In 2017, I led the development of a successful $50,000 grant proposal to the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program to develop a new marketing curriculum for small commercial horticulture producers in Kentucky. Many of these producers fall between the large home garden scale and the small wholesale scale and their needs for marketing training and development are quite unique. This curriculum is adaptable and allows producers to customize the curriculum by choosing from a list of plug and play modules (see flyer below).

In 2018-19 we have successfully rolled out the program.

Of 237 participants who responded, 97% said the curriculum was somewhat or very useful to them, 99% would probably or definitely recommend it to a friend. 97% said they had learned at least one new practice they would implement in their marketing (28% said they had learned 5 or more practices while 48% said they had learned 3-4 new practices.)

We have a post-season follow up evaluation planned as well where we can begin determining some of the longer-term impacts and potential economic outcomes of this training program.