Since starting my role in January, I have been striving to build a commodity marketing extension program. As commodity marketing extension programming has been absent from the University of Kentucky extension system for 3+ years, I created my current programs through trial and error. In each presentation, I have to find things I could do better and ways to improve my programming. As I give more and more meetings, I am moving closer to building a more complete program. Although it is not easy, I can confidently say that my programs are better in June than in the early months of my position. Although the programming will never be finished, I realize I can always build “one brick higher.”

I look at my fairly recent June meeting in Owensboro regarding successes in this role. This meeting occurred while crop markets were volatile, and I had many questions about whether producers should sell their crops and how. Following the meeting, I returned to campus and emailed about the price volatility and what could happen to crop prices in the near future. I then pointed out that it would be a good time to sell as rain in the correct places would cause the price of crops to drop. After the meeting and email, I had multiple producers from that Owensboro reach out and thank me for the guidance. One said, “If you continue to run a program like this, you will bring great value to the State of Kentucky.” This conversation is my success story for this year, but I hope it will be the first of many as I continue to improve and grow my commodity marketing extension programming.