♪ It wasn't the State of the Union, but the state of the soil last week blocks oil K why a business working to reconnect black.

Kentuckians to their heritage and farming hosted a conference in Lexington, people from all over the country, discuss the future of black farming and its role in the health of local communities.

>> Wax, okay.

Why was established to reconnect black Kentuckians to their heritage and legacy in agriculture?

We are able to do that through and Richards and activities like from tours and farm to table dinners, anger, geisha and distribution similar to our pharmacy market.

Sprout behind us.

And more importantly, community building put it to a surgeon by trade him in practice over 35 years.

>> Specializing in amputation prevention in high-risk populations both domestically and globally internationally diabetic amputations are epidemic and some communities, particularly that can make money.

I have the good fortune of on and the largest black will form an LA County 0, 250 acres.

And so for me to grow food and that should be defined the pharmacy.

But pharmacy.

If they are, you may see why to really prove and demonstrate that food really is medicine.

I think in this country we're giving people a lot of mixed messages.

We don't have health care.

We actually have secure.

We're trying to figure out how can we take better care of more sick people, which is kind of to it.

No one's really talking about putting too so being a black soul.

And this conference amazing conference.

I'm hoping that we can as African-Americans be a part of that dialogue in addressing health disparities, particularly as it relates to food deserts in urban communities.

>> Here locally in Kentucky, we struggle deeply with food insecurity, hunger.

>> Malnourishment under a nurse Mont.

And so it is our philosophy and strategy.

Our approach to say.

>> We need to increase the number of productions specialty crop producers.

Farmers growers in order to combat.

We correlate that very, very strongly and directly.

And so we really want to help folks understand the abundance that can come from farming and how they can build a strong relationship with their local farmer.

>> Americans are disproportionately disengage from all the benefits for farming in this country.

So to be a part of this movement and taking my city just to the fission of being in medicine and a farmer to be able to actually provide maybe a different message and maybe encourage people, encourage farmers to be a part of the medical system in their local communities.

What about a former partner with the Clintons to actually ship to veterans to those patients?

>> We've been extremely fortunate and blessed to steward our partnership and participation in the.

>> The USDA is local food purchasing agreement.

This year.

We aim to have 16,000 families across the Commonwealth serve to this program which provides farmers, retail pricing for their goods and then turns right around and we go into communities and we provide 3 distributions.

It allows families who might want to try high quality fresh produce but think it might be out of their price range.

We challenge you to Billie One that you're worthy of good local food to farmers can see you.

They want to serve you and then 3 when you accept this, eat local, get around, challenge others around you want to be able to join in as >> Black soil founder Ashley Smith says she hopes to have more the soil conferences in