Agriculture has long been the backbone of the Alabama economy.

Because farmers depend on natural resources like soil and water for their livelihood, good farmers have always been good stewards of the environment.

They are pioneers in sustainable practices.

Last year, several Auburn University Agriculture alumni led a statewide campaign to bring greater visibility to the forward thinking and sustainable practices that are a cornerstone of today's agricultural industry.

The Down to Earth campaign was supported by nine partner organizations and involved expert voices from Auburn University., The Alabama Cooperative Extension System and farms and agribusinesses across the state.

As communities around the world become more mindful of our fragile environment and our need for greater sustainable practices, the message of the Down to Earth campaign is vital.

Our farmers are stewards of the land.

They are conservationists.

They are innovators always finding new, sustainable ways to produce more with less.

So the Down to Earth campaign came to life literally around the lunch table one day.

Myself and some of my colleagues were sitting, enjoying lunch together, and we were having a conversation about, What are you doing?

What are you and your association doing to have this sustainability conversation and what are your graphics look like?

And what type of articles are you doing in your magazine?

And we started to realize that we're all doing different campaigns that are mimicking each other somewhat, but facts and statistics may not lineup exactly, and graphics and elements might not line up perfectly.

So what we did was we said, Why don't we develop a campaign that comes under one umbrella, under one voice, under one group of statistics and facts, and make a collaborative campaign versus each one of us trying to reinvent the wheel.

We deemed it the conservation conversation to begin with, but we knew that that wouldn't be the permanent name.

We started with three different folks, myself included, and Kayla Greer, Deborah Davis from the Alabama Farmers Federation.

The conversation grew from there to involve different organizations and other people from different entities and ag groups.

We knew we wanted to tell people the agriculture story and how it involves bringing food from the farmer's farm to their plate on their family table.

And we knew we wanted to tell them how agriculture's sustainable, how forestry's sustainable, how we create products for their families home to enjoy at their home.

Well, what people don't realize is the efficiency that's come into farming.

I mean, in the last you think about the last 50 years with computers and and the amount of information available to we've just improved efficiency so much.

I saw some statistics the other day that the to produce the same amount of food that we produced in 1980 now that we're producing now it would take 100 million more acres.

You know when you think about sustainability and what it means for the environment.

Well we were disturbing 100 million less acres it's that much fuel, less diesel fuel being burned off and less land being tilled that's less pesticides having reach for.

And so all those efficiency to just adding to what we are able to do.

And so the idea is just to make a little dent and and be consistent month after month on the things that we're talking about and really telling agricultures' story that's truthful.

We ended up doing a yearlong campaign that focused on farmers and ranchers and landowners here in Alabama and how they are sustainable for the future essentially.

So we started off the campaign with a launch event that we called Down to Earth Day.

And Governor Ivey came out and proclaimed it Down to Earth Day in the state of Alabama.

And that was our campaign launch.

And that was a fun event.

We featured school children and media events.

And then after that, the campaign was very digital in nature.

So we were heavy on social media.

We had a website, but then also all of the partners that were part of this campaign, they disseminated information through their publications, through their social media, outlets.

And then we also had this really robust list of spokespeople, farmers who participated in media training, and they were ready and equipped to participate in news, news packages, radio interviews, video packages for stories, whether it be digital media or print media, whatever the case may be.

So we really went to work with getting the message out on digital and traditional media across the state.

We knew that we had to send a collective message whenever we finally determine the goals of the campaign.

So we created six focused messages throughout the year.

We were going to focus on one message every two months, and that was going to be across the board from the different nine organizations that were involved.

We were all going to be saying the same thing at the same time, and that has never happened before that we know of for for anything here in Alabama that many organizations uniting under the same logo, the same brand of messaging, the same message to get our story across to consumers.

So we are very proud of that in itself.

Even besides the results that we garnered from the campaign, just to be able to say that we brought that many groups together is is pretty amazing to us.

And what we did is all of our collaborators and stakeholders that were partners in the campaign came together with our respective commodities and discussed the different sustainability issues surrounding our specific commodities.

We then took all of those talking points and grouped them into into categories and put names on them.

And that's how we got to the six talking points.

We hit the ground running strong with carbon emissions and then switched into data and technology and then animal and plant efficiency and then transitioned into conserving natural resources.

And then next to the last was smart land usage.

And then we wrapped the whole campaign up in what we say in a pretty little bow for sustaining for the future and how important it is the work that farmers and landowners and ranchers are doing to sustain for the future.

They wouldn't be doing what they're doing if it wasn't for future generations.

Alabama's farmers and ranchers are data driven.

They're tech driven, they're research driven, and they are open to implementing new practices that are going to improve efficiency on their farms.

And so this campaign is just a launching point for them to continue to tell that story.

At Petals from the Past, what we focus on here and have for the last 30 years is to approach gardening from an educational standpoint.

We deal on a daily basis, primarily with the home gardener and what our job is to help them have success in their garden through examples in our farm as well as in our display gardens.

So we have both fruit orchards., we have display gardens that are ornamental in nature, and what our goal is to help the home gardener have success in those garden by showing them the techniques and the types of plants that we use.

So we own 350 acres here on Tubbs Hill.

It was founded in 1792 by Daniel Tubbs brother of his, Samuels, founded the hill across the highway.

And so it's just been down through the generations.

I'm a first generation farmer.

I went to college at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, got a degree in general agriculture.

And when we got done, my dad was raised a half a mile down the road from here, and so we decided to move back here.

He tried to buy this place specifically back in the mid eighties, and we approached the guy who lived here, Mr. Fields, in 2006 and asked him if he was ready to sell, he said he was.

And so that's when it started for us down here.

It's important, you know, farmers are sustainable, they've always been sustainable.

It's just we haven't been putting it out there for people to see, you know, uh, I'm the state chairman for the Alabama Pork Producers Association and I was on the National Pork Board this past year and that's been one of the big, big pushes is sustainability, and so we've been doing an on farm sustainability program where we give all of our information to a third party company and they put it into a small sheet there for you so you can give it to people, let them understand where put you're putting manure out on the ground to grow grass or crops instead of using fertilizer that could have been mined, lowering your carbon footprint there, the use of LED lights in your barns with cattle, same thing, you know, if you have them in a little closer confined area using that manure spread on the fields, growing the grass, then turn around, if your cow calf, you get them back out there grazing it or cutting it for hay.

So, you know, farmers have been sustainable, it's just now that we're able to tell our story about it.

Well, we are a six generation currently.

My kids would be the or our kids would be the seventh generation.

So my brother Bart and I farm with with my parents, Whitney and our kids are a huge part of the farm.

We're pretty proud that we've been able to to do this and do what we do for so long.

As far as we know, as far as we've been able to trace it, there's a there's a rock out in the front yard that says, my folks have been here since at least 1890.

So that's something we're we're real proud of obviously we we owe everything we do is kind of in the in the philosophy of making good decisions for a generation that's coming behind us.

We raise cattle.

We also grow corn and wheat and soybeans.

In agriculture.

we hear a lot about about that idea or that topic, you know, how are we going to feed a growing population?

The population is going to double or are increase by some factor in so many decades.

You know, certainly that's a that's a challenge.

But I look backwards and see and look at all the advances that we've made in the past and how much more productive we are now as American farmers or Alabama farmers than we used to be and not necessarily 100 years ago, even just ten or twenty years ago.

We're you know, some of it is I'm better, but a lot of it is, is we have better tools.

We have better ways to handle pests, we have better genetics in our in our plants and in our animals that that allow them to be more productive even when we have years that are not ideal.

So so we've got all kind of tools that that that that help us be better and help us produce more.

Well I've been farming all my life except for the three years I was at Auburn, so I've been on this property for 67 years.

My family's been farming in Walker County seven generations.

My and Susan's two sons, Kade and Judd, finished Auburn, and they both wanted to come back to the farm.

So we made some changes.

So originally my ancestors were row crop farmers and had a few cows and I don't know all about the first group, but they settled in 1859 in the southern part of the county.

And then my great grandfather moved here in the Boldo community just outside of Jasper, and it was all farmland and farming community, and we're the last full time farmers in this part of the county.

And that's quite interesting with the urban sprawl that's happening and being able to stay sustainable.

But some of the things that my family went through, we don't have to go through anymore with the new technology and all.

You know, and that's a big word now sustainable.

How do you just sustain a farm for all these generations?

And it's tough in this day and time than we're used to, but the technology when dad was growing up, it was a mule and a plow, milked the cows by hand.

He just planted the corn, and when I was younger we pulled it by hand and that's the way we'd harvest it, and then you had to shell it.

And so those things.

And I remember the first time dad hired a man to come harvest the corn for him with a combine out of Tuscaloosa.

And that family still farms to this day.

But watching that combine shell that corn was amazing to me as a young person.

This had been in the late sixties.

And with all that the new seed technology and all with the seeds that are able to spray and kill weeds without plowing the soil, we no-till, and that's a big factor.

We're not losing our soil to erosion like dad did and had to do practices to keep that soil on top of the hill instead of down in the rivers and that took a lot of a lot of work.

So sustainability has been very important to us through the years and keeping those practices on hand to do that.

You can see behind me there's a tractor with a no-till planter where we don't go in and disc the land, we spray and kill those plants and they're there and so your soil is not running off and and the placement of the seed and the technology we use in these tractors now is very important that we can plant and know where each seed's going and how deep it goes, and the width and precision agriculture is very important that we didn't have 50, 60, 70 years ago with that old mule and that planter behind the mule.

This is Two Mile Cattle Company.

My grandfather purchased the land next to us sometime in the late 1950s.

And then in 2002, my dad took it over and started run the day to day operations of the cattle and hay farm that we have.

And then in 2019 I was able to purchase this, this section of land here which we had been utilizing for hay and which we still do that as well.

And then, then a couple of years ago we were able to take some of the land that we have here and start raising sheep and goat.

We raised sheep and goats, small herd of sheep and goats for the club, club lamb and club goats that we sell to 4-H and FFA members.

We also sell beef and quarters, halves andw holes and, and raise a cow calf operation.

This is Ellie.

Ellie's my oldest daughter and this is Easton.

He's my middle son.

And then I have a daughter Raya, that's not with us.

They're a big help they love the sheep and goats.

Ellie's my little vet.

She's all about the medicine and helping me give shots and doctor and all those kind of things.

And Easton, he's my livestock shower.

We, on most weekends throughout the fall and summer, we're showing livestock somewhere at a fair or or just a livestock show here and there.

And he he likes to do all that.

So technology is, is pretty important to us here with our small operation.

We're able to incorporate artificial insemination, and that's where we're able to get the absolute best stud bucks and stud rams across the country.

That is shipped in to us.

We have a guy from Arkansas that comes and he does our artificial insemination here on the farm.

And we're able to incorporate the absolute best genetics that our country has to give to us right here and in Cullman County.

And I think that's pretty awesome.

Not only do we do that with the sheep and goats but we've done that for years with our cattle as well.

And just being able to get that best genetics, I may not be able to buy a 25-30 thousand dollar stud buck or stud ram or bull, but I can utilize those genetics into my small operation.

And, and the increase in that is just amazing.

It's just amazing the technology that they have that they didn't have years ago, that allows me to be competitive with our genetics amongst other people.

Well I would say definitely when we talk about advancements in technology over the past 30 years, I mean you pick a a category, the container production, we grow as a nursery, we grow a lot of plant material in plastic pots.

What we are seeing coming along right now that I'm excited about are biodegradable pots.

This is a plant that I'm going to be able to grow this plant and finish it and offer it to you as a home gardener that you're going to be able to take home, plant the whole pot, don't have to remove it from plastic, you're going to put the whole pot in the ground, it's going to decompose and then the roots are going to go right through it.

So that's a pretty big advancement in technology.

And then I think the availability of some of the byproducts of some of our other industries right now we're using rice hulls, which are a byproduct of the rice production that goes on in states that join us and the byproduct of those processed rice hulls we can use as a top layer on top of our containers, and we don't have to use a pre-emergent herbicide because the rice hulls help prevent weed seed from germinating by denying them sunlight.

And if they do germinate they can't get enough moisture to continue growing.

So we've eliminated a chemical herbicide in favor of an organic byproduct of another agriculture industry.

Our technology as far as tractors, dad had an old tricycle front end Allis Chalmers that he'd plowed the fields with and an old Ford tractor, his first one he bought was in the early fifties.

And can you imagine planting 300 acres with a four row planter, it took forever and so your your plants were growing at different days and all where now you can go in with a large planter and just about plant everything if the weather's permitting in just a few days and if dad was here now the technology with auto steer on tractors, GPS that keeps you within an inch, inch and a half of the rows that you're going on, and that tractor will stay on with the auto steer that technology takes away from the guessing and knowing, and when you come in to harvest with your combine those rows are straight and with the end rows and you're doing end rows and then doing a pattern and that computer will remember it and those kind of things.

And the planters, they place those seeds, if you've got it all set right.

And you can see in the corn fields how far apart they're spaced and how well that does and the depth, you can change your depth on it, things that dad could do, but he didn't know as much as we do now.

They were smart men, don't get me wrong, they knew how to raise a crop, but they were hard workers.

It's more mental now than, got a lot of labor especially when things tear up.

But the technology has brought us so far to be able to do more with less.

Over the over the last 30 years we have seen a lot of changes in our industry, both from a technology standpoint, also from of just availability of products, but the types of things that we are are using on a day to day basis.

So in our business, two of them, I would say, and probably more than anything else, are the fertilizers that are available.

That has been a big change.

And from a sustainability standpoint, we've seen a shift from quick release fertilizers to a wider availability of slow release fertilizers, those that are coated that don't dump as fast, but yet put those nutrients in where we need them and organic sources of nutrients.

We're finding availability readily available, organic sources of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium that allow us to not only feed the plant but to feed the soil.

The second area I think from a sustainability standpoint that we've seen major improvements in is irrigation.

We are so focused on the proper and correct use of water as a natural resource here that every decision we make basically is around are we going to need irrigation?

We don't use it, for example, in our display gardens that are ornamental, but we have to have it in our edible crop gardens where our fruit gardens are.

So we focus on drip irrigation and that's where we're using just a small drip tape type of irrigation.

It puts the water right where we need it.

It's not wasteful like we used to use with overhead irrigation.

We don't lose so much to evaporation.

We've incorporated a lot of mulches into our program behind me, of course, are black berry plants that are have a nice three inch layer of pine bark mulch that is a byproduct for our forest industry and that helps us to use our water more wisely as well.

We have approximately 4000 acres in agriculture, mostly timber and we raise cattle and pasture land and we try to take real good care of it.

We've been in it for 51 years.

When we first started there it was just land.

It wasn't cultivated, it hadn't been fertilized.

It'd been sitting here a long long time.

But as we, you know, prepare it and we call it babying the timber and babying the soil where it's very important, how you treat it is not going to be here in ten years if you have not treated it properly.

And we had property that was needed treating, I'm going to use that word.

We had to put fertilizer on it, we had to cultivate it and get it ready for these type things.

Especially when raising timber.

You can't just go put it out there and don't do anything to it.

It has to be fertilized every so often.

We don't cut timber unless it is mature enough and you can't say, well, I cut timber every seven years.

That's not necessarily true.

We cut timber when it's mature enough and ready.

If we cut it all down, then we go back and we fertilize and we get the soil ready to replant timber and do that kind of thing.

In terms of carbon emission, what makes the forest industry and the wood products market and industries you know, kind of unique in terms of the whole carbon aspect is one, they're renewable resources, they're sustainable.

So we can continue to sequester carbon to bring carbon in from the atmosphere and store it.

And even when those forest and trees are turned into forest products, that carbon remains stored in those products.

Our forests benefit us in terms of carbon by sequestering, which is removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and that through that process, the carbons converted into sugars and oxygen.

That sugar is used for food throughout the tree.

And with the carbon that's within that sugar is distributed throughout the tree from the leaves, through the wood, the bark all the way to the roots.

What we typically do in when we look at a piece of land where we want to grow a crop, particularly a fruit crop, we think about several things in the approach to to cultivating that ground.

First thing we look at is a soil analysis and then we also do a site analysis.

We look at the elevation.

If you're going to grow fruit trees, particularly on a commercial basis, you're always looking for a piece of land that's got some elevation so that the cold air can drain away, then we're going to do a PH and we're going to run a soil test.

We're going to send that to the university, to Auburn University, to the lab.

We want to get a pH the measure of the acidity.

We want to find out what nutrients are available.

This is the same steps that we take as home gardeners.

We're using that as a commercial grower, and then we can then decide based on that soil analysis and the elevation, what crop is going to be the most suitable.

Many times, I'm afraid if you're too quick to rush and say, hey, I want to grow peaches or I want to grow apples, well, the site may not be particularly appropriate for it.

So we always look at a piece of land.

We look first at what's there, the elevation the soil analysis.

And that tells us, for instance, behind you we're talking about there's blueberries, there's a half an acre of blueberries.

The soil pH right here, anywhere that you take a soil test is going to be 5.3.

That's very acidic.

And blueberries love it.

We have to do very little soil prep with regard to pH.

But then we garden we grow on red clay and rock where I'm standing right here.

So we have to add a fair amount of composting materials, peat moss or composted manure to help improve that soil.

And then we can go in there, get our planting done at the appropriate time.

We can then put down the drip irrigation that we were talking about earlier.

We come back with a nice layer of pine bark mulch, a byproduct of our forest industry, and that helps us to keep that water down.

So when we're looking at that, those are the steps typically that we take to look at how to most effectively and wisely use our land.

Soil conservation was very important to sustain the soil that we farm on, no matter what what we're doing with it.

We want to save the soil because that's what keeps us here on the farm and sustainability.

So with the Soil Conservation Service, it was called Alabama the Agriculture, Soil and Water Conservation back then and now it's the Soil, Water and Natural Resources Conservation Service that we still work with that helps us do things and programs that we know about to sustain our soils.

Well I think in conserving is that we take care of it.

We don't get rid of it, we don't let it grow up.

We don't do all those things.

We do, we treat it like a little baby.

You're, you're doing things for it to make it better, make it grow, make it do this.

And that's the kind of things we do here.

Every piece of property, even the ponds, we fertilize them too.

We do not let anything on our properties, we doctor it all the time, you know, do things what it means, so it will produce beautiful trees, produce beautiful grass.

So we're constantly doing something.

I call it pampering our farm all the time.

So the cows grow well, the timber grows well, and it is, you know, a productive thing to do.

We as farmers we are trying to help the land and making sure that we're taking care of the land.

One of the things that my dad always told me growing up is, son, they're not making more of it.

Take care of what you've got.

And so that's some things that we try to do here.

My dad has really worked hard to incorporate some rotational grazing, and that's a way to the land to continue to, to grow.

And, and, and you shift your cattle around as you do that.

And myself here with the farm that we have been able to take a small section of land that was really used for nothing else other than it was just holding the world together.

And I've been able to to raise some really high quality club lambs and club goats.

And so that has been something good to help with the land that we have and using it using every aspect of the land that we have.

So here we've got about 25 to 30 cow calf pairs.

Behind me here we run a little stocker operation right now, about 45 of those back over there.

If you see the blue barn, we've got about 20 sows that we farrow-to-finish and sell about oh about 4 to 5 hundred finished pigs a year.

So you know I started off cattle farming when we moved here and then we moved into pigs.

I've been around both all my life and so it being able to co-mingle both species together, you know, use the manure from the pigs to fertilize the ground, cows come out, graze the grass or I cut it for hay and use it in the winter.

So it's a good cycle that you can see everything going together and working together on it.

So we rotational graze our pastures, trying not to overgraze everything so right here where we're at, there's 85 grazeable acres.

It's cut into, I think 20 different paddocks ranging from one and a half acres up to eight acres.

And so during the summer, strict trying to keep them on pastures.

They'll be on there for two weeks at a time.

Each paddock, you know, has a water source they can get to.

So then they're in there two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, just rotating around so that way I can graze, I can graze nearly year round instead of having to feed hay, you know, the less hay I have to cut, the less fuel I have to use, less time, I have to use less wear and tear on equipment, all that good stuff.

So, you know, conserving that way, using NRCS doing some programs with their equip program.

Fencing out ponds.

That way the cows aren't getting in there and eroding everything and run off and all that stuff.

And those are some of the programs that we've been doing with NRCS over the past few years.

Your land will not last in a productive mode if you do not take care of it.

You if you let the cows eat it down to the nub you're going to have nothing down there on that dirt.

And also, it's not good for your animals.

You know, you want them to have plenty to eat and you know, this is producing food for them and you're not treating them properly if you do this, not only what you're producing, but you're not and cattle will eat it down the nub if you let them.

That's why you have to move them off when it's getting too short, fertilize it for a while, put it on another place, and then take them back you can't just turn them loose out there they will eat it until there's not any left.

And you can't allow that to happen.

And I think that's really important to keep your production going with your cows and how they look.

You can look at cows and tell has somebody been treating them right, are they're eating enough grass?

Have they do they have a good place to be?

Have they got water have they got all the things that they need?

You can look at one and tell if they got a good home, and that's what it's all about too.

Back then to grow a chicken 50 days or so it would take to try to even get a four pound, but usually it's three and a half and the feed conversion would be over two pounds.

When I returned back from Auburn, in 78 and built my houses, we would keep them about the same time.

We were getting close to a four pound bird, but still over a two pound feed conversion.

Now we're growing big birds, nine to ten pounds, in sixty-three.

sixty-four days with less than a two feed conversion.

And that's because of the genetics has been improved, the housing has been improved.

We have computers in our houses that control the temperature.

They're totally enclosed.

You have fans on one end and we'll try to look at those later with cool cells on one end so that environment, you can try to keep it, you want to start those baby chickens out it at 90, 92 degrees and then you go and reduce it a half a degree a day as they get older.

And so you're watching the feed conversion and feed is nutrients and feed has changed and improved.

So that's the reason our feed conversions have reduced.

So you're saving money there from the poultry companies it will grow far.

And when you get that reduction in feed, the companies are more profitable that we contract with.

We're standing here in front of four poultry houses.

You're seeing two of them, but these houses have been totally upgraded to the specs that the company requires to get the top pay on the contract.

And if you can see behind me where the cool cells are, these are 40 by 400 foot houses.

It's been upgraded.

The control rooms are behind us.

The large feed bins where one truckload of feed can unload without having to split that load and those kind of things that make it more efficient with the controllers and computers in the houses that control the environment, lighting, the feed system, the fans and you start out with that, the temperature for the baby chickens and then reduce it about a half a degree a day.

And those computers do that for you, or controllers.

And then the cool cells in the summertime when you need them, those curtains come up and down.

The waters are controlled by the controller.

How much water to put on those pads to cool that water and it'll reduce the temperature in there.

If you've got a 95 degree day outside you can get about 85, 81 to 85 degree in the house to keep that bird.

A normal body temperature of a chicken is 106 degrees.

Most folks, I trick a lot of folks with that question.

What's the normal body temperature of a chicken?

It is 106.

When you start out a baby chicken it hasn't got it takes three weeks for it to get to the 106 degree body temperature.

So you have to add heat and then in the summertime the birds well as they gain weight they need cool air cause their body temperatures so high so you're trying to cool it down to keep that body temperature where they're able to eat and drink and gain weight.

And that's a lot of the technology that goes along in there, the feed, the corn that we grow, the you know, I was talking about the technology there and how we have increased yields because of that technology, least cost formulation on the feed, the companies they want as least cost as they can of feed to be a quality bird to put it in there and healthy.

But you're also looking at that price of corn and the ingredients that go, that farmers row crops farmers are doing.

Well that has increased the yields have increased all over the United States because of the genetics in that and also because of the birds and the improvement in genetics, improvement in houses, we're able to grow a better quality bird doing that.

And with all this technology I talked about it on the soil and conservation and all that.

But here also it just shows you what we can do and we're raising better quality stuff for our population as the population grows.

And people need to be concerned about the demise of farmers and what happened to the small family farm.

Yeah.

So the biggest thing, you know, oh, on the pork side, there's no there's no growth promotants you know, that's been on the label, you can read it at the store.

It's been illegal since the fifties.

It's just been greater selection in genetics of these animals, they've gotten a little leaner.

That's what the people wanted at the time.

So the it's just, they've gotten them to grow very well in a timely manner, be efficient.

It's more efficiency.

So, you know, back in the fifties and sixties, you know, if you wanted a 250 pound hog, I don't know how long, you know, it might have taken eight months where today it takes five and a half, six months to get that big.

So you've shortened that time span, you shortened the amount of feed that you've given it.

So, you know, there's another thing in your carbon footprint which you talk about.

The less feed you have to use less land.

And you know, the animals in the big in the barns, in the confinement barns, you know, you're taking up less land use for that.

You're not using as much land raise the animals.

And so your footprint's shrinking there and on the cattle side, the same thing on genetics, you know, the better genetics you have, the better feed efficiency you have, the quicker you can get these animals to market less feed, you have to feed them.

The less resources that you're putting into all this the less footprint that you'll have.

You know, carbon footprint, well, like I was talking about, we do the sustainability report through the National Pork Board, and so we give all the data power usage, water usage, how much feed that, did we feed these how much feed did it take to feed your animals that year?

And so last year on my sustainability report, with the manure that I have able to fertilize I was able to save 4500 dollars in fertilizer cost.

That first report was from '21.

'22s report we're still working on and I've got a few things to get in there.

And so, you know, we're showing our carbon footprint that we're not using as much power, not using much water.

I mean on the cattle side, I don't quite know the numbers, but I know on the pig side we're using 75% less land than we did in the fifties to grow, to grow these animals.

I think some of the other numbers you know, they're up there, power, water usage, you know, they're down ten and 10-15% from back then, some from when we've raised those animals.

So the thing I think about when I think about sustainability is, is at least one of the key ingredients has got to be profitability if it's not profitable, we're not sustainable.

And that's kind of become a buzz word in the last eight or ten years.

And and a lot of corporations talk a lot about sustainability.

When I look at what we do for 100 and how many every year I kind of think of us as being sustainable and certainly the farm has changed a lot over those years.

But the thing that is always common is we have to we have to pay our bills and we have to be have to be profitable.

You know, growth doesn't necessarily just mean in in in acres, although that's part of it.

You know, there's things that we can do to be more efficient with what we have and and add more value to what we do.

You know, one of the things that we do in that vein is, is is the direct to consumer beef business that that really Whitney has has developed and started and and kind of oversees.

You know, it's still a small percentage of our production or a small share of our production.

But but it's adding a lot of value to to those cattle.

And then it and then it gives us a way to to to be more directly to to more directly touch our our consumers and and neighbors are our consumers.

So so it gives us another way to to interact with those folks around us right here in our community.

Yeah.

So just here in Cullman County, you can look around and see that seems like everywhere you turn, there's a new subdivision being built.

And while I know we have to have places for people to live, we also have to have ways to feed the people.

And so, so starting in 2019, 2020, dad and I really worked hard at starting to raise more beef.

And so we're able to do that and be able to sell that to people and we're able to use the resources that we have here on the farm and the land, not only just to take and and just sell the cattle to the sale barn anymore.

They'll be able to have a finished product to, to turn back and sell to the people.

Well, so when you buy local, you get to support a family every time that someone buys a beef share from us, it goes back to help our operations so that we can feed other people.

One of the things that people maybe don't know is, is we don't raise our own pork here on the farm, but rather one way that I give back and to buy local is I buy from FFA and 4-H members, their project when it's over and I feel like that's a way for me to give back to that family.

And at the same time I'm able to kind of be the broker in the situation and help another family and so when you buy local, you're helping somebody that is local.

And we can produce those things here.

We do, I think 28 different crops here, that USDA will pay us to provide to the school system.

We've, we've seen a tremendous uptick and with the Legislature's and governors help, starting to incentivize the school system to start feeding local products to Alabama school children, they were almost eatting none of our locally produced food.

And so yeah.

Seven generations of farmer in the county in a county that's not known for its agriculture is a heritage that I'm proud of and I'm proud that my sons wanted to work with me and we're still going to be here and in the future as long as we can be sustainable and that's the big word.

It's also important here not only do we make a living from it, we also are proud of it.

We've worked hard when you've had something 50 something years you want it to do well.

And I think that's important, your attitude toward it, what you're going to do.

Did you check on it?

Are you taking care of it?

And that shows me that in ten years if I'm still here it's going to be in good shape because we did the we did all the things right in the beginning.

I think as we look toward the future and we think about sustainability, I think that we're going to see so many more opportunities.

I've been in this industry now for 30 years.

I think it's the most exciting time to be in this industry and I'm seeing thankfully some of the next generation that are coming up behind me that are really thinking first from a sustainability standpoint before they even address what they're going to grow or how they're going to go about producing it.

So they're looking for better and wiser uses of their their land.

They're looking for irrigation sources much more with an eye toward conservation of water.

They're looking much more also at crops that they can produce that there is a demand for.

It doesn't require as many inputs, not as many common insect or disease problems.

I think the technology and what's developing right now from our land grant universities like Auburn University, we're seeing variety selection becoming an important role with an eye toward disease resistant varieties not just what's the best flavor, but we want the best flavor and the ones that require the least amount of input, particularly from a chemical standpoint.

So as we talked about, you know, the the population continues to increase, but I'm not really sure that the the number of farmers is going to continue to increase.

And so I think that it's very important that we become very transparent in what we do on the farm.

And we kind of take for granted sometimes that people know what we do here and that they can trust what we do.

But it's our a large part of our our mission and our goal is to educate people on what's happening here at the farm and how we're caring for the farm.

You know, our biggest asset, one of our biggest assets is land.

You know, we want to care for the land.

We're a family farm and we raise our kids here.

And it's very important to us that we're doing things right so that it exists later for our children.

And so we want to share that with other people.

That you're taking care of or helping to sustain our family and other families.

You know that we come into contact with as farmers.

There's a lot of different people that play into the farm and making sure that that's here for the next generation is important to us and important for us to, you know, share that with those around us.

Yeah.

I hope my children will want to grow up one day and stay on the farm.

I hope that maybe through the years we're able to acquire some more land so that, you know, we're not taking this land that we have and build another house, but maybe we're continuing to increase the farm.

I don't want my land to turn into a subdivision.

I hope my kids I know that's my dad's wishes for for me and my sister is that we continue to utilize this land like it's been utilized for the last seventy years.

And I know there's lots of farms that are more generations than us, but it's got to start somewhere.

And I hope that this farm that I have here, the farm that my dad has next door, that we continue to grow that and use that for years to come.

And I hope Ellie and Easton and Raya, I hope they want to continue to do that as they get older.

When we look at the future, 2050, like you were talking about, and we think about the challenges of meeting the needs of a hungry public, I think that we are going to have to rely on a multi-pronged approach.

We're going to have to have seen varieties of everything from grains to vegetables that can produce and maximize their efficiency and producing great volume.

I think we're going to have to have the disease and the insect resistance built into that so that those varieties that are going out to to farmers give us that opportunity to be able to grow and produce and be very productive and then we can then distribute that evenly up and down the interstate system as well as beyond.

But I think also one thing we're seeing is we're seeing a lot of homeowners that we work with take the kind of take the ball and run with it.

And they're trying to find out what they can grow in their home own home garden.

And I can't think of anything that is more oh, gosh, that is more confidence building or more empowering than you at the end of the day, putting on your table something that you grew out of your vegetable garden.

It can be supplemented by something that's grown by another farmer.

But if you can play a role in there, I think it's going to be important as we go through and we work towards 2050.

So we have a lot of people and I teach school, so I have a lot of young people who show interest in farming and agriculture.

But where do you start?

Starting your own farm can be daunting.

It's possible, and I always encourage the kids to be involved in an organization or group that's going to provide the support that you need to get started.

And even to continue to exist.

We've always surrounded ourself with those types of organizations, organizations and the Down to Earth campaign really supports local small, small ventures and small businesses, and it really connects help those helps those new farmers make connections to the community that they need to get started and offers that support that they need.

Even with just promoting different things.

It is so important that the average person sees hey, we need that.

I want to support that.

I want to be able to build a garden out back, you know, just little things.

It all works to the better of everything.

I think the Down to Earth campaign is so important because we are seeing like we see home gardeners on a on an everyday basis.

But I think a lot of the people around the state of Alabama are not necessarily as aware of what a farmer does on any given day.

You're seeing cattle farmers, you're seeing poultry farmers, you're seeing vegetable growers, row crop growers.

And then with us, of course, we a fruit fruit crop grower.

And I think it's important for citizens our every day, folks like you and me as homeowners need to know how important farming is.

And I think that's something that the Down to Earth campaign is, is doing.

We go to farmer's markets and we feel like rock stars there because we're seeing people who are very interested in what we're doing.

They also want more information about where their food is coming from.

So we see it on a day to day basis at every farmer's market that we go.

And I think the Down to Earth campaign is going to get that and reach a greater, larger audience and be much more effective than we can be on just one farmer's market at a time.

I think it's really important that people understand agriculture, even if they don't go into it, because this is the backbone of our country.

This is the backbone of our future.

We've got we have to feed our country.

We got to sustain this agriculture so our country and our people can eat and they will not you know, they will not starve.

It is very important.

Agriculture is is a must.

It is not something that you just laugh about and say, oh, I'll get a farm one of these days.

That doesn't work that way.

It it has so many repercussions if you don't plant, if you don't take care of the land and you don't produce products for the for the public what do you what is your family going to do if there's no food on the table?

And these things are really, really important to sustain our country.

That six, three to six inches of soil, right.

There is a living organism and farmers know that.

And so a tremendous amount is done to protect that that little layer of topsoil right there.

And with little water, we can feed this world.

But I think, you know, one of the things we've got to make people understand is it's not a given that there's always being there's actually not enough food if people that go to bed every night.

And so we have to be efficient and productive in what we're doing and there's a lot of misconception.

One is that there's all these factory farms.

That's just not true, especially in Alabama.

97 or so percent are by farms or privately owned, I think, 93% of our forest lands are privately owned.

And so the whole point of this program is to really just give people facts and help them understand what's really true.

Very simply, our goal of the campaign was to reach 1 million Alabama consumers with the sustainability messaging that you know that Alabama's farmers and ranchers have been implementing sustainable on farm practices for generations voluntarily, not because somebody told them to, but because it's the right thing to do.

It's what's going to to sustain their farm and their family for the future.

So it's not because there's a regulation that says you should do this.

They're doing it because it is the right thing to do and because the land is their most treasured family heirloom.

If you're not willing to work for agriculture and these things to get it's not going to work, you got to love it and you gotta want to do it and you just get successful, at a little bit of it, and then you get the bug and you can't help but not do it.

I mean, you want to be a success at it and you want to convince other organizations this is what we need to do.

This is our backbone in our country.

It produces food, it produces, you know, your animals and all these things.

It is so worth it.

But you also gotta love it and you got to be willing to work for it.

We garnered the success from the campaign from several different methods we utilized online digital statistics and gathered the information from there.

We did surveys and we ended up finally reaching more than 20 million consumers around the state and beyond.

We have several collaborators that came together as partners of the Down to Earth campaign.

They are the Alabama Agribusiness Council, the Alabama Association of RC&D Councils, the Alabama Cattlemen's Association, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System, Alabama Department of AG and Industries, Alabama Farmers Federation, Alabama Forestry Commission, Alabama Poultry and Egg Association and Sweet Grown Alabama.

So all of these people came to the table to to bring a person, a communications professional from their respective organizations, came together and contributed deeply to this campaign to not only develop it, but execute it within their respective organizations.

It's our job as Ag communicators and the farmers jobs to tell that story.

And that's exactly what we hope we were able to do with this campaign and hope that it will continue and maybe other states can even pick up the template of this campaign and and implement it within their own industries.

And people ask me questions all the time.

Why did you do this?

Why did you do that?

What are you doing?

And that opens a door that I can explain what we're doing so they know where their food comes from.

You can drive by, you can ask us questions.

We have nothing to hide.

We're here to protect what we have, and we'll fight to the end to protect it.

It has sustained us for seven generations.

We want it to sustain as long as our generations want to do it.

And that is the thing is where's your mindset on soil and water conservation, our forest preservation and things like that and that how you get that message, the only way I know about is talk about it and teach.

The people that we talk to at least are very hungry for more information.

I think as a as a as a society, we want to know more about where our food is coming from.

We want to know more about the inputs.

We want a little bit more control over it.

And I think the Down to Earth campaign is going to address that squarely.

The campaign is going to live online for now in perpetuity.

We're going to continue to do promotional things digitally on social media and on the website because it's a standing message.

The message does not change.

We are sustainable.

Farmers are sustainable, landowners are sustainable, ranchers are sustainable.

And they will always be sustainable.

That's the whole point.

Down to earth.

We're using this earth for what we do.

You know, we're using using soil to to grow grass.

We need the sun to grow grass.

You know, like I said we're using manure, organic matter, doing all this good stuff, you know, help conserve and keep everything down to earth.

The sustainability story in agriculture in Alabama has been written for generations it's being written right now, and it will continue to be written.

The Down to Earth campaign is just a vehicle to to help tell that story that's already being written and that will be written tomorrow.

And for generations to come.

So the sustainability conversationis not going anywhere.

It's our job as communicators and the farmers jobs to tell that story.

And that's exactly what we hope we were able to do with this campaign.