Hello Neighbor!!!

Our May seminar was our domestic trip and we were fortunate to have a great option right next door. We visited Kentucky and spent four days exploring our neighboring commonwealth. Although I grew up just a few miles from the VA/ KY border I’ve never really spent much time there. It’s easy to overlook opportunities that are right in front (or in this case, beside) of us. I’ll definitely consider another trip to explore more of the area.  Kentucky is similar to Virginia in so many ways and it was easy to relate to much of what we saw.

I love a road trip, especially when it’s with great people. Our cozy 12 passenger van was full of excitement as our group reunited on the first day and began our journey to Lexington. Our route took us through West Virginia and included a stop at Tamarack, a cultural/ visitor’s center that offers travelers the opportunity to purchase a variety of artisan crafted products as well as regional food items. I’ve heard about Tamarack for many years but have never actually been there. It really is a beautiful facility with a wide variety of offerings. A few of us quickly engaged in an unofficial game of “The Price is Right” as we tried to guess the price of items. Because I really don’t want to offend anyone, I won’t give a way my secret for determining which items were priced the highest.

We finally arrived in Lexington just in time to meet up with representatives from Kentucky’s version of VALOR, KALP (Kentucky Agricultural Leadership Program) for dinner. KALP Program Co-Director’s, Dr. Steve Isaacs, and Dr. Will Snell spent the week with us serving as our tour guides and general experts on all things KY. I had the chance to get to know them, and their wives, over dinner. Dr. Isaacs and I quickly discovered a mutual acquaintance and Dr. Snell and I chatted a little about the history of the Tobacco Commission and our funding priorities. I was excited to learn more about how KY used their Master Settlement Agreement funding. Kentucky and North Carolina have always seemed to be the most similar to VA in terms of how the MSA payments have been used. We are generally aware of how the others have used their funds but really don’t know the details of each’s funding priorities. I knew that KY’s funding had been used to support agriculture and this trip gave me the opportunity to learn more about their program.

Like Virginia, Kentucky is very geographically diverse, and our itinerary allowed us to experience primarily the central and eastern regions. Our first couple of days focused on the two of the best known industries, horses and bourbon. We were off to the races (literally) on Day 2 with a schedule that was full of equine related visits. We began with a tour of Keeneland and an overview of the history of both the track and the horse racing industry in KY. Horse racing was very much in the news at the time of our visit, which was only twoish weeks after the Kentucky Derby where several horses died during the week leading up to the Derby and the event itself. It would be easy for some to interpret this as an indication that these animals are perhaps viewed as disposable assets, but we quickly learned that this is anything but the case. Thoroughbred horses can live a very charmed life and there is a great deal of time (and an insane amount of money) that contributes to ensuring the highest level of care possible is provided to these animals.

I think we were all drunk with anticipation (just anticipation) for Day 3’s bourbon related agenda. I had no idea that a single farm (really a collection of farms owned by the same family business) was the sole supplier of Maker’s Mark. Bill Peterson of Peterson Farms spoke to us about the logistics of managing an ever growing and changing business that is in the process of a generational leadership transition. Our visit helped to set the stage for what we would see on our Maker’s Mark tour which was the perfect balance of educational and fun. I’ve always been more of a wine person but have been making an effort to learn more about whiskey. It was fun to dip my own bottle of Maker’s Mark which is now sitting in a cabinet with all the other various whiskeys that won’t drink themselves.

Day 3 concluded with a drive west towards Bowling Green and a stop at Hinton’s Orchard which turned out to be so much more than just an orchard. The Hinton family epitomizes an entrepreneurial spirit, and their roadside “orchard” has become a destination for both local families and tourists.

A common theme among almost all of the businesses we met with over the course of the week was the impact of urban sprawl on their operations.  Bowling Green is a rapidly expanding city that could probably be a case study for urban sprawl and its impact on agriculture as well as the general community. The development of an electric car battery factory in the Bowling Green area is the latest culprit responsible for changing the landscape of this community. The project, which will create 2,000 jobs, is considered to be “transformational” in the eyes of the economic development world. These are the types of projects that states fight to land because of the potential to bring substantial new private capital investment and jobs to regions that are often economically distressed. The transformational potential of a project of this size is generally viewed as a very positive development. It’s less common to consider the negative side of the transformation. I’m a libra who very much values balance. I’m not sure how to balance the positive impacts with the negative in cases like this. We certainly saw how this project and others are negatively impacting the agricultural community around Bowling Green.

We ended our trip by heading east to a region of Kentucky that felt very familiar to me. Both the landscape and the challenges of Eastern Kentucky are nearly identical to those found in Southwest Virginia. Our final stop was in Hazard which was destroyed by flooding last year. The director of the Home Place Community Center shared his family’s terrifying experience during the flooding. We also learned about the recovery efforts both immediately after and those that are ongoing.

We wrapped up our week with a route home that took us through a portion of Southwest Virginia. It felt especially appropriate because our next seminar will be here in SWVA. I am so excited to welcome the group to my home region.