The WKU L.D. Brown Agricultural Exposition Center will host a new museum exhibit about farming. The Farmer Cultural Awareness Project will be on display in the main lobby from March 20 to 27.

This exhibit provides the public with first-person accounts of the experiences and perspectives of farmers in their own communities by showcasing the cultural aspects of farming that individual farmers want the non-farming public to better understand. Twenty-seven farmers from a 10-county BRADD region of south-central Kentucky were interviewed for the exhibit.  

The Farmer Cultural Awareness Project was designed to address the public’s perception of farmers/farming. The project was a collaborative effort among Western Kentucky University faculty and staff from the School of Nursing and Allied Health, the Department of Folk Studies & Anthropology, and the South Central KY Area Health Education Center (AHEC).

The project is one component of a statewide initiative titled Raising Hope: Supporting Healthy Lives on Kentucky Farms, funded by the Kentucky Legislature and administrated by the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

The community can visit the exhibit Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the WKU L.D. Brown Agricultural Exposition Center (406 Elrod Road, Bowling Green). Free parking is available on site.

For more information, contact Susan Jones at susan.jones@wku.edu. If your organization or community is interested in hosting the exhibit contact the KY Partnership for Farm Family Health and Safety, Inc., at lucy.juett@wku.edu to schedule.

Raising Hope is a grant-funded initiative supported by appropriations from the Kentucky General Assembly with academic and government coalition members. The mission of the Raising Hope coalition is to promote the physical and mental health and safety of Kentucky’s farmers and farm families. For information about Raising Hope, visit www.raisinghopeky.com.