Winchester, Kentucky · Amongst the gently rolling hills of Winchester, Kentucky, just 15 miles outside of Lexington, is the 556 acre Avalon Farm, with beef cattle in the pasture, a greenhouse set aside for raising quail, twenty acres devoted to vegetable crops, and about twenty acres planted in tobacco. Facing a steep mortgage payment, owners Shiela and Joe McCord Jr. are exploring all available options to mitigate revenue losses from their once lucrative tobacco crop. Refusing to give in, they set sail into aquaculture in 1997 -- their latest diversification effort -- now raising tilapia whitefish and freshwater shrimp, or prawn, in six half-acre ponds added to the farm.

Nicholasville, KY · The flock of sheep grazing on the pastures of Black Bridge Farm, located in the scenic rolling hills of central Kentucky about 30 miles south of Lexington, play an integral, strategic role in the diverse business mix of this operation. Providing fiber, meat and educational opportunities,co-owners Keith Erny and Sarah Cole aim to blend their agricultural and artistic passions with creating a profitable farm-based business.

If Elmwood Stock Farm were a song, and each family member improvised on a different instrument, then the weekends would sound like the chorus.

McKee, KY · Growing tobacco was insurance for Beth and Doug Tillery on their 300 acre, 120-head dairy farm in eastern Kentucky. In years when milk prices sunk below the cost of production, the tobacco check would come in and balance the books. Fragile, but it worked for nearly two decades. Then one year hail destroyed 10 acres of the tobacco crop the family was counting on to pay the feed bill. They had no crop loss insurance and no other way to pay the debt. So they sold the herd.