Nestled in the rolling hills and timberland of the southern Piedmont area of Virginia, Locust Level Farm is in a part of the state where, historically, fields of two to fifteen acres produced tobacco, supplemented by row crops. Michael McDowell is the fourth generation to practice stewardship on...

In his forty-five-year career as a diversified farmer, Jerry Ray has never worked for anyone but himself. This means that when things go well—in the ordinary course of fat years and lean—he earns the rewards. And when they don’t, he accepts the full weight of responsibility. It’s an old-fashioned...

Sidi Limehouse (pronounced “sigh dye”) is a man with deep Lowcountry roots. His early mercantile ancestors settled in Charleston in the 1700s and spread out from there. When he came into the world on Johns Island in December of 1938, his father celebrated by purchasing Mullet Hall Plantation on...

Johnny Wishon didn’t grow up on a farm, but his father, a game warden, did. Wishon remembers, “We had a little over five acres of land, and my dad always had the biggest garden in the county. He would let me grow extra vegetables to sell to the local grocery store.” In high school he became...

Forty years ago Ted Parker borrowed $5,000 to rent forty acres in Oloh, Mississippi. He now spends his days operating six farms in six different locations in six counties in the piney country of south Mississippi. He recalls, “In those early times I continued to borrow money to purchase more...

Danny Cunningham grew up on a sixty-acre dairy farm in Calloway County, Kentucky. At thirteen he learned to drive an old pickup truck to school on back roads because his dad figured that by letting him drive, he could get home at least an hour earlier than if he took the bus. And that hour could...

Since 1897, Dickey Farms has been producing high quality peaches. Today, Robert Lee Dickey II (“Mr. Bob”), Robert Lee Dickey III (“Robert”), and Robert L. Dickey IV (“Lee”) combine their skills to carry on the farming legacy of growing the tastiest peaches in the south. Calling on deep family...

To be successful in farming requires a good deal of stamina, flexibility, and determination, along with a love of the art of growing things. Charles “Chuck” Obern, owner of C&B Farms, Inc., embodies all these qualities, in addition to curiosity—an instinctive awareness that research can...

Curiosity, innovation, and sustainability are the hallmarks underlying the success of Isbell Farms, a six-generation family enterprise with 3000 acres of rice production in Humnoke, Arkansas. Chris Isbell, Judy Isbell, Mark Isbell, Shane Isbell, and Jeremy Jones form the company’s partnership that...