Lexington city leaders continue to work toward growing Fayette County’s farm-to-table program. That includes a significant emphasis on agricultural technology recruitment. Local Food and Agricultural Development Director Ashton Potter-Wright updated city council members last week. Potter-Wright said work is underway to establish a new office to broaden the ag-tech influence. “And that next level is cataloging the momentum that we generated from this report, all the enthusiasm, hiring someone to essentially run a stand-alone entity that would be responsible for branding, marketing Lexington as a food and ag-tech eco-system,” said Potter-Wright.
Potter-Wright said the idea would be to set up this entity outside the mayor’s office and outside the university. The farm-to-table city coordinator noted some federal COVID recovery dollars are proposed to help get the operation going. Potter-Wright added the aim is to garner even more national attention. “Start-up businesses that are out in Silicon Valley or up in the northeast to, or maybe, looking to expand, but it’s expensive to do that there. We want to make sure they know that Lexington is a great place to do business, not only because of our rich agricultural history, but our connection with the university. The workforce, the research that’s happening there,” explained Potter-Wright.
Potter-Wright said the focus is to build out a more robust sector of the Lexington economy. During her report, Potter-Wright said in seven years, the farm-to-table program has increased sales for 90 farmers in more than 32 counties with a $9 million impact for Kentucky farmers.
