CHAVIES, Ky. – As Larry Clay tends cattle at D&D Ranch, massive dump trucks growl nearby, hauling off rock stripped away to uncover coal.

The Perry County ranch site was a hillside covered in trees before Pine Branch Coal Sales mined it, leaving behind flatter areas reclaimed as pasture land. These days, the ranch has 800 to 1,000 acres of pasture where cattle graze as mining continues on other areas of the sprawling property.

It surprises visitors to see that grass and cattle can grow well on a mined area, said Clay. “If you didn’t know where it’s at, you’d never think it was on top of a strip mine,” said Clay, a Texas cowboy transplanted to the heart of coal country to run the cattle operation.

D&D is playing a notable role in efforts to use reclaimed surface-mine sites in Eastern Kentucky for agriculture, an effort that is growing but faces challenges.

The total amount of acreage listed as farmland, which includes woodland, in the top surface-mining counties in Eastern Kentucky went up nearly 17 percent from 2002 to 2007, according to agricultural statistics.

There are small herds of cattle on reclaimed mine sites throughout the region, as well as horses and goats. Small farmers cut hay from reclaimed mine sites, and a few people are using the sites for products such as Christmas trees and apples, according to University of Kentucky extension agents in the region.

Agents said they’ve seen an increase in the number of cattle being raised in Eastern Kentucky over the last decade on reclaimed mines.

“I would say as far as the expansion of land, strip-mined land is probably the best thing that we’ve got going,” said Shad Baker, the extension agent in Letcher County. “It’s some of the only land that we have that’s manageable. I’m seeing more people graze it.”