Tractor School Prepares New Farmers to Scale Up

Sep 25, 2025

A tiller and a handful of tools can only take a farmer so far. For beginning producers who want to grow beyond a quarter-acre market garden, learning to operate a tractor is often the difference between staying small and building a sustainable business.

Kentucky State University launched its first Tractor School in August at the Harold R. Benson Research and Demonstration Farm to meet that need. The three-day training gave beginning farmers hands-on experience in tractor operation, maintenance, and mechanized production practices essential for scaling up. It is the newest addition to Farming for Cash, a USDA-funded initiative that has supported producers across the Commonwealth since 2012.

“Many new farmers come from non-farming backgrounds and start small,” said Dr. Siddhartha Dasgupta, professor and associate research director in the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources.

Source : kysu.edu

Video: A chain harrow is a game changer

Utilizing a rotational grazing method on our farmstead with our sheep helps to let the pasture/paddocks rest. We also just invested in a chain harrow to allow us to drag the paddocks our sheep just left to break up and spread their manure around, dethatch thicker grass areas, and to rough up bare dirt areas to all for a better seed to soil contact if we overseed that paddock. This was our first time really using the chain harrow besides initially testing it out. We are very impressed with the work it did and how and area that was majority dirt, could be roughed up before reseeding.

Did you know we also operate a small business on the homestead. We make homemade, handcrafted soaps, shampoo bars, hair and beard products in addition to offering our pasture raised pork, lamb, and 100% raw honey. You can find out more about our products and ingredients by visiting our website at www.mimiandpoppysplace.com. There you can shop our products and sign up for our monthly newsletter that highlights a soap or ingredient, gives monthly updates about the homestead, and also lists the markets, festivals, and events we’ll be attending that month.