Author Archives: John Holcomb

For This Year’s GFB Hay Contest Winner, It’s Been Two Decades in the Making

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Cartersville, GA

While there were submissions from all over the state, in the end, there could only be one winner of the GFB Quality Hay Contest. This year, it was Franklin Dowell of Bartow County, whose more than two decades of experience finally paid off after numerous close calls.

“It was quite an honor. It was quite an honor. I’ve put hay samples in the contest the probably five or six years previous and I’ve been close, but this is the first time. So, it’s pretty amazing because I’ve been here 25 years and the people I work for, they were excited too,” says Dowell.

To make it even more special, Dowell won the contest using a variety that isn’t very common to this part of the country.

“I’m growing a special grass; jiggs bermuda. There’s not a lot of it. It’s a grass that I brought in here and planted and I’ve sold to a few other people around that are planting it. There’s not a lot of it in the state. So, to win the hay contest with this grass means a lot,” says Dowell.

This type of recognition is not only appreciated by the farmer, but the industry as a whole in the state, as maintaining high quality hay is vital when it comes to marketing it.

“Georgia ranks about eighth in farm gate value in hay production. We feel like that if we can encourage our producers to spend a little extra time incorporating some good cultural practices in production of hay, that it’s going to enhance our value and enhance our reputation as a quality hay producer,” says Harry Thompson, Chairman of the GFB Hay Advisory Committee.

Even though the victory was sweet, that isn’t the only reason farmers enter the contest, as it also gives them a chance to see just how they stack up against other growers.

“It’s a contest in that there’s a little bit of bragging rights, I guess you could say, in the hay production industry. By knowing what your quality standards are, it kind of gives you a leg up on being able to market your hay if you’re a commercial hay producer,” says Thompson.

It’s more than just bragging rights Dowell received, as Vermeer also awarded him a new bailer. It’s a partnership the company says just makes sense.

“I say it really aligns with our brand pillars of being good stewards of the land and also resources we have given to us. It’s a challenge for them and us to figure out what is to come next. So, it embodies what we challenge ourselves to do and what we brand ourselves to do and has equipped everybody to do more,” says Alex Bone, Territory Sales Manager for Vermeer.

That’s really the overall goal for each and every producer, as they must overcome plenty of hurdles throughout the year.

“It’s a pride thing. I take a lot of pride in it. It’s hard. Sometimes you cut hay and the next thing you know, you’re getting a thunderstorm. So, you try to pick your windows and do the best job you can,” says Dowell.

Major Upgrades Coming to Franklin County Processing Facility

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Lavonia, GA

With everything from chicken to peaches, to tomatoes being brought in each and every week, the Franklin County Processing Facility has its hands full satisfying customers during the summer. However, the finished product is always up to their standards considering they are the ones overseeing the entire process.

 

“One of the basic things I think is for the community members to be able to come in and preserve their own home-grown vegetables and they know what’s in their products. Patrons bring in their raw materials and then we educate and help them process their goods and sealing them into four one-quart cans or glass jars, quarts or pints,” says Cale Watkins, Franklin County Ag Teacher.

This learning experience is made possible thanks to a group of dedicated ag teachers who keep this unique operation up and running despite having limited resources.

“The agriculture teachers, this is part of our extended year contract to run the food processing center. I think there are about twenty-six in the state left. Some facilities have an additional staff, we don’t. It’s all manned by our agriculture department and our teachers here. There are four of us in the department and we run the facility as a part of our extended year contract,” says Watkins.

While the manpower will likely remain the same, that can’t be said for the equipment, most of which is more than seven decades old. Thanks to a recent hundred-thousand-dollar grant, this operation will undergo a major transformation starting next summer.

“We anticipate being able to replace our tunnel, our exhaust tunnel which heats the cans up. Ours it in poor shape. Most of the equipment in this facility has been here since the forties. We also will be able to purchase another sealer, which is vital to putting the lid upon the can. So, we hope to be able to buy another sealer and then possibly a new retort as well with this hundred-thousand-dollar grant,” says Watkins.

That new equipment is essential to maintaining both quality and food safety, as canning and jarring products is a very precise method of preserving food.

“They’ll wash them and then we’ll put them into a blancher, then blanch them, get the internal temperature up to kill things like botulism so forth. Then we’ll package them in a can or a jar. The cans will then go through an atmospheric tunnel and then the tunnel will heat up the internal temperature to a hundred seventy, a hundred eighty degrees. Then, we’ll seal the can on the other end of the tunnel. Glass jars will get boiling hot water over top of them to seal them. Then, they will go into a retort, which is just basically a giant pressure cooker,” says Watkins.

Even though this is a process that can technically be done at home, having facilities like this make it easier and much less time consuming.

“One of the big advantages to using our food processing facility is it is much simpler than it would be at home. Cleanup is easy. You can clean it up with a water hose and it cuts the time down. Customers would spend all day doing a product at home that they could do in thirty minutes to an hour here at the food processing center,” says Watkins.

By: Damon Jones

Ga Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers Gather for Summer Leadership Conference

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Jekyll Island, GA

There was plenty of fellowship, learning, and friendly competition this year on Jekyll Island as the Georgia Farm Bureau held its annual Young Farmer and Rancher Summer Leadership Conference – an event that shines a spotlight on a part of the organization that is essential to the future of the ag industry.

“This week we have had over two hundred young farmer and ranchers from across the state with us really for the opportunity to network and get together and experience professional and personal growth. It’s kind of our opportunity for the year to recognize the accomplishments of our young farmer members and also invest in them to go back to their counties and do the work of Farm Bureau and our grassroots organization,” says Breanna Berry, GFB Leadership Programs Coordinator.

The importance of the yearly event can’t be overstated, as Berry says it gives young farmers who are either just starting out or who are more established both a better knowledge, they can take home and a network of connections that can help them succeed in the industry.

“The biggest benefit to them is to build their professional network and to build that community of ag professionals that they can call on, that they can ask questions to especially if you’re a new producer starting out, or if you’ve got some experience, maybe there’s some new innovative ideas that are out there that you’re able to grab ahold of and take home, so, I would say they get a lot of content information and obviously professional development through breakout sessions, but the contacts and connections and network that they are building while they’re here allows them to continue that learning and professional development when they go home,” says Berry.

Of course, no conference would be complete without a theme, and this year, that theme was “For the Love of Ag”, in which Cleve Jackson, District one Committee Chair says describes the passion producers have for the industry and the opportunities a conference like this one can offer them.

“For the Love of Ag I think just encapsulates everything that is important to us,” says Jackson. “We do this because we love agriculture, we want to be better advocates for agriculture in our home counties but also for the state of Georgia and the opportunities we have here at conference just further that love of agriculture.”

To show that passion and love for the industry, YF&R members participated in their first ever service project, in which members packaged meals for food banks in the area – something Jackson says proves just how committed farmers and ranchers are to not only growing a great product, but making sure it enriches those they grow it for.

“The service project was something we’ve always considered doing, we always support the Harvest for All campaign through our county farm bureaus and it’s a really great thing to give money, but taking it to the next level when you actually give your time and energy to pack those meals,” says Jackson. “We had the opportunity to package thirteen thousand meals for food bank recipients right here in Glynn County, which is just awesome. My favorite part was there was a sticker on each box that said, ‘these meals were packaged by Georgia Farm Bureau Young Farmers and Ranchers,’ so as those folks receive those meals, they’ll know that not only did we grow those meals but we also packaged them and sponsored them and delivered them to those folks which I think just puts what we talk about, what we say, what we do; it puts those words into action.”

By: John Holcomb

Southwest Georgia Pepper Crop Abandoned Due to Hail, Rains

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Moultrie, GA

Here in Moultrie, this is what remains of this bell pepper crop after summer storms ripped through Southwest Georgia last month; storms that brought damaging winds, rains, and hail. According to Sam Watson, Managing Partner of Chill C Farms, the storms couldn’t have come at a worse time, as the crop was just really getting started, and caused them to lose two thirds of their crop.

“We had picked this pepper twice. The first picking was kind of just a little light crowing of the crop just to kind of lighten the load a little bit. Then we had started the second harvest, of this particular field and then we didn’t even finish that night when it started raining the guys left; that was the night that the hail came and it hailed from here all the way down to the packing house,” says Watson. “It damaged this particular field of bell pepper just because of where the stage of the crop is probably where we suffered the most damage. We had damage in our eggplant, we had damage in our tomatoes, we had damage in cucumbers and pickles and even a little bit of damage in our squash, because of the stage they were in. The damage was not quite as severe, whereas here, we probably lost; we’re estimating somewhere around sixty percent of the crop.”

From there, things only continued to get worse, as Watson says it began to rain and didn’t stop for almost two weeks – causing even more damage and causing them to have to stop harvest on the crop.

“We tried to salvage some of it, but we ended up having trouble. After the hail came, it was obviously rain, and then it rained for an additional two weeks, so what the hail did not, destroy, we lost to just the amount of rain that we received, and all of the excessive moisture, so we eventually just had to abandon this field and walk away from it and basically leave,” says Watson. “When you harvest a crop like this, you’ve got to be able to harvest enough to pay the labor and to cover your costs of doing that, and the situation we were in was, there was not enough marketable product to harvest, to pay the help, and to package it and box it and then there again, ship across the United States.”

As difficult of a decision it was to just abandon the crop, Watson says that decision was made due to their bottom line and profit margins being so tight, as it would have been a complete waste of time, money, and resources to harvest.

“The margins and what we do here in agriculture and farming are so small; so small, and so, when something like this happens you immediately have to figure out how we can save money or not spend anymore money, and so that’s where you immediately pull the plug, you walk away from it, you stop, you go on to something else,” says Watson. “Unfortunately for us, it kept raining for about ten days after the hail, and so we ended up sending a lot of our help back home. Their contracts were almost up anyway, so we decided to send them home a couple of weeks early, so we got rid of some labor and we just kind of walked away from this field all together, we just had to, you know, cut our losses. That’s all you can do.”

By: John Holcomb

Creative Farming a By-Product of Poor Weather

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Covington, GA

Typically, this time of year, these bushes at Deer Creek Farm would be chalked full of blueberries. However, with a late freeze destroying the majority of their signature item, owners Joe and Merlon Harper had to rely on their ever-expanding vegetable gardens.

“Oh, it’s been a game changer. You know, I guess being a farmer, you always have to have a plan B, at least plan B, sometimes plan C as well. So, we were able to pivot from the blueberries. We still use the blueberries to make our tea and our other value-added products but being able to grow these unique vegetables and take them to the market and sell them to customers has really been a life saver for us in keeping us sustained,” says Merlon.

“We’ve got quite a few tomatoes, but we’ve gotten quite a few squash and zucchini. This Fall, the lettuce did very well,” says Joe.

It’s not just the staple items that keep customers coming back, but also the exotic collection of produce like black tomatoes and lemon cucumbers that keep things interesting for both the consumer and the farmer.

“Each year I go through a catalogue, and I see what’s different, and I read and I see what people are trying and enjoying. Then, I can put together a crop plan. I enjoy trying different things and seeing what I can grow and seeing how things work. So, I love being outside and I just love being a part of what nature brings,” says Marlon.

“She likes to be a little different,” says Joe. So, she gets the catalogues, and she sees these unique items and she says, ‘let’s try this, let’s try that.’ So far, it’s been a hit.”

Their value-added products have also been a big hit with customers from salsa to pepper jelly. However, it’s one item in particular that’s received most of the attention.

“People love out tea. It’s so unique. We’ve gotten so many different reactions. Sometimes we’ve even had a customers tell us that, how the tea made them feel. They said, ‘when I drink that tea, it makes me feels like I was on the back porch of my grandmother’s house sipping tea agin,'” says Merlon.

For that reason, it was recently named a finalist for the Flavor of Georgia contest. And with each step of the production process being monitored, it’s no wonder the quality and consistency remains high.

“It’s our special herbs and spices that brings out the blueberry flavor because blueberries are subtle. They’re great but they need something to help them to pop I would say. That flavor needs to be brought out. So, we add different ingredients to it to make them shine get that blueberry burst,” says Marlon.

Despite the setback this year with their blueberry crop, the Harpers have been anything but detoured. In fact, they are even hoping to expand their operation.

“We would love to get more farmland. This is more rolling hills, Georgia red clay, and rock. We would like to get something a little flatter; something that’s been tilled up before and used for farming and grow the blueberries out there,” says Joe.

By: Damon Jones

Unconventional Journey of a Pro Rodeo Clown

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Arnoldsville, GA

While Jake Willcox’s journey as a rodeo clown might seem surprising to some, it was destined to be a part of his life from the very beginning. Born and raised in the Athens area, the rodeo culture runs deep in Jake’s family. Growing up, he watched his father dazzle the crowd with his performances, so naturally, Jake wanted to follow in his footsteps.

“I grew up wanting to be a cowboy and we went and caught cows. People have cows get loose. My dad was the guy they called; he was the cow nine-one-one, so we’d go catch cows, we’d do this and cowboying and all that stuff,” says Jake Wilcox.

But Jake’s path to becoming a professional rodeo clown was full of twists and turns. Initially, he considered riding bulls himself, like some of his college rodeo team friends at UGA. However, he soon realized that his true talent was bringing laughter to the arena, rather than facing off against ferocious beasts or riding their back’s while holding on for dear life.

“You have to have a certain mentality to be a bullfighter, to be willing to just run in there with reckless abandon and try to save somebody that made a conscious decision to get on a bull. I was always cutting up and always having a good time, and never bashful about getting in front of people and doing stuff. You know, I auctioneer’d from the time I was a little kid, so getting a microphone and putting it in my face wasn’t something I was afraid of,” says Jake.

At one point in his career, Jake traveled the country nearly every weekend, and quickly rose to prominence as one of the most popular rodeo clowns on the circuit. With a knack for modern humor, and a bag full of tricks, he effortlessly keeps the audience entertained, no matter the circumstances.

Make no mistake about it, everything Jake does inside that arena serves a purpose and is carefully thought out long before the rodeo ever begins. But occasionally things happen. And over the course of his career, Jake has had to sacrifice himself in order to save a rider from serious injury.

“Yeah, we had some stuff like that. Now, did I get any big broken bones in hospital stays and all this stuff? No. Was there a few times that, you know, you wiped off a little blood and talked about you, you know that you might be hearing bells for a few days? Yeah, it happens,” says Jake.

“There might have been a handful of times where I wished he wouldn’t have done something, or I think that bull’s a little rank or he is a little hot and he’s hunting for the barrel and the he hits the barrel, and Jake’s inside of it and he’s hitting it and he’s hitting that barrel is rolling and rolling. There’s been a couple times that Jake doesn’t just pop up outta the barrel, but at the end of the day, he always pops up. He always makes a joke about it. It can be dangerous, but Jake is smart and I always tell him, I’m like, ‘please be careful. Please be smart. It’s not worth it, you know?’ At the end of the day, he’s smart. He pays attention. He knows what he is doing, and he helps the bullfighters, he helps the bull riders, but he also keeps himself safe, because at the end of the day, being my husband and being the father of our children is the number one most important thing at the end of the day,” says Lauren, Jake’s wife.

Words of wisdom from the lady Jake say’s is the love of his life, his wife Lauren – and the two share an incredible bond. Lauren is also a UGA grad and a competitive roper when she’s not serving as a Special Education Teacher in Ogelthorpe County. Love blossomed between the two when they were students in Athens, and they quickly became inseparable. With their shared passion for rodeo, they traversed the country together, creating cherished memories both in and out of the arena. However, life changes, and so too did Jake and Lauren’s. The arrival of their three young kids, including twin boys, altered their perspective. The once incessant forty-five-weeks-a-year travel schedule; well that now takes a backseat to family life.

“I hope that they have something to do with horses or something to do with farming. Riley’s kind of getting into wanting to buy her own cows. Her daddy has taught her how to invest her money in cows, how much it costs a month, how much they can weigh, how much you have do this for them, and then you can turn around and sell them for a profit. So she might go that route and be more of a farmer, a cattle farmer versus a rodeo queen,” says Lauren.

“My granddad managed a ten-thousand acre cattle farm in Montezuma, Georgia, and that’s where my dad grew up. They had to get up every day and get on a horse and go do something with cattle. It’s not necessarily that I have to get up every day and get on a horse and go tend to a cow to make a living, but we’ve gotten to go to a lot of places because of horses and cows and taken that lifestyle into a more urban setting and, and showing it to people. It’s almost more of an educational thing. A lot of people don’t look at rodeo that way. They look at it as entertainment, but really part of the thing that’s been some of my drive is that it is educational that people can see that way of life,” says Jake.

Although Jake has cut back on his extensive travel, he didn’t bid farewell to his beloved rodeo clown career. He now selectively attends rodeos, focusing on events close to home where he can spend time with the family while still doing what he loves.

“We still do the Athens Rodeo. I still go bail out some of my stock contractor buddies when they call me and say, ‘hey, I had somebody got sick, or this guy broke his leg and he can’t come’, but as far as being full-time rodeo clowning, we’ve had to back off that. There’s some rodeo clowns that have pretty long careers up into their sixties, seventies. I’d say when the kids get a little older, we’ll go back to doing a few more, but as far as full-time, forty-five weekends a year, we don’t do that much anymore,” says Jake.

By: Ray D’Alessio

From Downturn to Delicious Success: The Story of Berry Good Farms

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Tifton, GA

It’s no secret that Georgia is one of the most diverse states when it comes to agriculture, and that is well represented here at Berry Good Farms in Tifton, where everything from asparagus, to persimmons, to strawberries are grown throughout the year. It all began thanks to a passion for farming and a downturn in the economy more than fifteen years ago.

“At that time, I had a mortgage company, which really set this thing on fire when the mortgage industry was in a financial crisis in 2008, which really hurt the home sales. We do mortgages, home mortgages, and so it sort of just pushed me to the farm more often and I was always planting something,” says Bob Welker, Owner of Berry Good Farms.

While he might have grown up on a dairy farm, Welker has specialized in providing the community with the highest quality fruits, including two that are a staple during the summer months. However, in order to get them, you have to make a trip out to his farm.

“That’s the only way we sale it. We don’t ship. We don’t freeze anything. It’s just all fresh fruit. We’ll either pick it for a customer or typically we like customers to pick their own and they enjoy it, it’s a family type event. We have blackberries, blueberries, strawberries. The attraction really is blueberries and blackberries. Those are the two items that we promote the most. It’s also what I have the most of. I have approximately six acres of blueberries and almost four acres of blackberries,” says Welker.

Even though growing the blackberries come with a unique set of challenges, it is a fruit that does grow pretty well here in the state when properly taken care of.

“If there’s a problem with them, they’re not like a blueberry that are very tolerant of diseases. Blackberries will pick up a lot of different problems. The most recent is the orange blotch. That is caused with an algae. We use a little bit of copper, and it will knock it out, but it has to be on a regular basis and it’s every year now,” says Welker.

If he has anything to say about it, Welker will be at it for many more years to come, as the enjoyment he gets serving the community and tending to his crop helps get him out of bed each and every morning.

“I enjoy it a lot, particularly when everything is running smoothly. It’s getting a little harder now that I’m getting a little bit older, but it’s still very rewarding in that there’s always something. I don’t have to worry about what I’m doing the next day. I just walk out the door and it will slap you in the face,” says Welker.

By: Damon Jones

For Dr. Zoe Latimer, Becoming a Vet Was the Only Option

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Covington, GA

For Zoe Latimer, a large animal veterinarian in Newton County, everyday is a dream come true. Latimer, who provides top of the line vet care for horses at Countryside Vet Services in Covington and the surrounding areas, grew up with a love for horses, and knew from an early age she wanted to become a vet. So, when the time came, she leaned into that passion and became one.

“I never remember ever wanting to be anything but a vet. I think from literally as long as I can remember, I wanted to work with horses and I wanted to be a vet,” says Latimer. “My mom always wanted to go to vet school, she never did, so she was really glad when I started expressing that I wanted to be a vet. She was like, ‘Oh, yeah! We can have a vet in the family’, but yeah, I never saw myself doing anything else, this was pretty much it. This was plan A, B, and C. So, I only applied to one school; I put all my eggs in one basket. I know they tell you not to do that, but I did and you know, it worked out, thankfully.”

Latimer, who is relatively new to the trade, strives to care for the animals and customers she’s sees to the best of her ability, and with her clientele, she has more freedom to do that as she cares for mostly high-end horses.

“I love the good clients, I really do. Like, the people that love to see us and you know, they do what you recommend. I just love coming to work for them and their animals and helping them get better and helping improve agriculture,” says Latimer. “I mean we have a very nice client base, we get to work on a lot of performance horses. You know, not just your backyard animals, I get to do a lot of high-end horses, which means we get to see a lot of beautiful horses, and people want to do a lot of cool treatments, or we can go a lot further with a lot of these cases, because the horses are so valuable, or like somebody has a big emotional attachment to them and so they’re willing to go above and beyond to try to fix their horse, which makes me excited. Like when somebody says that they want to go for treatment, because I’m like, ‘you know, now we get to fix it, or at least we get to try our hardest you know, to fix it.’ We don’t always succeed, but we give it our best shot.”

In the end though, to Latimer, the most important part of it all is caring for the animals; working to get them back to health, regardless of whether they’re high-end or not, as she knows people’s animals are often viewed as family.

“In our performance horses, it’s always you know, getting after that Blue Ribbon. You know, the better our clients’ horses perform, the better that makes us look, so like, “how’s your horse going so good?’ or like, ‘who fixed your horse for you, because it was doing x, y, and z,’ and so, we fix them and we get them running like a well-oiled machine again,” says Latimer. “That’s important to me, is to get them back out there as quick as we can, at least on the performance horse side and then, obviously, a very important part to me too is these horses that we work on that are like family members. People love them. They have them for thirty-five years and they’ll live forever, and so really it’s important to me to make sure people feel like their family members are taken care of and that we’ve got your back.”

By: John Holcomb

Legislators, Peach Producers Discuss Disaster Relief for Peaches

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Fort Valley, GA

Consumers will be seeing a lot less of Georgia’s signature fruit on shelves, as more than ninety percent of this year’s peach crop was lost after growers endured a late freeze just as their trees were starting bloom, which leaves them in a tough spot heading into the future.

“We’ve had several poor crops, and this year is the worst crop in thirty years, and we’re just pretty devastated about trying to get through this,” says Robert Dickey, Chairman of the House Ag Committee. “We’re needing to plant more acres and carry our trees until next year. So, hopefully we can get some disaster relief funding to supplement our other income.

It’s a call for help Georgia Senator, Jon Ossoff is hoping to answer promptly, in order to keep the state’s number one industry running strong.

“The federal government and US Department of Agriculture have a role to play in ensuring that farmers and growers in Georgia and across the country who face this kind of risk and put their livelihoods and their resources on the line every year with uncertainty about tough weather and other things that can impact their crop,” says Senator Ossoff. “The federal government has a role to play in providing smart, targeted disaster assistance.”

It’s an issue Ossoff says he will push hard for once back in the nation’s capital, despite some of the pushback it is likely to receive.

“What I want to do is, as we move through the appropriations process in congress, see if we can appropriate targeted, smart disaster relief funds for Georgia’s peach growers. Of course, you know, as polarized and divided as the political environment is these days, it’s tough to get things done. but my job is to represent all Georgians, including Georgia agriculture. So, I’m going to work to try and get this done,” says Ossoff.

That assistance is vital for the peach industry and its future, as crop insurance isn’t near enough to cover this type of devastation.

“It’s tough. We’ll have to borrow lots more money to make it until next year, and it’s, it’s a whole twelve months until, until we get income again,” says Dickey.

“That’s an emergency situation where the existing programs may not be sufficient and targeted relief may be necessary. So, while the existing crop insurance programs can be helpful, sometimes you need supplemental help when you have a situation that is as dire as this one. And it’s in our state’s interest and our nation’s interest to ensure that farmers stay on their feet,” says Ossoff.

In turn keep the state on its feet as this disaster has far reaching implications on the entire economy here in Georgia. [Robert]

“We’ve got processors that cannot do the processing, consumers looking for Georgia peaches. We’re losing our customers. They’re going to other fruits and vegetables. We’re doing a lot of mail ordering now, and we’ve got regular customers that can’t receive their peaches. It’s just a cascade of issues and problems that we are facing this year. Not to mention trying to keep our trees healthy and going until next year,” says Dickey.

One Family’s Love for Beef Transformed into a Thriving Business

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Bostwick, GA

In Morgan County, it’s truly a labor of love for Stan and Vanessa Nabors, owners of Faithway Cattle – a family run cattle operation that specializes in farm to table beef. It was journey they started a few years back when after wanting to make a change with their operation, which, according to the Nabors, turned out to be a great decision for their farm.

“We started with just beef cows, did that up until seventeen, and started then raising beef for consumers. The reason for that was there was just not enough money left over in the calf/cow operation to be able to sustain the farm and make it worthy to keep,” says Stan. “So, we started that in seventeen, and has really been good for us. My wife helped me a lot with that. She’s the one that does the marketing, and it has grown every year. It really has taken off. You know, from the first year we harvested one, to now we harvest thirty to forty a year.”

“We’ve had great reception, the public wanting to know where their food is coming from, they’re wanting to support local, they’re wanting to have that relationship and also there’s a lot of people outside of just wanting to support local and their local farmer, knowing where their food’s coming from, is about the health benefits, so I will say it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because I didn’t grow up in this, however, it’s one of the most rewarding things that I am doing, and so I’m very grateful for that to provide a good product, a premium product that not only is wonderful in taste but just the health benefits behind it,” says Vanessa.

As they stated, their business has grown year over year, which of course can be attributed to having a great product, but it also has to do with their marketing efforts, which allows them to show their customers who they are as producers and also gives them a chance to share recipes, management practices, and other digital content that helps build relationships with customers.

“What’s important to me about that is to be able to provide a premium product to the customer, that can have a relationship with their farmer and know where their beef comes from and the quality of it that they can expect of it,” says Stan. “The public has really brought it to light, you know, that they need to know their farmer because of all the issues. I think they benefit from it, it’s a good thing for them and for me too.”

“Everyone deserves to have good food and if they choose to want to buy local and know their farmer behind it, I look at that as just an extra bonus too,” says Vanessa.

As for the future, the Nabors say that they have plans to take their operation to the next level but aren’t sure when those plans will take place – all they know is, just like in the past, they’re relying on faith to get them there.

“We definitely want to expand our herd and we are entertaining some agritourism to happen here on the farm and we both would like to have a retail store. Don’t know all the details of how that’s going to look, we both are firm believers and know that we all have a journey here and when it’s meant to be, in the perfect time it will happen,” says Vanessa.

By: John Holcomb