The Jefferson County Cooperative Extension Service Agent for Horticulture Education (HORT), Common Earth Gardens (CEG); Kentucky Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (KCARD) and Navigate Enterprises of the Jewish Family & Career Center (NE) along with support from the University of Kentucky’s Center for Crop Diversity (CCD) have developed and implemented a three year incubator farm program for Louisville’s immigrant and refugee population to help interested participants develop the skills to run small farm businesses in Louisville, Kentucky.

Participants were recruited by HORT and CEG through the community garden program in Louisville starting in January of 2018. Interested participants had to build their communication skills by calling and scheduling a participant interview and filling out a program application. At the end of the interview process, seven farm business teams, representing 28 individuals, were developed.

Participants then attended bi-weekly winter classes focusing on farm business management. The classes were taught by HORT, CEG, NE and KCARD and focused on topics such as crop planning; record keeping; markets/selling in America and food safety. At the end of the winter session, six of the seven farm teams had created a crop plan and planting schedule for the 2018 growing season. HORT and CEG continued to provide support to farmers through scheduled appointments and regular farm team meetings both at the incubator farm property and with business consultants at NE and KCARD.

By April of 2018, all farm teams had created a planting schedule and began cultivating their farm area in preparation for market season. By May 2018, six of the seven farm teams had met with the NE or KCARD and begun organizing their farm business records. In June of 2018, all seven farm teams have identified local farmers markets to sell their produce and five of the seven teams have become regular vendors at farmers markets throughout Louisville. Both HORT and CEG have provided support to the farmers through this process by attending markets with vendors for the first 2-4 market times and helping to review and record sales and expenses.

By the end of the growing season, it is the goal of the program to have all seven farm business teams successfully selling at their own farmers markets in Louisville and that each team will have kept business records from the 2018 season. Post market season, the farmers will continue to meet with NE and KCARD to review records and develop an initial business plan during the winter so that farmers will be ready to sell at markets in May of 2019.