FRANKFORT, Ky. – In the heart of south central Kentucky, one will find Travis Cleaver, a third-generation farmer in LaRue and Hart Counties. Growing up in a multi-generational farm family, Travis learned how to grow tobacco and raise livestock with his parents and grandparents.

While some young people leave the farm, Travis embraced this livelihood and it developed into a passion to provide locally sources produce and meats to those around him. He raises and sells hogs, cows, chickens, rabbits and has an 18-week market garden with produce grown in three high tunnels and via row cropping. He sells his produce all over the area, delivering vegetable baskets to customers in Hodgenville, Elizabethtown, Fort Knox, Lexington and Louisville.

His efforts have now earned him the title 2021 Small Farmer of the Year by the Kentucky State University Land Grant Program.

“It’s always been the goal of mine to have my own farm, to have a large farm,” Cleaver said in a KSU release. “We wrote it down on paper, made it a goal, and slowly, every year, we just got a little bigger and a little better. We’ve had some years that weren’t so successful, but that made the better years even more successful.”

Cleaver received two Small-Scale Farm Grants from Kentucky State and then attended educational opportunities such as the Small, Limited-Resource, Minority Farmers Conference. He worked closely with multiple Kentucky State employees to obtain grants.

After learning about the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), Travis started working with conservation planners to tackle areas of concern on his property. With assistance of the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, the Cleaver farm now has cross-fenced pastures and installed watering facilities for rotational grazing. He has plans to establish native warm season grasses into the pasture and hay fields.

From his time running Cleav’s Meat Shack in downtown Hodgenville to operating Cleav’s Family Market in Bonnieville, Cleaver has come a long way in 11 years.

“In the past I watched as mentors of mine were recognized as Small Farmer of the Year, thinking ‘man, I want to be like them one day’,” Cleaver said. “It’s pretty cool to now receive the same honor, to get my name with their name. It just makes me reflect on all of them who did stuff to help me get here. I’ve found my best resources are people I consider to be mentors.”

Today, he still runs and operates Cleav’s Family Market, along with his parents, his girlfriend Heather Cooper, his two daughters and employees who he says makes it ‘feel like family’.

“It’s amazing, the people you put on your team, how they make you better,” Cleaver said. “Just make sure that you have somebody on your team that’s going to push you and support you.”

Like many other farmers today, Travis balances his 80-acre farming operation with a fulltime job with CSX.

In addition to his market garden and the multitude of animals, he tends to a three-acre garden, from which he provides a CSA with three drop off locations and stocks a vegetable in his community. The animal portion of this farm provides locally sourced meat for purchase. Cleaver started offering meat bundles with a variety of cuts, eliminating the customers’ need to contact the processing facility. This part of his business has now grown, and he takes orders and delivers meat bundles every six weeks.