Urban growers in Louisville’s West End face ongoing barriers to operating viable food enterprises, including limited access to technical assistance, food safety training, and market-ready business support. These challenges affect both individual growers and the broader local food system by limiting the availability, quality, and safety of locally produced food. In response, Kentucky State University Cooperative Extension launched the Urban Growers Program in 2025, a new cohort-based initiative designed to build long-term capacity among emerging and small-scale urban producers.

The 2025 cohort marked the inaugural year of the Urban Growers Program and served as a pilot to refine program design, delivery, and evaluation. 30 participants engaged in hands-on training, technical assistance, and peer learning focused on sustainable production practices, adoption of improved technologies, food safety certification pathways, and local market participation. The program emphasized immediate application, allowing growers to implement new practices during the growing season.

Evaluation results from the first cohort demonstrate early long-term impacts driven by sustained practice adoption. As a result of participating in the 2025 Urban Growers Program:

  • 19 participants adopted improved planting and crop management practices.
  • 19 participants adopted new or improved technologies and management practices, including soil sampling and integrated pest management.
  • 15 participants strengthened business marketing, expansion, or retention skills.
  • 13 participants retained or expanded market opportunities and/or sales of locally produced food.
  • 13 participants completed certificate-based food safety and marketing trainings.
  • 17 participants reported improved produce quality, supporting customer trust and market competitiveness.
  • 19 participants increased awareness of how to find and prepare local food.

Although the Urban Growers Program is in its early stages, results from the inaugural 2025 cohort indicate meaningful progress toward long-term economic, environmental, and food system impacts. 26 of the 30 cohort participants successfully completed the requirements of the program and received certificates during a graduation ceremony held at the Kentucky Small Farmers Conference, marking a milestone that connected participants to statewide Extension networks and resources.


“The Urban Growers Program has significantly increased my quality of life by connecting me with people in my community with similar goals of sustainability as a whole, growing together as a community, and fresh, local, organic food! This program has given me knowledge, connections, and resources that I would have never stumbled upon myself without the support and guidance of the coordinators. After joining the program, I decided to enroll as a full-time student at KSU to pursue a career in agriculture, now knowing there is plenty of support in place and resources that exist all over the city, county, and state.”

– 2025 UGP Cohort Graduate