Trevor Claiborn  Small Farms County Agent Assistant 11008654 

Success Story -September 2021

Before and during a pandemic, Kentucky State University, Area Small Farm Assistant and KSU Area Agent for Small Farm Program provides technical assistance to a Farm Family in Scott County Kentucky

The Kentucky State University (KSU) Small Farm Program is an Extension program designed to help farm families with decision-making skills to solve farm and home problems. It includes educational programs that emphasize farm production, farm management, and marketing.  It also includes the use and understanding of local county programs and USDA agencies and their programs, plus providing technical assistance in completing applications for the program and the entire application process.  KSU Area Small Farm Assistant works with small, limited-resource, and minority farmers, most of whom have not used Extension prior to his intervention.  He targets minority farmers, farmers who are new to Extension, or farmers who think that Extension is not for them.  First he has to gain their confidence.  He then has to show them that he can help them to meet some of their needs. 

This is my experience with one family that requested technical assistance in the past and in the present.

When tobacco was a main cash crop for Kentucky, the KSU Small Farm Program was providing technique assistance to the Jenkins’ family in the early 1990’s..Mr. Edward Jenkins and Mrs. Janet Jenkins’ purchased their two farm tracts in 1968 and 1974, totaling 163 total acres connected all together in Scott County.  The Jenkins’s were Farm Service Agency, farm ownership borrowers.  Their farm operation consisted of chickens, cattle, hay and tobacco.  Mr. Edwin Chavous, KSU Area Agent for Small Farm Program had assisted the Jenkins’s’ completing a Farm and Home plan on a yearly basis which was a requirement for Farm Service Agency. 

The Jenkins’s had eight children.  Though deceased, the Jenkins’ the farm ownership loan was paid in full before the Mr. Edward Jenkins passed away in 2009 and Mrs. Janet Jenkin passed away in 2008.  Edwin Chavous, KSU Area Agent assisted the Jenkins’ in preparing a farm operating loan application with Farm Service Agency in 2004.  The operating loans were paid in full before they both deceased.  Additionally, Edwin Chavous provided technical assistance in helping Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins submit a USDA rural housing application in 2006 for home repairs which was a grant and loan for home floors.  This USDA rural housing loan was paid in full before Mr. and Mrs. Edward Jenkins death as well.

With the technical assistances from Kentucky State University, Small Farm Program, the Jenkins family were able to operate and manage their diversified farm operation. The Jenkins were able to operate their farm independently and produce income adequately to service their debts and maintain the farming operations and provide a reasonable standard of living for their family.

 I helped fill out USDA rural housing application with Ms. Annette Jenkins and Mr. Hillard Jenkins who both are children of the late Edward Jenkins and Janet Jenkins which were borrowers with Farm Service Agency and parents of eight children including Annette and Hillard Jenkins. 

The Jenkins’ have an estimate total cost of 43,000 dollars in home repairs cost.  The labor cost is 20,000 dollars and the material cost is 23,000 for the following items, roof, floors, and bathroom repairs, septic systems, inside house repairs and outside house repairs.

I was assisted by Mr. Chavous in filling out the USDA rural housing application.  Additionally, Mr. Chavous reached out to the USDA rural housing office in Nicholasville, Kentucky to get clarification if tax returns are required to submit along with the USDA rural housing application.  The USDA Rural Housing Credit Manager stated if an applicant is getting social security income and disability income, then tax returns are not required. 

The Jenkins’ are waiting to get the family farm surveyed in order to secure a deed in both Annette Jenkins’s and Hillard Jenkins names.  Also the Jenkins’ are waiting for the contractor to finalize the home repair cost estimate document.  This is just two of several documents that is required to accompany the USDA rural housing application.  After all checklist of items are secured by the Jenkins’, Along with Mr. Chavous,, I will assist the Jenkins’ in getting the application submitted.

The Jenkins’ will be able to have a home that is free of all health and safety hazards which will allow the farm family to have a reasonable standard of living for the Jenkins family.

Mr. Trevor Claiborn, KSU Area Small Farm Assistant, assist Ms. Annette Jenkins and Mr. Hillard Jenkins in filling out a USDA rural housing application at their farm in Georgetown, Kentucky.