Cherry Farms, located in the small community of Fountain Run, KY, has been the home and workplace of three generations of the Cherry family – but that doesn’t mean the farm has looked the same for all of these years. The farm started as a small dairy, beef cattle and tobacco operation, but owners Mark and Tonya Cherry shifted the focus from tobacco to USDA-inspected beef as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A year later, they started raising hogs so they could sell pork as well.
“Local food insecurity became a real fear so we thought we’d try it and if it worked, we had appointments with a USDA processor and if it didn’t, we could cancel them and try something else,” Tonya remembers.
Tonya was introduced to KCARD after attending a Kentucky Women in Agriculture conference and started working with KCARD to develop a written business summary and financial estimates for the beef business. This preparation would also help Cherry Farms apply for marketing and market expansion grants including the USDA Value Added Producer Grant, with assistance from KCARD’s Agribusiness Grant Facilitation Program.
“The assistance we received from KCARD really helped take away some of our stress, especially when budgeting and working on our yearly plans. Without that, we wouldn’t have been able to apply for the grants that have allowed us to take more risks with the business,” Tonya says.
With hard work and determination, that original choice to diversify paid off and now, Cherry Farms sells USDA-inspected beef and pork on the farm and through various farmers markets in the southern Kentucky area. Mark, Tonya, Megan, and John Mark continue to grow the business and provide fresh local meat. They expect to double the amount of beef and pork they had processed in 2021 and early 2022, with the proceeds of the USDA Value Added Producer Grant.
“We’re thankful that we’re able to add more beef and pork to our community and we couldn’t have done that without KCARD’s help. We were originally tobacco farmers, but KCARD helped us figure out how to replace that and diversify into a more lucrative business that we have more control over,” Tonya says.
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From left: Mark, Tonya, Megan, Loyd, and John Mark of Cherry Farms