Reclaiming Appalachia

Many Voices, Many Solutions: Innovative Mine Reclamation in Central Appalachia is a new report that highlights 20 projects across five Appalachian states that would create new economic opportunities in areas with abandoned mine lands. These case studies and similar efforts could be funded by the Abandoned Mine Land Pilot Program, and if passed by Congress, the […]

Mountain Women Mean Business

This past November over 100 people, most of them women from throughout central Appalachia, came together in downtown Harlan, KY, for “Mountain Women Mean Business.” The gathering was organized by local businesswomen and community leaders who recognized that, despite the downturn in the coal economy, new businesses were popping up in Harlan and across the […]

CANE in Action

Across Appalachia, communities are experimenting with ways to develop sustainable agriculture as a business sector and to increase access to nutritious foods. WMMT recently reported on the opening of the CANE (Community Agriculture and Nutritional Enterprises) industrial kitchen in Letcher County which is designed to do just that. In the months since its opening, CANE […]

Raising CANE For Local Foods

Individuals and organizations in Eastern Kentucky’s Letcher County came together to develop the former Whitesburg High School cafeteria into a community kitchen. Calling the project Community Agricultural and Nutritional Enterprises (CANE), they see the commercial kitchen providing an avenue for farmers to take the necessary risks involved with scaling up the area food system to […]