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Thirty-five percent of participants at the 2022 Small, Limited-Resource, Minority Farmers Conference attended for the first time.

Kentucky State University Land Grant Program personnel are always looking for ways to expand their reach and interact with more stakeholders across Kentucky and beyond.

The Land Grant Program also prioritizes reaching beginning farmers, defined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as anyone who has operated a farm or ranch for 10 years or less. On the first day of the conference, one of the tracks featured sessions specifically geared to beginning farmers, including the basics of farm business planning and introductions to organizations like the National Resources Conservation Service.

“We’re just getting our feet wet,” said Tyler Buford, who purchased 200 acres in Owen County in 2020.

Buford and his wife Kristen have planted about 50 fruit trees, including apples, pears, peaches, blueberries, and fig. One thing he learned at the conference is the importance of a water treatment plan. What he learned, he said, “saved me from making some mistakes” on his farm.

The conference inspired him as a beginning farmer, he said, because who got “to network with other farmers, people who are doing it at this level.”

For two days of the conference, Buford was joined by the conference’s youngest attendee: his eight-month-old daughter, Malia.

“I would definitely come back again,” Buford said.