A year ago, I didn’t know that Georgia leads the nation in satsuma production. I didn’t know that the maturity of a peanut is assessed by scraping the hull, or that hard wheat can’t be grown south of I-20.
Because of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s yearlong Georgia on My Plate series, which concluded last month with a behind-the-scenes look at Deep Grass Graziers, a cattle farm in southeast Georgia, I’m better informed about this state’s agricultural landscape, and more appreciative of what it takes to get food to our plates.
Our 12-part series explored practices for raising goats, chickens, cows and catfish — as well as growing crops like leafy greens, mushrooms, blueberries and olives.
Stories took us from the mountains of North Georgia to the Florida border to coastal waters, and we reported the challenges unique to each operation, as well as sharing the headaches induced by weeds, disease, market conditions, bureaucratic barriers to entry and, of course, the weather.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
Hector Buitrago of Hemi Blueberry Farm, near Greensboro, took things in stride last spring after losing 80% of his crop due to a frost. “He understands and accepts the fragile nature of farming,” wrote Angela Hansberger in her profile of Buitrago and his transition to berry farming in 2015, after retiring from a job at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
We learned what drives farmers to toil in heat and humidity, fix broken machinery and peddle produce at farmers markets.
Some, like Murray Brett of DaySprings Farms, have rediscovered a way of life they experienced in their youth. Since he fronted seed money for his son, Nathan, to take up farming on land just outside Danielsville in 2011, the father and son have ingrained themselves within the regional restaurant and baking communities as Georgia’s go-to seed-to-sack operation for organic and heirloom grains. At the same time, their multi-generational bonds have tightened, because Grandma and Grandpa Brett live right down the road from Nathan, his wife, Simone, and their young sons.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
The desire to live in harmony with the land is what led Zach and Ilana Richards to purchase 10 acres in Madison in 2020. It became the permanent home of Levity Farms, an organic vegetable farming operation, guided by the principles of permaculture that the couple carried out the previous four years on a rented tract in Milton.
Their operation is among the rapidly growing number of small farms in the state. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Services, Georgia saw a 33% increase in small farms (defined as 1-9 acres) from 2012 to 2017.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
While the Richards family’s lean style of farming doesn’t include hulking ag equipment, it does offer opportunities for togetherness, such as letting their toddler, Harlyn, help Dad sow lettuce seeds, using a Japanese paper pot transplanter the size of a Radio Flyer wagon.
Farming also creates meaningful ties to a larger community. The summer day that John Kessler visited Bread and Butter Farms, a group of Black farmers showed up at the 10-acre vegetable farm in Monroe to help owners Musa and Micole Hasan weed and tackle other chores.
Credit: Phil Skinner
Credit: Phil Skinner
Many hands make light work, as poultry farmer Shaun Terry can attest. In the early days of his USDA-certified farm, Grateful Pastures in Mansfield, Terry moved heavy mobile chicken coops to new pasture by pulling them manually, by himself. He since has learned that it’s easier to hitch the pens to his beat-up pickup truck and drive slowly forward, while a farmhand gets inside the pens and sweeps the weeks-old broilers forward, lest they get run over.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
And, thanks to Terry’s collaboration with the owner of a deer-processing facility, he no longer has to drive across state lines to get his poultry processed. Operating in Loganville since last spring, Atlanta Poultry Processing is the first and only USDA-inspected poultry-processing facility in Georgia that’s open to independent farms — and even backyard chicken farms.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
In this series, we also learned how farmers have turned to science for solutions — be it the Georgia-06G, a high-yield breed of runner peanut, developed by the University of Georgia, that the Cox family cultivates on its longstanding peanut farm in Camilla; the custom organic catfish feed developed for fledgling fishery Satilla Ponds in White Oak; or the citrus research that has prompted more Georgia growers to get in on the satsuma game.
Credit: Chris Hunt
Credit: Chris Hunt
It’s remarkable that 8.4 million pounds of citrus were harvested from Georgia groves in 2021, and that 59 million pounds are projected by 2024.
If you think those are eye-opening numbers, try these: Georgia is home to more than 42,400 farms, whose products have a total market value of more than $9.5 billion.
We could visit only 12 of those farms. But, I hope that our stories left you feeling more connected to the people who take pride and responsibility in contributing to our food supply.
If you missed some of these articles, I invite you to visit ajc.com/georgia-on-my-plate, where you’ll find all 12 stories, along with videos from select farm visits, and cooking demonstrations using these foods.
In addition, keep an eye out this month for the debut of the AJC’s next food series, Atlanta Culinary Journeys, which will explore the evolution of our diverse food landscape, through discussions with some of the area’s most dynamic culinarians.
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