We Cannot Wait

Foothills Eco-Agri-Tourism Corporation (FEAT) and the UK Cooperative Extension Service hosted a workshop for entrepreneurs interested in advancing their ideas at Morehead’s Regional Enterprise Center in West Liberty, KY earlier this week (see post for details). Entrepreneurs working in Wolfe, Menifee, Morgan, Elliott Counties were the target audience for the event – but the combination of excellent speakers and networking among creative folks with great ideas drew a crowd from across Kentucky. Peter Hille, Director of Berea College’s Brushy Fork Institute, set the tone for the workshop with a talk entitled “We Cannot Wait.” Hille talked about the lag effect often present between the national economy’s events and the impacts on rural communities, noting that it is possible the brunt of the economic downturn could just be hitting Appalachian communities now. Therefore, according to Hille, we cannot wait for a factory to show up and jump-start community economies – the local opportunities present in each and every community need to take off. Existing resources – capable people networking together to address challenges – need to be tapped to confront challenges in local economies, schools and government. Hille stressed the need for communities to take matters into their own hands – and not wait for outside help from the state or federal government, private foundations, or businesses. One such way for local communities to resource themselves is, according to Hille, exploring the opportunity to create a local community foundation, drawing on contributions of those who have made their lives and...

Kentucky’s Community Farm Alliance: From Growing Tobacco to Building the Good L.I.F.E....

As featured in the latest issue of Solutions Journal: Kentucky's Community Farm Alliance: From Growing Tobacco to Building the Good L.I.F.E. By Dwight Billings, Jenrose Fitzgerald, Lisa Markowitz In 1998, tobacco was Kentucky's top cash crop. Kentucky was one of the three states with the largest number of family farms still in operation—and domestic tobacco was their main crop. Major changes swept over the tobacco industry that year when it was pressured to compensate states for the public health costs associated with smoking as part of the National Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. Kentucky received a payout of $3 billion over a 25-year period. The changes stood to both benefit and threaten the family farms that cultivated tobacco. The crucial questions were how this money would be used and who would benefit. Many other states were using their settlement money to balance their budgets. Family farmers in Kentucky feared that any funds designated for agricultural purposes would be siphoned off by industrial agriculture, biotechnology, and large farming operations. Furthermore, they knew the tobacco industry would, in turn, pressure the federal government to eliminate a tobacco subsidy program that had limited the number and size of allotments for growing tobacco while setting a floor on prices. Small farmers feared that without such supports, they would be forced to quit farming altogether. But that's not what happened. Kentucky leaders opted to allocate $1.7 billion of its $3 billion share to agricultural development, and much of it went to support small-sized farms. This...

Mountain Music Fuels Virginia Economy

From Voice of America: The tiny mountain town of Floyd, Virginia has one traffic light. Only 500 people live here year-round. But there's a festival atmosphere on Friday evenings, especially in summer. The Floyd Country Store is crowded with a few hundred people from out of town – well-dressed families with children, gray-haired senior citizens, motorcycle groups. They're all here to listen and dance to live music. The Crooked Road The store is a major stop on The Crooked Road, a twisting 480-kilometer long route across the Appalachian Mountains of southwestern Virginia, connecting venues where traditional mountain music is played. Woody Crenshaw bought the store five years ago, when the 20-year-old Friday Night Jamboree still attracted a mostly local crowd. That was shortly after the state legislature designated U.S. Highway 8 – which runs through town – as part of Virginia's new Heritage Music Trail. Economic development leaders believed people from around the world would come to southwestern Virginia, to hear the traditional music of Appalachia. They hoped the visitors would spend time driving along the 'crooked road' that snakes through the mountains, stopping at the places where authentic mountain music was born. Crenshaw says the vision has become reality. He estimates the Country Store brings between 20,000 and 25,000 visitors to Floyd each year. "We have a lot of overseas visitors, I know that because every Friday night we have a little celebration at the Country Store where we offer a hat to the person who is from...

Survey Says…Kentucky DOES Have Viable Wind Potential!

Last week, the Kentucky Renewable Energy Consortium (KREC) and the Kentucky Department for Energy Development and Independence hosted a webinar to explore the potential for useable wind power in Kentucky (see post for details). The overwhelming consensus of the speakers was YES, Kentucky does have it what it takes to harvest wind energy…provided the policy supports are put in place to do so. New research, conducted by Kentucky Mesonet and others, shows that at higher elevations (80 meters, 100 meters) Kentucky does have the wind resources worthy of investing in wind energy. Previous research conducted at 50 meters did not paint as rosy a picture. In fact, all states bordering Kentucky are currently making use of wind energy – showing that it is really possible, and if we get our policies right profitable, to put wind in the Bluegrass. There are significant job-creation benefits to promoting a strong wind industry in the state. Webinar presenter Peggy Beltrone, the County Commissioner of Cascade County, Montana, cited a 25 x ’25 analysis that predicts $1.93 billion increase in farm income (from renting space for turbines), $11 billion in increased economic activity and 91,000 new jobs in Kentucky by 2025. Jeff Reinkenmeyer, Senior Developer for Iberdrola Renewables, fielded a question about what Kentucky can do to encourage companies to come into the state and develop projects. Jeff answered from Iberdrola’s perspective as the world’s largest owner and operator of renewable energy systems – as well as a company interested in exploring opportunities...

OSM Open House Today in Hazard 3-9pm

For those who can attend in person, the Open House is today from 3pm – 9pm at the Hazard Community College located at One Community College Drive in Hazard, KY. Tuesday, July 27, the Open House will be held at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center and Wednesday at Mylan Park in Morgantown. All Open Houses run from 3pm to 9pm. For those wishing to send comments, the PDF instruction form is available here. You can print and mail on the address included in the form, or submit electronically to . Be sure to include the Docket Number OSM-EIS-35 in the subject line of your email message. Comments are due by July 30, 2010 (both electronic and hard copy comments). The official announcement from the agency: The U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), is hosting Public Scoping Poster Information Open Houses as part of its preparation of an EIS under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 for the Stream Protection Rule that it plans to propose. The Open Houses will provide an opportunity for the public to review information regarding the principal elements of the proposed action and possible alternatives; provide oral and written comments regarding the scope of the issues to be addressed; and identify significant issues. The EIS will examine the environmental impacts of potential revisions to OSM rules under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (30 U.S.C. §1201 et seq.), particularly as these revisions affect...

Wendell Berry Asks…”What Else?”

Legendary Kentucky author, farmer and academic Wendell Berry contributed the following piece to the Appalachia-focused issue of the Solutions Journal: For more than 100 years the coal-producing counties of eastern Kentucky have been dependent on the coal industry, which has dominated them politically and, submitting only to the limits of technology, has come near to ruining them. The legacy of the coal economy in the Kentucky mountains will be immense and lasting damage to the land and to the people. Much of the damage to the land and the streams, and to water quality downstream, will be irreparable within historical time. The lastingness of the damage to the people will, to a considerable extent, be determined by the people. The future of the people will, in turn, be determined by the kind of economy that may come to supplement and finally to replace the economy of coal. Contrary to my own prejudice and sense of caution, I am going to yield here, briefly, to the temptation to talk about the future. In talking about the future, wishes have a certain standing. My wish for eastern Kentucky, as for the rest of the state, is that the economies of the future might originate in the local use of local intelligence. The coal economy, by contrast, has been an imposed economy, coming in from the outside and also coming down from the high perches of wealth and power. It is the product of an abstracting industrial and mercenary intelligence, alien both...

A Step toward Fixing a County’s Economy

by Herb Smith As featured in the special Appalachia edition of the Solutions Journal. The author is a film-maker and Kentucky native. More information about his work can be found through Appalshop. There is nothing so fixed about the future that it can’t be un-fixed. —Myles Horton, the Highlander Center My family has been on the roller coaster of central Appalachia’s economy for the past 150 years. We have gone from subsistence agriculture to a coal-based boom; from the depths of the Great Depression to a World War II resurgence, followed by the long downward slope of the past 60 years. I tell my family’s story because it is similar to the stories of thousands of other coalfield families. I believe we must change the ownership of our region’s coal before the coal is all gone, so I propose a community foundation with the ability to buy Letcher County’s unmined coal at the values set for property tax. The royalties from coal, oil, and gas would fund the county’s shift away from coal. Let’s start with my grandfather’s grandfather, John Ison. He and his family lived along a stream called Kingdom Come Creek. They raised everything they ate except the wild game they hunted and the chestnuts and other things they gathered from the woods. By all accounts, they didn’t have much money, but they had plenty to eat. My grandfather, Marion Ison, liked to tell stories about “the old-timers.” Marion said they used coal only in their blacksmith...

Federal Funding to the States: Saving and Creating Jobs

The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers recently released the 2nd Quarter 2010 report about jobs saved or created as a result of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The report pays particular attention to tracking public investment spending and the resulting impact on job creation and protection across the country. The CEA puts the estimate of jobs created or saved through Recovery Act funding nationwide between 2.5 and 3.6 million. In addressing the gradual ramp up of spending related to public investment spending, the CEA says: “The public investment components of the Recovery Act were always expected to spend out more gradually, because they typically require planning and are often awarded through a rigorous competitive process. But as of the end of June, roughly two-thirds of the public investment funds included in the Act had been obligated, and more than $86 billion had been outlayed. Public investment outlays increased by more than 50 percent between the first and second quarters of this year, which explains why the Vice-President has named this summer the “Summer of Recovery.” As the other stimulus in the Recovery Act gradually winds down over the next few quarters, the public investments will continue at a rapid pace, providing continued support to the economy.” Individual states have received varying proportions of Recovery Act funding, given a variety of factors including population and the mix of industries present in each state. Accordingly, the impact of Recovery Act funding varies among states. The most recent...