By TIM THORNBERRY
Kentucky Correspondent

HODGENVILLE, Ky. — Jeremy Hinton has been around agriculture all his life, as an eighth-generation farmer in LaRue County, and it is that knowledge and lineage that have served him well in the orchard business.

In 2002 he and wife, Joanna, leased the local, well-established Tommy Bennet Orchard. The Hintons’ objective was simple: Bring the freshest produce possible to their customers.

In doing so, they have worked with area growers in bringing a variety of products to their market. They also wanted to make the trip to their business something an entire family could enjoy.
“We didn’t have any experience growing fruit, and very limited experience in marketing fresh vegetables, but we had a vision of a farm operation that would allow Joanna and I to work together more than the traditional farming operation that I was involved in at the time. I was farming with my father in a row crop, tobacco, hay and straw operation,” said Hinton. “The challenge of a different kind of farming appealed to me.”

And a challenge it was, but the Hintons learned quickly and began to find their niche in the new business.

“We quickly learned that the market had largely moved away from large quantity sales and that we needed to account for those changes. In our second year, we began to start shifting our emphasis away from large quantity sales to a larger selection of items such as apple cider (from another Kentucky orchard), jams, apple butter, salsas, honey, et cetera, cookbooks, other items that the customers who we wanted to begin attracting would be drawn to,” said Hinton.

“We also started growing pumpkins and began to focus on activities like hayrides to the pumpkin patch.”

The pumpkin idea was a hit. Last weekend, the Hintons celebrated their fifth annual Pumpkinfest. The event featured live music, pumpkin painting and the folks from Green River Cattle Co. grilling ribeye sandwiches, hamburgers, beef brats and hot dogs.

The Hintons have never stopped expanding their ideas for the business and in 2004, purchased a nearby farm that would provide a better location and room for a new facility. By 2007 everything was complete and open to the public.

“For the future we also want to further develop our activities on the farm. We are both passionate about educating the public about agriculture and the basics of where food comes from,” said Hinton.
The orchard offers educational school tours as well as tours for other groups, including church, Scouts and family reunions; they also host birthday parties. Hinton’s Orchard and Farm Market is an example of how traditional farming has made its way into a new era of the farming industry.

Jeremy and Joanna are finalists in the Kentucky Farm Bureau’s Outstanding Young Farm Family contest and will find out in December the results of that competition. He is the vice chair of the Agritourism Council, which serves in an advisory capacity for both the Kentucky Department of Agriculture (KDA) and the Kentucky Department of Tourism on promoting agritourism in Kentucky.
The two are prime examples of how innovation has kept a younger generation on the farm. As tobacco-only farms become fewer and fewer, markets such as the Hintons’ have grown in numbers thanks to state initiatives such as the Kentucky Farm Bureau Roadside Market program, the KDA’s “Kentucky Proud” program and the state’s agritourism program, “Kentucky Farms are Fun.”

A growing trend

Markets like the Hintons’ have grown, whether out of necessity for the producer or demand from the general public or both. Recent information released by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) reported a total of 4,685 markets nationwide as of August.
According to the statement, “This represents a 6.8 percent increase since mid-August 2006, when AMS reported 4,385 farmers markets nationwide.” AMS Administrator Lloyd Day noted a couple of reasons for the increase.

“More and more consumers are discovering the wide array of fresh, locally grown produce available at farmers markets,” he said. “Another reason for their popularity is food buyers like the opportunity to interact with the producers.”

Day added that since 1994, when AMS began to track farmers’ markets, the number nationwide has grown by nearly 3,000. The information comes from an AMS survey, started in March of this year, of state departments of agriculture, state farmers’ market associations and other direct marketing organizations for information on the 2008 market season.