MACON, Ga. — On Aug. 24, the Georgia Farm Bureau Board of Directors and the GFB executive team toured the Pierce County farm of GFB South Georgia Vice President Daniel Johnson. The tour included a firsthand look at Johnson’s tobacco operation, stops in his peanut and cotton fields and a field of young blueberry bushes.

According to Johnson and GFB President Tom McCall, the tour was a chance for board members in other parts of the state to get a taste of Georgia’s agricultural diversity.

“We always talk about growing crops, and tobacco is a different crop for everybody to see and they always have questions about it. I wanted them to come be able to look and see what we actually do,” said Johnson, who has approximately 550 acres planted in tobacco. “Tobacco is just a unique crop that’s always been here as far as history that’s not really here that much anymore.”

On the tobacco tour, the board saw how one of the state’s oldest crops is harvested, transported to the processing shed, stored in ventilated curing barns, screened for foreign materials, then baled and stored.

At every stop, Johnson shared an explanation of the work being done, and in the field being harvested, he gave a brief demonstration of how tobacco leaves were harvested by hand before the process became mechanized.

“I just think we need to get out in the state where the agriculture actually is, because that is what we represent, and we know firsthand the trouble that folks have, whether it’s peanuts, cotton, tobacco, blueberries or whatever. I like getting out in the country and not meeting in Macon every time,” McCall said.

At a field of Farthing variety blueberry bushes, farm operator Leavey Boatright shared how the two-year-old plants were progressing and steps taken to ensure they can provide fruit for years to come.

The bushes are planted in repurposed juice or milk cartons, which protect the young plants and also set the direction the bushes grow.

While the GFB board went from field to field, board spouses learned how to create charcuterie in a workshop led by Hayley Minshew.

–Georgia Farm Bureau