HENRY COUNTY, Ky. – Farmers have to be good at what they are doing to farm sustainably and make a living. The Wendell Berry Farming Program at Sterling College, a tuition-free two-year program based in Henry County, is striving to give students a “leg up” in that effort.

“We’re studying how to be profitable within ecological bounds,” said Ed Fredrickson, agroecology faculty, Sterling College.

The college offers a tuition-free junior and senior year curriculum of Sterling’s agricultural degree program, said Leah Bayens, dean of the program. Students come after completing at least their first two years of college. They are specifically recruiting students from in and around the Kentucky area.

Sterling is a private college situated in Craftsbury Commons, Vt. Henry County is one of its educational sites. Sterling has partnered with the Berry Center, in New Castle, Ky. The center was inspired by the life work of writer Wendell Berry and his family. It was founded by Berry’s daughter, Mary Berry. The center and the college both advocate for small to mid-scale farming.

“Sterling College has one of the oldest sustainable agriculture degree programs in the United States,” said Christina Goodwin, dean of advancement and alumni relations. “After 65 years in Craftsbury Commons, we actually have a net gain of young people staying to farm in rural communities here in Vermont.

“While 20 percent of our students come from Vermont, 40 percent stay there,” she explained. “They’re not all farmers, but many are. Part of our motivation for partnering with the Berry Center was hearing their plight with having a lot of farmland being in transition and wanting to not lose that prime agricultural land.”

Sterling, like Berea, is one of a group of eight work colleges. They require that all resident students participate in a comprehensive-work-learning service program for all four years of enrollment.

“We have integrated the work of the Berry Center into our sustainable agriculture curriculum which is a very hands-on, inter-disciplinary and liberal arts education,” Bayens said.

Visitors would not necessarily realize there is a college at work in either Henry County or Vermont, she explained. The college wants it that way. They want to fit into the space as closely as possible.

A lot of the curriculum currently leans toward forages but they are expanding into other crops that would flow into local businesses. The Berry Center has just purchased a 200-acre farm that is primarily a livestock production farm for the program.

“We are transitioning into moving onto our own farm that is right here in the middle of the Port Royal farming community,” Bayens said.

An interesting component of the hands-on program is that the college uses mixed power systems, both combustion power and draft animal power, Bayens said.

“That is quite distinctive,” she said. “We have oxen, and horses that our students are trained with to understand the appropriate scale and the possibilities for types of power that can be used on farms. Some folks say this is a throwback. We say no, this is actually how most of the world is powering their farming operation.”

The first class of 12 students is in their second year of the program and will graduate in May. They were chosen from more than 100 applicants. The second group will be starting the program in August 2021.

For information visit sterlingcollege.edu and scroll down to the Wendell Berry Farming program.