Joann Floyd found the Conservation Reserve Program a perfect solution to saving her family legacy.
By Neal Leonard, Georgia public relations and outreach specialist & Barry Alexander, FSA district director
In 1938, Otis and Azzie Lee Floyd purchased a 200-acre farm in Sumter County, Ga.. After much hard work and dedication, the Floyds were able to pay for their farm and build a house where they raised eight children and 18 grandchildren.
Joann Floyd was one of those grandchildren and remembers how hard her grandparents worked.
“I recall my grandmother earning money from selling butter, milk and eggs, and by milking cows and raising chickens,” said Joann. “My grandfather worked hard in the fields growing corn, cotton and peanuts.”
Otis Floyd, Sr. died in 1979 and his wife Azzie Lee passed away ten years later. Two of their sons tried continuing the farming tradition but were not as successful. After years of struggling to pay property taxes and maintain the farm and family home, Joann and her cousin Otis Floyd, III, who also was raised on the land, decided they needed to find a way for the farm to generate income to pay for taxes and maintenance.
“We knew we didn’t want to sell the farm because our grandparents had worked too hard and invested too much for this farm and home. They wanted a place for their family that they could call home,” said Joann.
In March 2011, Joann and her cousin Otis attended an event sponsored by Fort Valley State University at Friendship Baptist Church in Americus, Ga. At the meeting they listened to FSA Sumter County Executive Director, Phil Howell talk about various FSA programs available to landowners.
The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), piqued their interest. The two spoke with Phil after the meeting in greater detail about the program and learned that CRP offers landowners an annual rental payment for devoting farmland to conservation uses. They found out that CRP pays up to 50 percent of the cost to establish practices on the land that conserve the land’s resources and provide benefits to wildlife.
Together, Joann and Otis decided that CRP offered their family the best opportunity to save their grandparents’ farm for future generations. They could receive cost shares to plant cropland to pine trees for a long-term investment and receive rental payments for 10 years, which would provide income while the trees were growing on the 37 acres offered. Their offer was accepted four months after submitting an application.
Joann said she is looking forward to making arrangements to prepare the land and hopefully secure her grandparents’ dream of leaving a farm legacy for their children and grandchildren — a legacy that has left Joann with fond memories of Fourth of July BBQs cooked over an open fire and the family getting together and enjoying themselves.
"Hopefully now, my children, nieces and nephews will have the same opportunity to enjoy the farm and home that I did growing up,” she said.
