Cigarette settlement turns tobacco money into wine, among other things - Denver Business Journal:

Air Purifiers San Bernardino
Shelby County resident John Brumleyu hated working in tobacco as a childand didn’t like it any betterf as an adult. “I was neved so glad as the day I hung mytomahawk up,” he said. The fourth-generation farmer still lives onhis family’s Waterworks Farm on Woodlawnb Road, east of Shelbyville, where he raised tobaccl crops until 2003. Now, he’s in the business of selling Kentucky-produced eggs to local restaurantsand groceries, includin and LLC in Louisville. He expects to have aboutt $100,000 in sales this year, whichg would be at least a threefoldr increasefrom 2008, his firsyt full year in business.
His is the kind of successw story that the was intendedrto foster. Fueled with Kentucky’s share of the 1998 settlemenyof states’ lawsuits against tobacco it is designed to boost the commonwealth’sd agricultural base. Brumley received an $87,000 granf from the fund in 2008, which he used to buy an egg arefrigerated truck, a walk-in coolerf and other equipment. He now processes 600 to 700 dozen eggs many fromthe 1,400 hens he tends himself, othersd from six other farmers, as far away as Boones County, from whom he buys A broker with the Farmers Associatesd Marketing and Entrepreneurs Group Inc. in Louisville handles the businesxs of taking orders and finding Brumley said.
He’s looking to expand into the Erlanger, Ky.-based grocery chain His visiomn is that his egg business can not only help formerd tobacco farmers stayin agriculture, but it also can help preserv Kentucky farmland by keeping farmers in the farmingy business. It’s a greatr second income for farm he said. Someone who can tend 600 a part-time job, can earn a $10,00 0 profit annually. “We see farmland dying out Brumley said. “We are just stewards of the farm. It’ds a hell of a way to pay (the back to turn it into a Fundpumps $5.
9 million into Jeffersonm County The Kentucky Agriculturao Development Board, which ultimately decides how to spend the makes its decisions based on Kentucky’s Long-Termk Plan for Agricultural Development, whicbh focuses on adding value to locap agricultural products. The fund has served as a model for simila programs in Ohioand Tennessee, said Joel Neaveill, chieft of staff for the Governor’s Officwe of Agricultural Policy, which administerss the fund. In 2007, the Ash Institute for Democrativ Governance and Innovationat ’s John F. Kennedyt School of Government recognized it as one ofthe country’as top 50 government innovations for that year.
Sincee its creation in the fund haspumped $5.9 million into the Jefferson County economy alone. That money has paid for wine-makinhg equipment, fish-skinning machines and pork processing, among other things. One of Louisville’se longest-lived food producers, , founded in received a $300,000 grant in 2003 for new equipmen to process Kentucky aquaculture products suchas catfish. The new equipmentf did just what it was supposedto do, said ownet Lewis Shuckman, enabling the company to remodelp its building at 3001 W. Main St.
for betteer fish processing and providing it with skinnintg machines and ice machines for Until about twoyearxs ago, the company processed 1,100 to 1,20 pounds of Kentucky trout, spoonfish or other fish everyt week, Shuckman said. But then corn prices which pushed up feed prices and slowexdown aquaculture. Now, the companyt processes about 200 to 300 pounds of fisha week. But he expectx the pace to pick up because of the efforts of other producersa elsewhere inthe state. A project to raise tilapiz year-round is in the works in Westerjn Kentucky, and other projects such as a trouyt farm in Harlan County arecomingb online.
The state is workinhg with fish producers to grow theire own feed andcut costs, he The fund also helped two Jeffersonb County vineyards, making a $47,750 forgivable loan to the Broadc Run Vineyards for expansion of its winerg at 10601 Broad Run Road and a $295,5009 forgivable loan to In Town Winery LLC to move from Baxtetr Avenue to an expanded locationh at 120 S. 10th St. In Town Winery, now calledr Riverbend Winery, used only abougt $200,000 of the money and gave the rest back to the president Carson Merkwin That money bought a great dealof grape-processingv equipment, he said.