SOAR Agriculture + Natural Resources Listening Session

SOAR Agriculture + Natural Resources Listening Session

June 19th, 2014 - Letcher County Extension Office

Committee Introductions

· Valerie Horn

· Ryan Jones

· Dean Craft

Shad Baker, Jeremy Williams, Perry County Agent, Ron Bronte, Mark Kidd, Hilary Neff, Mimi Pickering, Jason Back, Raymond Brown, Evan Smith, Eric Dixon, Carrie Povlock, Greta Fields, Kathy Curtis, Willa Jane, Adam Rice – rep for Congressman Rogers, Isaac Fields, Chris Bates (here for Mike Caudill), Libby Honeycutt, Graham Adeson, Abby Gay, Savannah Wooten, Shafali Jalota, Legina Adams, Sam Adams, William Farley

Format

· Immediate Actions

· 3-5 Year Actions

· Long Range Actions

Strengths in regard to agriculture in the region:

· Strong tradition of small scale agriculture, gardening, farming – Sam Adams

· Biodiversity – Greta Fields

· Reclaimed strip job lands – Libby Honeycutt

· Opportunity for cattle on those lands – Raymond Brown

· Research on silviculture – growing trees - here – Sam Adams

· Our people and our workforce – Valerie Horn

· A culture that loves food and has a heritage, history of food, about eating and community and family, food is a central focus – Kathy Curtis

· Relatively long growing season – Sam Adams

· Better roads and rail system, access to transportation – Dean Craft

· Empty buildings that need to be used, places for processing – Legina Adams

· A population base with a strong background in machinery, which lends itself well to agriculture – Shad Baker

· Along same lines, if people previously employed as miners, convince them to buy tractors – Sam Adams

· Adequate water supply – Isaac Fields

· Ecotourism in Appalachia related to agriculture – Greta Fields

· Amazing forests, people want to see that, selective wood harvesting, value added wood products, natural resources – Mimi Pickering

· Natural resources – possibility for wind energy – Sam Adams

· Strip mine land – a lot of it is located away from where people lived, combined feeding operations, avoids issues like smell, etc that exists in other parts of the state – Shad Baker

· The extension office, Berea College and other universities (UK, Pike, etc.) – Greta Fields

· Desire to live well here, stay here – Kathy Curtis

· Any major development program is going to either be helped or hindered by the fact that so many people have moved out in the past 50 years, could be an opportunity – people elsewhere wanting to buy products from homeplace or people wanting to move back here and help, either ignore it or take advantage of it, those people have more access to free time and energy, etc. – Mark Kidd

· Community parks that are nice and well-maintained, the community takes care of them, great pride in that, communities work together, an asset, community atmosphere and working together – Legina Adams

· Strip mine sites – a lot of acreage of naturally acidic soil that lends itself to certain crops – Shad Baker

· Natural gas on those sites as well – Ryan Jones

· Inputs for fertilizer for natural gas, limestone, here on Pine Mountain, etc. – Shad Baker

· Companies can get natural gas for free like Kelloggs – Ryan Jones

· Access to free natural gas is a competitive advantage – Shad Baker

· National push to grow local, buy local, farm to school, we maybe haven’t yet taken advantage of those markets – Chris Bates

· Fewer jobs in the coal industry could be opportunity, now is a moment where there are more people motivated to try new things than has always been true in this area, that’s a real strength in this area, we’ll have to learn new things, people will be more motivated to do that – Evan Smith

· Aquaculture lends itself very well here, I raised trout from deep mine discharge, cold water species, gas and greenhouses, if you have a building with cheap gas or free gas, you can grow tilapia (a warm water species) so lends itself well here – Jeremy Williams

· Can grow fish all year long, growing food, making money 12 months out of the year – Kathy Curtis

Weaknesses in agriculture across the region:

· Not a strong tradition at all of commercial farming here, that’s a weakness because you have to change people’s mindsets – Sam Adams

· We’re too nice, when people grow food they want to give it away, we’re trying to make it income, runs contrary to our traditions of growing in the garden and giving it all to your neighbors – Evan Smith

· Removed from ag centers, far removed from inputs such as fertilizer – harder time getting it and pay a harder price for it than in other places – Shad Baker

· Transportation or supply and demand problem? – Sam Adams

· We couldn’t get them to order it for us here so we had to drive to Lexington ourselves. It’s not in their mindset to send it here so they don’t even think about it – Shad Baker

· I ran into that in Floyd County, private hardware store is willing to order it, now others are asking for it so changing that mindset, minset issue also is that there’s not enough flat land here, people don’t think we have acres, definitely a mindset thing that has to be an adjustment, small steps – Kathy Curtis

· That problem has been addressed elsewhere with farmers co-ops – Shad Baker

· That would be an industry that could happen here with agriculture that wasn’t actually agriculture – Kathy Curtis

· One of the challenges that we face is that our soils are fragile, thin, shallow, still developing, we have to be excellent stewards of our soils, erosion, no till would be ideal depending on topography, concerned about soil erosion, quality, runoff, fertilizers and pesticides, people promote organic but not everyone can do that with all crops, runoff into local shallow streams, we are doing major projects in Kentucky on Licking River , large scale runoff of nitrates into the water, as we move into larger production of agriculture in our region we have to use best management practices we have to educate our farmers to do whats best to grow crops but also protect the soils or the waters – might be a weakness or just an area of concern – if we want to do it we need to do it right and it’ll be different here than elsewhere – Ron Bronte

· The land we do have are droughty, water and irrigation can be an issue on strip mine lands – Shad Baker

· Access to strip mine lands is an issue – ownership and people not wanting to sell it – Legina Adams

· Some of them have 40-70 owners, you never know – Ryan Jones

· Most of it is really rocky, I wonder if that is a weakness, having to prepare that soil before it can be used on a large scale – Sam Adams

· We are physically far from population centers for raising lots of crops – Isaac Fields

· With co-ops, we as a group would need to be in partnerships because we don’t want 75 landowners all putting out corn, only 2 windows, we want diversity and variety amongst the crops throughout the growing season, there has to be a network and communication, leadership and a group co-op to make it work – Ron Bronte

· Overcompetitiveness of businesses in this area – if Pike County has something, Letcher Co wants the exact same thing instead of relying on Pike, so builds same thing which competes rather than complementing, not working together, lack of cooperation – Sam Adams

· It’s my understanding that in the state of KY that agriculture is not considered business so there are not many small business loans, economic development, financing – we need to categorize ag as economic development – Kathy Curtis

· Learn to finance crops based on future yields – can imagine future value if good season elsewhere, but here it’s a training, it’s banks – Mark Kidd

· It’s hard to get that financing because you’re not really a business – Kathy Curtis

· Ag Develpoment Districts – have to be continuous acres in Kentucky with ownres but we don’t have the infrastructure to do that, changing rules would have to come from Frankfort, a minimum of 25 continuous acres, when we approved ag districts it was drawn on a map as continuous with owners later being able to opt out, that would be hard to do here - Ron Bronte

· Most of those ag grants are based on large acreage, small acreage makes it hard to qualify – Shad Baker

· Forest and timber is considered a crop just like broccoli, people can apply for timber stand improvement – Ron Bronte

· If you think about the map as a grid we actually have more surface area, but acreage is based on flat land, more surface area has to be covered here than their mapping takes into account – Evan Smith

· Small farming has disadvantages but I’m a champion, always said grow local, eat local, I’ve helped people do this for 27 years, we are at a disadvantage with some of the bigger ones, the Nat Resource Conservation Program, EQUIP, Wildlife Habitat Improvement, a componenet within EQUIP, the minimum for a project is 10 acres, Connie Sturgill is our NRCS agent in town, we can get people what they need, people needs a Farm ID number so that you are eligible to look at some of the programs and apply for federal grants and we’ll help you get that – Ron Bronte

· We don’t have any fish in our creeks, you used to be able to live off shellfish in this area, I consider that a terrible loss and we are losing a lot of food there – Greta Fields

· Aging equipment – Shad Baker

· Two challenges we have with community college level is engaging youth, youth involvement, we see it until somewhere in high school but sustainability of youth enthusiasm is an issue we have, sustainability, to keep enthusiasm of all participants over 5-10 years is hard, we have challenges to bring young farmers into the system but also to sustain that desire and that drive in schools, my ecology class to college kids, they are not interested, participation with 8th graders is great and then what happens by college age – Ron Bronte

· Maybe it’s because farming isn’t a real job – Kathy Curtis

· How many internships and jobs are there in Letcher County or any county – Mark Kidd

· Kids are thinking about the dollar, what will make the most money, farming is a lot of work – Legina Adams

· Most people I know do farming as a supplemental income, people with regular jobs put in afternoon and weekend hours, it’s a supplemental income, very few of them that’s all they do – Ron Bronte

· Issue with wildlife – Dean Craft

· Guy in Western KY doesn’t have to net his blueberries – Shad Baker

· The problem with shared ownership of surface land that we have is very real, so much of the surface land, people got it from parents or grandparents, even if you could sort of convince the banks or federal people giving grants that you have access, you can’t qualify for a mortgage or a lot of these things, you share with others who have the right to come in and shut down all this stuff, that makes it hard to aggregate this land at the scale you really want to for commercial – Evan Smith

· It’s a challenge here and across the country that we’ve gotten away from eating fresh vegetables, place for mind change, palate change, we don’t have a lot of money here, it’s great when programs can take food stamps – Mimi Pickering

· A convenience culture – Valerie Horn

· We have a lot of people here with instant gratification mindset, don’t want to plant in spring and wait til fall, we worry about the present only, we need to get people into that longterm mindset – Sam Adams

· Weakness and challenge here to resolve the conflict between natural resources and agriculture, I was going to suggest wildlife as future opportunity, restore the wildlife, people could eat wildlife here again, that is a challenege we have to work through because I’m trying to raise all the wild animals I can – Greta Fields

· You can only kill one buck and two turkey it’s regulated by the state – Raymond Brown

· One of the issues we have in EKY, land is privately owned or in holding companies, you don’t really have a wildlife range and come in and pay a tour guide to go hunting and bag their deer, small plot acreage but that’s usually lease land, but we don’t have a hunting lodge here but how many people do that lottery every year for a bear or an elk, there is a chance to grow within the sportsman population, that’s the key, we have to bring new dollars into EKY, but the same dollars keep floating around, how do we bring in the new dollars, beef production, pork, etc. if we are selling it to other markets, export to Lexington, London, Huntington, question is how can we grow this economy to bring in new money – lack of not reaching new markets – is there a new niche market that we can grab a hold of, feed that need, and sustain our local economy at the same time – Ron Bronte

· Lack of access to land, inability to qualify for programs, lack of acreage for wildlife preserves, we’re in a rural place with thousands of acres and not many people but you can’t do a lot with much of, this feels like a theme – Mark Kidd

· And how you farm on that land is going to be very fragile – Ron Bronte

· And when you go to look at buying equipment, you buy a tractor on these strip mines and hillsides it’s not going to last long, I can see it potentially for someone to get inventive and build equipment that will work in this area and I’m sure farmers right now already have it somewhere because they’ve used it for years – Legina Adams

· Forestry is an asset, people treat timber stands as once in a generation windfall, people ignore it and don’t really manage it, if we wanted to easily increase cashflow in EKY there would be an emphasis on timber management – Shad Baker

· $12 Billion industry across Kentucky, not necessarily focused in EKY - Valerie