- Kentucky farmers are shifting from tobacco to fruits and vegetables.
- Ag Commissioner Jonathan Shell highlights the opportunity in vegetable production.
- Stepping Stone Farm, operated by 8th generation farmers, has diversified into orchards and agritourism.
- There has been a significant increase in fruit and vegetable production from 2017 to 2022.
- Now, farmers face a growing issue of insufficient cold storage for their produce.
In 1992, there were nearly 60,000 tobacco farms in the Commonwealth. Fast forward three decades, and there are less than one thousand now. In the 2022 census, Kentucky recorded only 984 farms growing tobacco.
If acres of farmland once filled with tobacco are now a blank slate, Kentucky's Commissioner of Agriculture Jonathan Shell says fruits and vegetables could paint a picture of the future of farming in Kentucky.
"As we see fewer and fewer acres of tobacco here, we think there's any opportunity around vegetable production in Kentucky to fill in that gap for some tobacco farmers," Shell said. "We've had a dramatic increase in the amount of acreage for vegetable and fruit production in Kentucky over the last five years specifically," Shell said.
It's a story playing out at Stepping Stone Farm where 8th generation farmers are reimagining the next eight generations.
"Three years ago, this was a cow pasture," explained Ally Vallandingham, standing between rows of apple trees. "Beef cattle, hay and tobacco is what we've always done, and three years ago we decided to expand into the orchard industry," she said.
Ally Vallandingham, who operates Stepping Stone Farm with her brother and sister-in-law, took her dad's advice to diversify the farm when she was handed the reigns.
"We now have about about 7,000 apple trees, a half-acre of blackberries, a half -acre of raspberries, 3 acres strawberries, pumpkins and we're getting into the agritourism business as well," she said.
Noticing a newfound appreciation around locally grown produce, the family is leaning in, and they're not the only farmers.
From 2017 to 2022, Kentucky saw a boost in fruits and veggies grown on Kentucky farms.
For example, in 2017, only 24 farms grew brussel sprouts. That number more than doubled in 2022.
272 farms grew lettuce. In 2022 that number jumped to 329. Even broccoli, celery, herbs and potatoes have risen.
Fruit farming is increasing too. For example, 313 Kentucky farms grew pears in 2017; just five years later, a hundred more farms were growing pears.
However, with growing success, Stepping Stone Farm faces a growing problem: cold storage.
"We're already out of room, this year we had to rent a reefer trailer for more cold storage," Vallandingham said.
Refrigeration space necessary to offer quality products to the consumer and meet health codes is hard to come by.
In addition to the cold storage space on site, Vallandingham said they're renting space elsewhere, but once their two-year-old apple trees ripen, what should be running on ice, will be running on empty.
LEX 18 asked, "Realistically, how much can you keep growing until you have this part figured out?"
"We can't," Vallandingham said. "We cannot grow anymore, we are not able to plant more apples or blueberries."
Commissioner Shell hopes his department can help.
"What we have to do is be ready with resources and an understanding of how to make that happen," he said.
Earlier this year, the USDA announced a partnership with Kentucky to strengthen food supply chain infrastructure by offering $7 million of grant funding to producers. The money can be used for several things, most notably, increasing cold storage.
With dreams of operating for another eight generations, the Stepping Stone Farm family eagerly submitted an application.
"We tried to convey our passion as much as we could in the application," Vallandingham said, hoping everyone else sees what they do.
