Food security is a major concern, not only in developing nations, but in the United States as well.  Map the Meal Gap 2018 reports that 15.5% of Kentucky’s population is food insecure, which is higher than the national average of 12.9%.  57 of the 120 counties in Kentucky have food insecurity rates higher than the state average.  Individuals in food insecure areas may find it especially hard to travel farther to purchase healthy food if they live in a food desert.  A food desert is defined as a census tract with limited access to fresh and healthful whole foods due to a lack of grocery stores.  In some cases, the definition includes farmers’ markets and other healthy food providers.  The USDA has designated numerous census tracts in Kentucky as food deserts, including portions of Louisville, Lexington, Frankfort, and Bowling Green.   One way that people improve their food security is through urban agriculture, which not only increases the amount of fresh food available, but can help to offset household expenditures on food, and may generate income if produce are sold. Urban agriculture can also provide a number of community benefits and recreational opportunities.   

One of the goals of Cooperative extension is to help urban farmers, especially limited-resource farmers, to produce in more efficient ways and make the best use of the resources available to them.  To this end, a pilot project was developed to examine relay cropping in small urban spaces.  Participating urban farmers would manage raised beds in which a series of 6 leaf green crops would be grown.  Leafy greens are known to be a high value crop in Kentucky and the use of relay cropping, a technique where one, fast growing crop is harvested and the next crop is immediately planted, would ensure continuous income. For the pilot project, Kentucky State University would provide the materials to construct the raised beds, the soil to fill them, and seed and fertilizer for all crops.   Extension personnel would install the raised beds and plant the first crop.  At each harvest extension personnel would, with the assistance of the farmer, harvest the crop, collect yield data, and plant the next crop.

In 2018 several potential participants were evaluated, and some were excluded based on potential farm site characteristics.  One suitable urban site in Frankfort, KY and one in Louisville, KY were identified.  Scheduling problems at the Louisville site delayed instillation until early 2019.  Instillation of the Frankfort site, at the home of a family of 4, took place in early July.  The delay in planting meant that the first 2 crops in the sequence were skipped and only 4 crops were planted in 2018.  Extension personnel coordinated with the participant family to schedule planting and harvest.  At this stage in the pilot, participant responsibilities were restricted to managing the crops between harvest (watering, mowing around beds, and weeding).   Harvests totaled 0.8 kg of mizuna (a heat tolerant Asian green), 3.4 kg of mustard greens, and 1.6 kg of kale.  The final spinach harvest did not grow well because of a sudden change in temperature in October.  The greens were left with the family and can be valued at a total of $235.48, assuming a farmers’ market price of $5.00 per bunch of 125 g.  The lead participant at the Frankfort site was very interested to get firsthand experience with farming, as he works with many farmers in his professional capacity.  He “enjoyed kick-starting the project with KSU and understanding the potential it can bring in learning new information on high producing crops” and looks forward to greater involvement in the 2019 growing season.

 In 2019 we hope to have the full three sites in operation.  Another goal for 2019 is to facilitate sale of the greens at a farmers’ market.  This pilot program will be used to help develop more formal extension programming and materials to educate more farmers, and determine how farmer managed relay cropping harvests compared with those of a controlled experiment research project using the same crops.