A Virtual Program Teaching Students About Agriculture And HBCUs Is Being Launched With Help Of The Youngest USDA-Certified Farmer
Kendall Rae Johnson, the youngest farmer certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), will team up with Prairie View A&M University to teach youth about agriculture and HBCU culture.
During an interview with AFROTECH™, Rae Johnson cited her love for nature as the driving force behind her interest in farming, which began when she was three years old, inspired by her great-grandmother Laura “Kate” Williams.
“She taught me how to grow collard greens,” Rae Johnson recalled. “I thought it was magical that something so small could turn into something so big. So from there on, I got started.”
Rae Johnson was supported by her parents, who nurtured her growing curiosity as she began cultivating tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers on the patio porch. For her fourth birthday, they made a significant investment in her passion by transforming their yard into a full garden.
“Just to see her excitement and how she blossomed from that was just amazing. Like she really took it on. She really pushed through and just opened up a whole other world for us when it came time for business,” Ursula, Rae Johnson’s mom, told AFROTECH™.
For the next year and a half, Ursula said they worked to officially form a business in the state of Georgia, which coincided with the wake of COVID-19. Rae Johnson had been taking over the yard with her efforts.
“Everything that she touched and everything that she grew was multiplying,” Ursula recalled. “And it was multiplying so fast that we … would give to our neighbors and they would tell us, ‘Hey, too much, we can’t eat all that.’ And we sure can’t eat it. It was a lot.”
As AFROTECH™ previously told you, the family launched the aGROWKulture farm in May 2020, covering about 1 acre, with the intention of expanding to 100 acres. It grows peaches, strawberries, beets, and carrots. Ursula said last year that Rae Johnson became the youngest in the U.S. to have a farming tract ID with a business that makes money from her farm.
Around Thanksgiving, the farm will host an event to sell Rae Johnson’s produce and products, including collard greens, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, onions, bell peppers, marinara sauce, and Kendall’s Beelicious Honey.
Today, aGROWKulture serves as an educational farm. It hosts farm tours for $15, which includes livestock viewing. There is also a Queen Bee experience where people are put in bee suits and can crack open beehives to find the queen bee. The farm has been visited by three summer schools already this year and is open to the public, who can also schedule farm tours.
Rae Johnson has developed additional pathways to empower communities, including through books, a youth STEAM program on sustainability, leadership opportunities, and entrepreneurship experiences in partnership with UGA 4-H, USDA-NRCS, Lowe’s Home Improvement, and a nonprofit called Kendall Rae’s Green Heart Organization, which provides workshops, farm tours, and environmental programs to families and schools, its website mentions.
Next, she is set to launch the program “Activate” in partnership with Prairie View A&M University’s (PVAMU) College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources that will connect middle school students virtually with professors, faculty, and staff, PVAMU Coordinator Poppy (Jocelynn) Johnson confirmed to AFROTECH™ amid Rae Johnson’s visit to the campus on Saturday, Oct. 25.
The announcement of the program comes as PVAMU aims to double enrollment within the next two to five years.
“We’re seeing a decline in enrollment across the country … Working with someone like Kendall Rae, who is young and ambitious and is ready and has been to multiple university campuses. So working with her and her network to create this ‘Activate’ program, bring students in virtually throughout the year with sessions every month and they’re going to get to connect directly with the professors, faculty, and staff here in the College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources,” Johnson said.
“Then the hope is that in the future, if not next year or the year after, bringing in a cohort of students that join the ‘Activate’ program to PVAMU’s campus and giving them the full college experience to just get hands on experience not in agriculture, in the college life, in research, to get them interested and invested with the hopes building that pipeline for students to be aware of PVAMU, aware that agriculture touches everything and continuing to build and foster relationships with students so that one day they will choose to be students here at PVAMU in our college,” she added.
Johnson hopes to begin rolling out the digital portion of the program by the spring semester.
