The Piedmont Soil and Water Conservation District recently held its 63rd Annual Conservationist of the Year Banquet at Rock Eagle. Each year, over 150 farmers and partners in conservation gather to recognize and celebrate significant local efforts in the field. The District works closely with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to identify and recognize one outstanding person from each county who has done remarkable work in protecting and conserving natural resources.
Baldwin’s 2024 recipients, Harlan and Lori Archer, are both retired from non-farm professional careers, though they are descendants from many generations of Georgia farmers.
Harlan enjoyed a 30-year career in the kaolin mining industry, but his passion has always been farming and land stewardship.
After retiring as a mining executive in late 2019, Harlan and Lori began directing their energies toward the further development of Rocking A Farm.
Similarly, Lori grew up on her family’s cattle farm in Washington County. Like Harlan, she left the farm after college and had a career as a retail pharmacist, but her passion has always been homesteading; being a mother and grandmother, cooking, gardening, and caring for any type of animal or livestock. These days, Lori is no longer a pharmacist but is now a “farm-assist.”
Rocking A Farm, LLC, was established in 2010 and operates on two tracts of land. The first tract is located on 160 acres in Washington County and adjacent to Lori’s family farm.
The couple has meticulously renovated this farm into a 1920s farmstead, which includes the original renovated 1920s farmhouse and barn, hand-dug well, wooded cross-fenced pastures, gardens, orchards and multiple animal species (beef and dairy cows, hogs, free-range chickens, sheep, and donkeys). The couple uses this portion of their operation for Lori’s cottage food business and farm-related education events. The couple’s efforts on their Washington tract of land were recognized earlier this year with Conservationist of the Year honors from Washington County. Today, Rocking A Farm’s primary cattle operation is situated on their land in Baldwin County. This farm has been in Harlan’s family since 1946, and Harlan and his sister, Cindy Harrington, gained ownership of approximately 440 acres of the family farm in 2022. The farm consists of approximately 240 acres of creek bottom woodlands, and 200 acres of open land.
Harlan would like to thank his sister and brother-in-law, Larry Harrington, for allowing him to use their portion of the land to expand the working footprint of Rocking A Farm.
When Harlan and his sister obtained ownership of the land in 2022, there was a considerable amount of work that needed to be done. The pastures had been continuously grazed for “decades” with one farm pond as the water source; consequently, the soil was compacted with considerable run-off issues.
About half of the open land consisted of abandoned cropland and was overgrown with briers and bushes. Complicating the situation was the feral hog problem; the wooded land of the farm consists of bottom land that abuts Town Creek, and hogs were in “hog heaven,” enjoying a creek bottom for cooling off and lots of nut grass and other food sources in the abandoned cropland and pastures.
The first step in the regenerated farm was the installation of a perimeter fence that consists of high-tensile field fence with a bottom and top strand of barbed wire. After the perimeter fence was installed, they started regenerating the cropland and pastures. The cropland was mowed, plowed many times, limed and planted with Bahia for pasture and Bermuda for hay. The existing pastures were mowed, aerated, limed, and most of the hog ruts have been eliminated from the pastures.
Other steps in the regeneration process were extensive crossfencing, installation of waterlines, and installation of livestock watering stations with associated heavy use areas.
Today, the farm in Baldwin County consists of six rotational pastures, one hay pasture, one feed-out lot and corral system, one winter and summer annuals pasture, and one bull pen for managed breeding. Including the perimeter fence and crossfencing, approximately 5.3 miles of new fencing has been installed, 1.6 miles of two-inch water lines, eight ball waterers and heavy use areas, and approximately 90 acres of newly established pastures.
The building blocks for regenerative farm practices have now been laid at Rocking A Farm in Baldwin County. The farm is equipped to utilize rotational grazing, multi-species livestock grazing, and future utilization of no-tillage planting of annuals and pasture over-seeding. The soil health has already been improved with additional improvements expected as the practices are continued in the future.
– Contributed