SITUATION: 

Forage and Livestock management are vital to Kentucky’s Agricultural economy. As livestock margins tighten, management strategies that enhance forage productivity, utilization and persistence along with efforts to optimize animal performance will improve long-term viability of forage-based livestock systems in the state.

In July of 2017, the McCracken County Agent for Horticulture began to cover the needs of the local farmers. With the Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) Agent position vacated, there was a need to help in outreach to producers with issues of ANR.

Horticulture Agent worked with ANR Staff Support to gather newsletter-audience lists in the various editions of the newsletters. From emails of ANR news sent to Agent by UK and KSU specialists, topics were fed into the pertinent newsletter. As farmers began to get the newsletters, calls came into the office for answers needed in ANR. This, plus interaction from office-walk-in traffic led to an increase in numbers for the mailing list. Numbers increased by 20.

Other needs for the farmers and producers came through the weekly gathering and reporting of data for the USDA Crop Weather Report for McCracken County. Horticulture Agent has dedicated time each week to locate the soybean, corn, wheat and tobacco fields in production. Tracking the crops progress and soil moisture has been ongoing. Also, cattle, horses, goat and donkey conditions and pastures have been followed by the Hort Agent to help with the data collection for USDA reporting. Agent has filed this report for 35 times with an estimated indirect audience of 5000 persons for each report.

Winter of 2018 the Hort Agent was contacted by the Governor’s Office on Ag Policy (GOAP) to see about the Kentucky County Ag Rural Development (KCARD) training and also for the County Ag Improvement Program (CAIP) as part of the Tobacco Settlement money. The KCARD training was held 26 Feb 2018 at the McCracken County Extension Service. Audience of this program was 12 with 11 being Caucasian and 1 African American.

The electronic edition of eHay Weekly came to the Hort/ANR Agent’s email from UK. a newsletter and an electronic newsletter audience was created for this. This list has 10 participants. Comments of appreciation for this were shared face-to-face by 2 farmers.

The need for an Ag Advisory Council was seen and the Agent called upon volunteers from the farm community to fill this Council. The Council met in December of 2017 (6 Caucasian and 1 African American) and June of 2018 (4 Caucasian and 1 African American.) The Agent presented the activities of the previous 6 months and asked for feedback from the Council. (One piece of advice was for the grounds of the Extension office to create an orchard for demonstration purposes.)

In spring of 2018, GOAP contacted the Agent to ask for selection of members to serve on the 2018-2020 Ag Development Council.  CAIP funds were being sent to McCracken and Hort/ANR Agent was the facilitator. The Agent reached out to NRCS and FSA to get those two agencies to place the names of two volunteers from their groups.  Extension was to place two names as well. These 6 members were gathered under the direction of the Hort/ANR Agent and asked to come up with the two at-large names.  Guidelines set down by GOAP were followed and names were in place by 30 June 2018. By-laws were updated. Officers were elected. Information was sent by the Hort/ANR Agent to GOAP.

The participants awarded CAIP money were required by GOAP to take training in the area they requested the matching funding. Hort/ANR Agent worked with UK Specialists and ANR Agents to find the necessary trainings. In 2017-2018, two such farmers received training facilitated by Hort/ANR Agent.

To date, the Hort/ANR Agent has created a list of 24 farmers and their contact information.  These are men and women (23 Caucasian and 1 African American) who have directly interacted with the Agent through phone calls, texting, office visits and farm visits.  These numbers may be smaller than other surrounding counties but it may be helpful to remember that Paducah/McCracken County has a large area that is urban.