called this series Backyard Homesteading as a way of letting people know that
On Saturday, January 28th I visited the Community Farmers Market in Bowling Green Kentucky and met a produce vendor, Chad Dewitt. Chad moved to Kentucky about fourteen months ago to start his farm in Allen County. Farming has been a dream of his, but his previous home of Colorado was short on water resources. Chad had already been involved with the Allen County Extension Office but had no experience with Kentucky State University Extension. During our first encounter, I mentioned to him our Smal
The cost of fertilizer has been extremely high over the past year. Small farmers with limited resources have struggled to fertilize their hay and pasture fields. So one alternative might be sowing their fields with lespedeza for higher forage production with out using commercial fertilizers.Some sixty years ago farmers used lespedeza as a pasture supplement for their cattle or other grazing animals because commercial fertilizers weren't available, or farmers didn't have the cash flow to
