Success StoryNorthern KY Agriculture Leadership Program



Northern KY Agriculture Leadership Program

Author: Don Sorrell

Planning Unit: Campbell County CES

Major Program: Empowering Community Leaders (general)

Plan of Work: Community Development through Agriculture and Natural Resources Awareness

Outcome: Intermediate Outcome

One of the five goals of the Campbell County Farmland Workgroup is to "Develop Agriculture Leaders." The lack of agriculture leaders is a major concern by most farm organizations such as the KY Cattlemen's Association, KY Farm Bureau and even the UK Cooperative Extension Service.  To address this issue, Agriculture and Natural Resource Agents from Boone, Kenton, Campbell and Pendleton Counties developed and hosted the Northern KY Agriculture Leadership program during the Fall of 2018.  One of the focuses of this program was to recruit younger farmers who would benefit from an agriculture leadership program and become agriculture leaders in their county and our NKY area. Extension Agents designed and implemented an eight session program that addressed such topics as: effective leadership, diversity, communication skills, agribusinesses, working with local state and federal legislators, and policy organizations. Four of the seven participants who completed this program were from Campbell County.

They were asked to develop a project as part of this leadership program. They chose to use social media and focus their efforts in raising the awareness of agriculture in Northern KY. The young leaders developed a website called Where You Live NKY.  This group of young leaders is using this website to post information about local markets, individual farmers and local farming issues.  They presently have 75 regular followers. 

The age group of the four Campbell County participants ranged from 23 to 46. New  leadership roles that these individuals are now serving on include: President and Director of the Campbell County Cattle Association, Chair and member of the Agriculture Development Council and member of the Extension Service Agriculture Council. Due to this program and the commitment of these four individuals the future for Campbell County agriculture leadership is much brighter.   





   






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