HENRY COUNTY, Ky. — The Berry Center and Feed Louisville are working together to bring locally produced beef to urban families facing food insecurity while supporting Kentucky cattle farmers.
The effort begins at The Berry Center Farm, where cattle graze across 200 acres. The Berry Center is working to expand access to local beef while supporting the farmers who raise the cattle.
“What we’ve tried to do is disrupt a farming system that is terrible for farmers, terrible for the land, terrible for the cattle, terrible for eaters,” said Mary Berry, executive director of The Berry Center. “So, what we’ve done is make good farming pay by keeping these calves, these cattle, out of the commodity system, which means out of feedlots.”
Berry said the goal is to build a direct connection between farmers and the communities that rely on their food. “Local farms to local families,” Berry said. “We are trying to bridge the urban-rural divide, which is maybe the most serious divide in our country now. And we need to think about the sustainability and the health of the whole.”
Feed Louisville is helping to make that connection by using locally grown food in meals it sends out to the community.
“Very meaningful to be able to put fresh grown, you know, super fresh, locally grown food into the meals that we send out to our community every day,” said Rhona Kamar, founder and executive director of Feed Louisville.
Through the partnership, Feed Louisville buys meat from local farmers, while The Berry Center also donates meat. The organizations say the model helps address food insecurity while supporting the farmers producing the food.
“The partnership allows the philanthropic community to support local farmers while supporting hunger relief,” Kamar said. “So that’s really, I think, the beauty of what we’re trying to say with this partnership with The Berry Center.”
Kamar said small and mid-sized family farms play an important role in food quality, land stewardship and the local economy.
“We cannot survive without our growers,” Kamar said. “All of those things come together to create this incredible value that we as eaters, as Wendell would say, need to really understand.”
The Berry Center also offers workshops for farmers and other programs supporting local agriculture.
Dining and Cooking