Crossing Through This: Managing Farm and Family in 2020

                Through this COVID-19 period, agriculture has continued the normal seasonal activities but has not been without feeling the effect of how life has changed because of COVID.  Home school, internet church, personal isolation and countless businesses closed has changed how life is lived and we do not yet know what normal will become.  Certainly, vaccine to treat and protect against the pathogen will be the antidote needed to restore life and economy but until we have herd immunity, nothing will return to normal.  

                In conversations across Kentucky last summer the topic was how agriculture will rebound from the dismal margins induced by enormous stocks and less export and domestic demand of grain.  What will be the future of quantitative easing desperately needed to stabilize the economy and future of direct subsidies needed to keep farms operating?  How will agricultural lending evolve and how will farms adapt?  How will stress and anxiety be contained if COVID-19 and dismal revenues continue in 2021?  The year 2020 presented unique challenges in all aspects of life and managing a farm business in uncertain times can be difficult.  Crossing through This: Managing Farm and Family in 2020 was conducted last summer via Zoom over four weeks.  Participants in Daviess County and across Kentucky joined Dr. David Kohl of AgriVisions, LLC- to learn about dealing with the farm business in a covid economy.   Mark Barker of Farm Credit Mid-America discussed lending resources and the lifeworks resource program.  Brian Lacefield, Director Kentucky Farm Service Agency at that time discussed government programs set to help restore working capital.  Dr. Deborah Reed R.N. University of Kentucky Healthcare discussed mental health while in the grip of economic recession and how participants can focus on what matters most in their life.