Kentucky Commissioner of Agriculture visits Bowling Green

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – Friday morning, the Warren County Ag Awareness held their annual breakfast at the National Corvette Museum where the guest speaker this year was Johnathan Shell, Kentucky’s Commissioner of Agriculture.

With over 400 people in attendance, the event was full of chatter, farmers, those who support them and elected officials. After everyone finished eating, Commissioner Shell began his speech about how he and the department are working to improve the outlook of farming in the Commonwealth.

Shell told the room that only 1.5% of Kentuckians are farmers but are worth 8 billion dollars in production value. Shell said he is working toward infrastructure development and research, implementing new technology, finding new ways to utilize the farming commodities the state has to offer such as exploring the idea of biofuel, diversifying farmer networks with places of commerce to make sure health homegrown food gets into grocery stores and of course marketing and tourism opportunities for farms.

Shell said it’s important to get more people on the farm to bring in the needed funds to continue to grow the career field. According to Shell, some of the biggest challenges farmers face right now are inflation and workforce.