The Kentucky Department of Agriculture has received a $291,564 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help strengthen the commonwealth’s specialty crops market.
The grant will allow Kentucky’s ag department to partner with the University of Kentucky on efforts to help tobacco farmers transition to specialty crops; increase demand by increasing nutritional awareness; and extend growing seasons into winter. The department hopes to accomplish these goals through workshops, distributed materials and marketing.
The department will also partner with nonprofit agriculture foundation The Berry Center to hold a series of conferences to help specialty crop farmers looking to scale up their production.
The USDA identifies specialty crops as fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, dried fruits, horticulture, and nursery crops.
A full list of partnerships made possible by the grant is listed below:
- Partner with the University of Kentucky to increase the demand for Kentucky fruits, vegetables, nuts and herbs by increasing child and adult nutrition knowledge and consumption of specialty crops through workshops, trainings, and targeted marketing material.
- Partner with Hickory Lane Farms to increase the sale of regional specialty crop producers by bringing together producers and schools and restaurants, teaching farmers about how to use CSAs and other direct sales strategies, and initiating a program of nutritional education and marketing to increase consumer demand for local specialty crops.
- Partner with Kentucky Specialty Grains to commercialize Summer Flowering Chia by identifying growth management strategies, work with the food industry to highlight the values of the crop, including its high omega-3 oil content, and raise awareness amongst consumers of this type of chia in order to build demand.
- Partner with the University of Kentucky to develop new, and update existing, resources to help Kentucky growers transitioning away from growing tobacco to begin growing specialty crops, such as how to identify which crops would be best for them, help them identify marketing and sales opportunities and specialty crop profiles and budgets.
- Partner with the Berry Center to increase the sales of Kentucky specialty crop farmers who are looking to scale up their production by offering a series of conferences and meetings designed to help farmers take advantage of underused resources in terms of capital, certifications, crop budgets and marketing opportunities in order to help Kentucky specialty crop producers overcome the barriers preventing them from entering agriculture supply chains.
- Partner with the University of Kentucky to extend the growing season leading to increased vegetable production by evaluating which varieties and growing strategies Kentucky growers can use for winter vegetable production and disseminate this information to growers through workshops and distributed training materials.
- Partner with the Barren Country Beekeepers Association to regions honey production and sale by giving local growers access to updated harvest strategies and technologies that lower the amount of damage done to combs during the harvest process.
- Partner with the University of Kentucky to increase the total yield of Uba Tuba peppers through studying the varieties that grow best in Kentucky’s climate, study the best ways to extend the peppers shelf life by studying how it stands up to canning, pickling and dehydrating, and doing a marketing assessment of local demand for these specialty peppers.
