Tag Archives: farm to table

How Meaningful Conversations Are Shaping the Future of Agriculture | Meet Cain Thurmond

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Jefferson, GA |

For Cain Thurmond, competing this Summer in the GFB YF&R Discussion Meet competition was a no brainer, as the competition is one that fosters conversations that can lead to meaningful solutions – something he says is vital to agriculture’s overall success.

“I think the beautiful thing about discussion meet is that it’s not a debate. You’re not sitting across from someone, you’re sitting with someone. So it allows all of the competitors while they are still competitors, to work on solving an issue together and that’s actually how the scorecard is based, is that we’ve got to work together, and that’s what you get points for. Coming up with a solution together in a cohesive way is how you get points. It’s the purpose of the competition,” says Cain Thurmond, 2024 GFB YF&R Discussion Meet Winner.

“It really made me dig deeper and have great discussions inside and outside of the competition, not only for, what the farming community is facing as a whole, but also what young producers are facing. Most of the questions are really geared towards young members, how we get those young members involved, how do we even create sustainability within the ag industry through getting young producers involved? So, um, there’s purpose to this competition. It’s not a mock competition we throw out there. These are the conversations we should be having,” added Thurmond.

For Cain, that need and desire for meaningful discussions surrounding the issues in ag is second nature, as his passion for the industry and its success is deeply ingrained in him.

“I attribute a lot of where my life is today to the industry of agriculture. I was involved in FFA when I was younger. I actually met my wife through FFA, I got my first job through connections that I found within FFA and agriculture, and even the job that I work today is based within agriculture. So my wife, Whitney, and I get really passionate when speaking about agriculture and passing that on to the next generation. I’m really passionate about the industry of agriculture, and my wife and I actually just started a Christmas Tree Farm on the other side of town. So we are getting our hands dirty and actually getting back involved into agriculture as opposed to our nine to five. We’re spending weekends and nights planting Christmas trees here, coming up as we plant our second crop, and then we’ll hopefully be selling Christmas trees in 2026,” says Thurmond.

Cain will now head to San Antonio where he’ll be competing for national recognition at the upcoming annual AFBF convention – an opportunity he says is an honor and is ready to give it his best shot.

“Certainly an honor to represent Georgia on a national scale. The level of competition within the state of Georgia was immense, so having an opportunity to represent those who sat at a table with me, in July at Jekyll, certainly an honor. I look forward to going to nationals and representing Georgia and just hopefully give them my best shot,” says Thurmond.

By: John Holcomb

Local Beef Creates a Local Restaurant Favorite

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Bostwick, GA |

Here in the small town of Bostwick lays this small, quaint market café; Market 83, where inside you’ll find friendly faces, and fresh, mouthwatering smash burgers cooked to order. It’s a concept Stan and Venessa Nabors have always loved but thought it would look differently than it does now.

“Back when we first started selling our beef, one of Stan’s goals was he wanted to have a hamburger in a restaurant. So we tried that. We approached restaurants. We had restaurants approach us, and the door just felt like it kept slamming. So, just one day I told Stan jokingly, I said, ‘you know what? We’re going to have our own place one day where we can serve our own hamburgers using our ground beef'”, says Vanessa Nabors, Owner of Market 83.

That idea of course is now very much a reality for the Nabors, as they opened up the café last Fall. According to Vanessa, it has been nothing but a dream come true, as they’ve gotten to put their passion and hard work ethic to good use by raising a great herd of cattle that’s used to create fresh, wholesome food that people know exactly where its from.

“I told Stan, I said, ‘well, this will give us an opportunity where we’ll have a market, we can sell our beef, other local goods, and then we can have a cafe where we can serve hamburgers and hot dogs, milkshakes.’ I’m a lot like a lot of people out there; we just have that nostalgic side to us, and again, we all know how our food is nowadays, and I just wanted a place where people could come and have a good hamburger and good quality food,” says Nabors.

Nabors says that business continues to thrive, and says that what they’ve found to be most important to both them and their customers, is continuing to produce and offer great tasting products people know is produced locally, whether that be fresh ground beef and steaks they can take home to cook themselves, or even a burger and milkshake cooked to order in their cafe.

“What drives the passion for Stan and I and our goal here for Market 83 is to continue to have good food that people can come here and know that they’re going to get a good meal. The quote that I use is ‘a taste that you’ll remember’ because nowadays it is hard to go out to a restaurant and really taste the fresh quality that a lot of us are used to having when we were growing up, because we get a lot of people say, ‘oh yeah, we grew up and we would harvest a cow and have it in the freezer, and my grandmother would have a garden, and we’d always have fresh veggies to eat.’ So, I feel like we’re able to bring some of that back here at Market 83,” says Nabors.

By: John Holcomb