Grown Climate Smart program gives $40M to farmers - WIFR

Grown Climate Smart program gives $40M to farmers

ROCHELLE, Ill. (WIFR) - A stateline farmer who makes an effort to practice sustainable agriculture techniques is being rewarded through the Grown Climate Smart program, a $40 million project funded by the USDA.

With a business that flows through the family lineage, the Kennays boast a long history of looking at the big picture.

“Being a sustainable farmer is a generational thing,” said Rick Kennay, co-owner of Kennay Farms Distilling in Rochelle. “You hope to pass the farm on and in order to do that, you have to pass along the soil and if you keep the soil in place, you can pass along the farm.”

In the 1880′s, the Kennay family moved from Virginia to Illinois to grow grain.

Nearly a century and a half later, family members stick to their roots by using environmentally sustainable farming practices.

“We do tillage or sometimes no tillage. If you don’t disturb the soil, it doesn’t take things with it like fertilizer and herbicides and chemicals,” Kennay said. “We install a lot of waterways, and we enroll a lot of the acres in the conservation reserve program.”

Now, the Kennay’s are being rewarded for their foresight with a Grown Climate Safe grant.

“It’s awesome to do these localized projects where we really promote sustainability and working with the distillery who were already focused on sustainability, it’s really exciting to see them take on our Grown Climate Smart logo onto their products and offer products to consumers to purchase with their moral compass,” said Dylan Vaca, brand and marketing manager for the DeLong Company, who are responsible for delegating Grown Climate Smart grants.

“To be recognized as a sustainable farmer is a big deal and hopefully it will get some response from, ultimately, the end consumer,” Kennay said.

Throughout 2023, the Grown Climate Smart program enrolled more than 160 farmers across 11 states.

The Kennay Farms Distillery is located in Rochelle’s historic Hub Theater, which was renovated in 2016 to hold distilling equipment.

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