By JORDAN STRICKLER

Kentucky Correspondent

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — Of 54 counties in Kentucky classified as part of Appalachia, 37 are considered by the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) as “economically distressed.” The primary factor behind this decline is the coal industry, which has been backsliding since its peak in1990.

Agriculture, however, is aiming to bring some of that economy back. “We’ve seen quite a bit of growth just within the last year-and-a-half in that region,” said Katie Bowman, Marketing and Communications specialist for the Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development.

“We’ve contacted and worked with over 50 producers, agribusinesses and nonprofits who are working with agriculture within the area. We have seen a lot of value-added farmers, for those who are raising produce to sell either at farmers’ markets or larger retail distribution centers. From $500 to over $100,000, there is a large range of individual incomes which are moving to the agriculture sector.”

Once a prime income and job provider in the Bluegrass State, approximately 10,000 coal jobs have disappeared since 2011. According to the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet (EEC), between 2011 and 2015, 23,000 coal jobs were lost in Appalachian region of the country as a whole, which represented approximately 87 percent of all coal job losses in the United States during that period.

The poverty rate in Appalachian Kentucky from 2011 to 2015 was 25.8 percent, compared to 15.5 percent nationally. Per capita market income in that region was $19,204 in 2015, compared to $39,778 on a nationwide level.

“I think the bigger issue than the number of jobs is the variety of sectors in the region, so the region isn’t sector-dependent,” said Wendy Wasserman, director of communications for the ARC. “There is a lot of interesting activity going on there; everything from food hubs to reclaiming unused mine land, and all sorts of ag entrepreneurial activities.”

 “I think what we’re seeing from the agriculture sector is an extra income, which is very small-scale, like farmers’ markets,” said Jared Arnett, executive director of the regional development initiative called Shaping Our Appalachian Region.

“We’ve seen farmers’ markets increase; they’re popping up in several different communities. We’ve lost about 13,000 (coal industry) jobs in seven or eight years. That’s a tremendous loss to Appalachian areas.”

In eastern Kentucky, employment in the second quarter of 2017 (April 1-June 30) dropped 5.3 percent, compared to the first three months of the year. EEC figures show coal production decreased by 80 percent from 2000 to 2015. This accelerated in 2008 and eastern Kentucky’s coal production dropped from more than 90 million short tons that year to 28 million in 2015.

The Appalachian region contributed about two-thirds of all U.S. jobs in coal mining production from 2000 to 2011. Over the past five years, however, this dropped to 57 percent, its lowest point in at least 15 years.

While national job declines were 28 percent from 2011 to 2015, Appalachia saw a decrease of 37 percent. From 2000 to 2015, Kentucky lost 6,200 jobs in the mining industry.

Arnett said while agriculture is doing a great job to bring some money back into the area, the key to bringing back jobs is technology. “We’re working on agriculture, local foods, entrepreneurship, tourism initiatives, health care initiatives – and technology is really the foundation to all of that,” he explained.

“Our blueprint for eastern Kentucky revolves around technology. By that, I mean technology in every sector, not just agriculture – remote work opportunities, technology and connectivity change in health care, entrepreneurial efforts in global technology and e-commerce.”

Declining coal prices have been caused by two primary factors – an increase in the demand for more affordable natural gas and new environmental regulations and climate policy initiatives. Another major component to the decline are decreasing exports due to the declining global demand for coal.

According to the U.S. EPA, slower growth in world demand, lower coal prices and higher exports from other coal-producing states have also led to the decline in this area. The biggest export losses came from China, whose purchasing of coal went from 8.3 million short tons in 2013 to fewer than 1 million in 2015 – a decrease of 88 percent.

Other countries that have decreased their demand of U.S. coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, are the United Kingdom, Italy, South Korea, Brazil and Mexico.

“I don’t think anyone has their arms around how massive this is,” said Arnett. “Before we lost these 13,000 jobs, 38 of the 54 counties that we work in were still in the bottom 10 percent of the country. These counties were considered ‘distressed’ before we even lost these jobs.

“We need to employ 30,000 additional people in this region to right the ship. Even if the coal industry came back, we are still in economic straits.”