Limited-Resourced Farmer began as a city-dweller but has since began farming.

This agent has worked with a Warren County KY farmer in cooperation with Kentucky State University’s (KSU) Small Farm Program. Initially we worked work with this farmer in order to explain and introduce this her to land owners needing a tenant-farmer agreement to produce profit on-farm.  

The tenant-farmer has lived in the Mayfield, KY for over 20 years.  Fast forward to today and having begun a farming lifestyle, this farmer has yet to have ever owned any land but wishes to farm and obtain profits; thus, the farmer has partnered with KSU Area Agents on the Small Farm Program in cooperation with AgZinger Demonstration Project & Russellville Urban Gardening Project in Bowling Green & Russellville respectively to connect with limited-resourced landowners that wish to increase profit on their lands.  The relationships could prove to be profitable as the landowner needs “retirement income” and the tenant farmer wishes to obtain a seasonal profit.

The farmer and KSU Area Agents are in the process of making deals to lease lands for production agriculture through AgZinger Farms informal cooperative for the continued future.  KSU Area Agents will be involved on a technical assistance basis to inform both partners in the proper “steps 1-10” of Small Commercial Vegetable agriculture. This agent will continue to work with the Warren County farmer to generate the outcome of sufficient production.  

The current farmer is limited-resourced, socially disadvantaged, and needing assistance to find “helpers” and “leases”.  The KSU Area Agent is working on putting together a relationship of the landowner and the operator, cooperatives, and farm project leaders.

The Kentucky State University Small Farm Agent has worked with of the landowner and the operator, cooperatives, and farm project leaders to assess the ability to turn a profit on select agricultural enterprises such as Small Commercial Vegetable farming.

Landowner and the operator, cooperatives, and farm project leaders and the farmer will have a better understanding of the USDA and its agencies, Kentucky State University and its programming, and local agricultural entities leading to the use of information to turn expenditures into enterprise profits.  Possibly with the completion of the collaboration, a more learned farmer with access to human-consumption food markets in the region and a successful long-term goal would be achieved in the future.

At this project’s end, the participant had a better understanding of the USDA and its agencies and through cause and effect, the symbiotic relationships was evident by illustrative processes of requesting money from those agencies, collecting money from the fruits of the farmer’s labor, distributing raised-product, and paying debts owed.  The total outcome was a funded on-farm demonstration project through Kentucky State University and local silent-partners that allowed the farmer participant enough funding to increase the profitability of the landowner’s assets while holding on to farm operator integrity to illustrate a proper Small Commercial Vegetable system that was weed free, pesticide and herbicide free, fresh and 48 hour-picked, possessed reduced labor on-farm, and exhibited the ability to return a profit over the 8-month-investment period.