Appalachian Agriculture is all about connections

“I am an Eastern Kentucky business owner. I am a baker of corn bread, an heirloom seed saver and a hillbilly farmer. I offer no apologies. I am Appalachia Proud.” So begins an op-ed from Pikeville, Ky., native Joyce Pinson (left) who writes a farm-to-table column for the Appalachian News Express. The op-ed appears in the March 10 issue of the Lexington Herald-Leader. Pinson is advocating for the resurgence of Appalachia’s rich farming history, and we couldn’t agree more with her. “There is an agricultural renaissance going on east of the Winchester Wall,” she writes. “Farmers in Appalachia are one of our best kept secrets; so secret I did not even know others existed until the East Kentucky Food Systems Collaborative began piecing together a network.” In between talking about the types of produce she grows and how eastern Kentucky green beans are the best in the biz (a hint: they really are), she says Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer’s Appalachia Proud initiative is a good thing for Appalachian farmers. But she also talks about connection. How farming the dirt of Appalachia’s hollers connects us to our past and the ancestors who farmed to live, and how connections across county lines can only serve to make the agriculture economy in the region that much stronger, and how children who connect with growing their own food early are bound to appreciate it so much more as they grow into adults. All of this connection leads to great opportunity. And that’s the beauty...

New Appalachia Proud program could boost eastern Kentucky agriculture...

Eastern Kentucky’s local food and agriculture sector has struggled to match the progress seen by its neighbors in West Virginia, southeast Ohio and southwest Virginia. But yesterday, Kentucky’s agriculture secretary, James Comer, unveiled a new brand and program that could give the region’s small farmers a leg up. “Appalachia Proud: Mountains of Potential” is a new brand that falls under the statewide “Kentucky Proud” label. Along with the new branding opportunity, Appalachia Proud wants to work with area universities to develop “niche agricultural products” and Farm to Campus programs, as well as reviving Future Farmers of America and farm-to-school programs at eastern Kentucky schools. (The plan also calls for “Economic Freedom Zones” in the region, a problematic proposal that we’ll explore in a later blog post.) Place-based branding is an important part of developing a local food economy. For consumers inside the region, it helps to know that what they’re buying comes from nearby and supports the local economy. For buyers outside the region, an Appalachian brand sells a sense of place and connection to heritage foodways. Other Appalachian regions already have their own brands, including Food We Love in southeast Ohio, Appalachian Harvest in southwest Virginia and northeast Tennessee, Greenbrier Valley Grown in West Virginia, and Appalachian Grown in eastern North Carolina. For a place-based brand to work well, the customer must be able to trust the standards of that brand, according to a study commissioned by the Central Appalachian Network. The promotional material for Appalachia Proud states that...

Harvesting Appalachia’s Future: Developing an Agriculture Sector...

Todd Howard, Floyd County farmer and community leader, said it best at the Appalachia’s Bright Future conference in April: that the only thing Appalachians have done longer than mine coal, is farm. It is true that agriculture has a deep and rich history in the region, and we believe it could help transition the region’s economy into the future. There’s already a cattle farm on a former mountaintop mining site, and with the Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer working hard to recreate an industrial hemp market in the state, it seems we aren’t the only ones thinking agriculture should be a part of Appalachia’s economic transition. As the Hazard Herald put it: “There is no shortage of reasons as to why we should be building a much more robust agriculture economy in Eastern Kentucky. Put simply, there exists a need for it.” The paper says all the flat land left over from old mining operations could be turned into “agriculture hot spots” with a little reclamation work, and more importantly, diversify the local economy. In any case, eastern Kentucky’s economy is backed against a wall right now. It will take many different economic sectors working together to help the region walk away from that wall. Since Appalachia’s had a longer relationship with farming than almost anything else, we should reconnect with those agrarian roots and start planting seeds of economic opportunity from which we will harvest a much brighter future.  (Grow Appalachia photo by Traviss...

West Virginia’s local food economy gets national attention...

To those working on local foods in Central Appalachia, it's no secret that West Virginia is making huge strides on building up their local food economy. They've been doing so well that recently the federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission paid them a visit to see what the rest of Appalachia could learn from West Virginia's success. And the Washington Post took notice, writing a recent article on the visit.  [I]n Philippi, they’re seeing how an out-of-business IGA is becoming a new kind of supermarket, one where jams, flowers, baked goods and produce are gathered from dozens of sources and sold at a single cash register. “Instead of 30 people marketing their wares, you have one person marketing the wares for everyone,” said Savanna Lyons, program director for the West Virginia Food & Farm Coalition. The concept is called aggregating, and it’s catching on. “Being small and isolated can be both an advantage and a disadvantage,” said Lyons, who’s trying to help federal officials understand the opportunities and the obstacles to using food as an economic development tool. "When it’s harder to get your products out there, you have to organize more. You have to get creative. You have to really talk to each other,” Lyons said. …What’s happening in West Virginia, he [Earl Gohl, federal co-chair of the ARC] said, is impressive in both scope and enthusiasm. Though it has just 1.8 million people, the state has emerged as a leader in the local-foods movement. Since 2005, the...

McConnell Must Focus on Transition, not Rhetoric

by Ivy Brashear Senator Mitch McConnell followed up his recent trip to eastern Kentucky with an editorial in the Hazard Herald that makes some interesting and misleading claims about coal mining in the region. Even more importantly, it avoids comment on the critical question we should all be asking: What are we going to do to build a new economy as coal in eastern Kentucky goes away?   McConnell wrote that  “President Obama’s policies have raised energy rates, decreased domestic energy production, and cost jobs,” and that “a barrage” of EPA regulations has strangled the coal industry. After four years, he says, “it is clear this administration has declared war on coal.”    Since this President was elected, his policies and the EPA have been blamed for the decline of coal. Yet serious and consistent evidence points to major changes in the economy of coal that deserve the primary blame. McConnell’s repeating of this “EPA is the problem” story continues to get in the way of the critical conversation about what is next for our economy.   The reasons for Appalachia’s coal-production decline are more complex and varied than McConnell lets on. The meteoric rise in natural gas production and the rapid decline of easily minable coal in Appalachia are certainly factors. Stricter EPA Clean Air Act regulation that drives utilities to shutter coal-fired power plants in favor of cleaner-burning natural gas plants also plays a role. The international coal market, which is growing fastest in Asia, relies heavily...

Buying Local Helps Institutions, Farmers and Communities

It might still be pretty cold across much of Central Appalachia, but planting season has started for many area farmers. In the warmer months ahead, we can look forward to fresh, local produce at the Farmer’s Market, in many of our schools and restaurants, and even at some Appalachian colleges. It makes sense for all the same reasons as farm-to-school does – with the added bonus that college students are (hopefully) less picky about fruits and vegetables than grade-schoolers, and college cafeterias often have a more flexible budget to work with. The Roanoke Times recently profiled a Floyd County, VA farm that has begun selling to Ferrum College. On March 15, the college announced that Riverstone “will grow crops specifically for Ferrum College, including head lettuces, salad greens and baby spinach, tomatoes, cabbages, peppers, potatoes and carrots.” College President Jennifer Braaten said the partnership with the farm is a good fit for Ferrum, which she said is committed to environmental responsibility and supporting local businesses…. For Crenshaw, Riverstone’s business agreement with Ferrum College provides additional evidence that a regional organic farm can thrive. “By supporting local organic farm food, the college helps develop new markets and hence encourages young people who want to make a living on the land,” Crenshaw said in a news release when the partnership was announced. “The new agriculture — small scale, intensive, high quality, environmentally sensitive — provides economic development opportunities for rural Appalachian communities that struggle to remain economically viable,” he said. These...

Appalachia Funders Gathering Digs into Local Assets

On Tuesday and Wednesday, a group of philanthropists, bankers, government employees and non-profits got together in Asheville, North Carolina for the Appalachia Funders Network gathering.  The Appalachia Funders Network “is a group of public and private grant-makers who envision an entrepreneurial-based Appalachian economy that provides opportunity for all while sustaining the environmental and cultural assets of our region.” If you’re on Twitter, you might have seen their prolific postings, keeping all of us who weren’t there informed about what was going on, which included discussions of access to capital, entrepreneurship and building on our region’s numerous assets. Part of the meeting involved site visits to area enterprises that are working in promising sectors, including entrepreneurship, energy efficiency and local foods. The Daily Yonder profiled a visit to a local food business by the co-chair of the ARC.  To process their spicy ingredients into sauces, rubs and salsa, the Mowreys take advantage of a community commercial kitchen in Candler. The facility is run by Blue Ridge Food Ventures, and it serves as a sort of business incubator. Numerous individuals and small businesses share the kitchen, lowering the cost and hassle of getting into the industry. The ARC’s Gohl says this kind of community infrastructure is what’s needed to help local food businesses in Appalachia take off. “We’ve got good soil, a long growing season, and lots of local knowledge,” he said. “The challenge is to develop the ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’ to make local foods a stronger part of the local economy.” …A...

Get a preview of Saturday’s Growing Appalachia Conference!...

It's not too late to sign up for tomorrow's Growing Appalachia conference being held at Jenny Wiley State Park in Prestonsburg, KY! The conference offers workshops full of practical information on energy efficiency, small-scale farming and renewable energy. Earlier this week, Appalshop's Mountain Talk program interviewed several of the conference's workshop presenters. Here's the description: In this edition of WMMT’s Mountain Talk, we discuss small-scale farming, energy efficiency, and renewables in the mountains with special guests Fern Nafziger, Cody Montgomery, Paul Wiediger and Will Bowling. All of our guests are deeply involved in this work in eastern Kentucky, and are all presenters at this weekend’s fourth annual Growing Appalachia day of free workshops to develop skills around all the above-mentioned topics (do-it-yourself energy efficiency, food preservation, small-scale mountain farming) and more.  The event takes place at the Jenny Wiley Convention Center in Floyd County, Ky., and begins at 9 a.m.   Listen to the interview here, and don't forget to register for the...