Author: Matthew Chadwick
Planning Unit: Calloway County CES
Major Program: Local Food Systems
Plan of Work: 2021 Agriculture Literacy and Social Sustainability
Outcome: Initial Outcome
During the 2020 Covid-19 shut down we saw a large interest in individuals desiring to learn to grow food for themselves and their families, as they learned these new techniques several families soon began to ask questions about growing food for sale. In late 2020 a group of agriculture agents in Calloway, Marshall, McCracken, Caldwell, Trigg, Crittenden, and Livingston came together to address a rapidly growing trend of small “homestead plus” farms. We developed a series of “entry” level classes based on broad topics including, business planning, marketing, and marketed those broadly on social media, along with the marketing for the early meetings we also developed a survey to collect data on other, more specific topics that would interest these new clients. We were able to collect complete data on over 100 farms, most of whom were new to extension. 71% of the surveys collected indicated that the families had little to no experience farming, while only 5% indicated that they were from a generational family farm. Below is an excerpt from that survey, showing all the different topics that people outlined as an interest in their survey, we utilized those to develop the next line up of classes for the summer and fall portions of the series.
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