Lola's Legacy

Dr. Jennifer Taylor picking fresh strawberries at her farm, Lola's Organic Farm, named in honor of her grandmother.

Lola’s Legacy

by LeeAnna Tatum

Rural South Georgia in the 1940s is perhaps an inauspicious setting for the start of a remarkable story of two generations of African American women and their connection to the soil. But Lola, a sharecropper and mother, defied the odds to become a landowner and ultimately left a legacy of farming which her granddaughter Jennifer Taylor carries on to this day.

Lola spent her life working the land in Lawrence County where she was born and in Montgomery County where she eventually purchased her very own farm. When given the opportunity to buy a piece of land, Lola and her children worked every odd job they could find, saving up their money.

“My mother,” Jennifer recalled, “who was one of six kids, said that year they worked so hard helping other people on their farms, cooking or cleaning house - coming up with different ways of earning money. And when the land owner came back she had the money and she bought the farm.”

Lola not only changed her own life and standing within the community through land ownership, but was able to lay the foundation for her children’s success as well.

Lola’s farm produced fruits and vegetables, nuts, poultry and dairy. With the produce from her farm, she made butter, syrup, jams and other preserves, with plenty to stock her own shelves and enough left over to send her children and grandchildren who lived away from the farm.

Lola farmed the land productively until her age made it impossible to do so at which point, she moved in with Jennifer’s family. The land was left uncultivated for many years, waiting for other hands to come back and work the soil - coaxing fertility from the sandy earth.

Sitting in the shade of a tall pecan tree that her grandmother had once tended, Jennifer shared her own path that had led her back to the place it all began. The tree, along with several others, stands as a living memorial to the woman whose hard work and determination made it possible for her children to leave the land and pursue lives elsewhere while also paving the way for her granddaughter to one day return.

“When I grew up,” Jennifer explained, “we would come and visit the farm and I would receive the packages (care packages full of produce and preserves from the farm) and my grandmother would come and visit us as well. And so, when I decided to go to school, I decided to study agronomy. I didn’t particularly tie it in to my grandmother at the time, but I’m sure she was in there somewhere. I liked the idea of studying the soil, the earth, the dirt, the plants … I could envision myself doing something like that.”

Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, fiber and land reclamation. It’s an integrated and holistic approach to agriculture, and agronomists are specialists in soil and crop sciences as well as ecology.

“I was really happy with Agronomy really, really enjoyed it … Always with the interest of how ... do you work with farmers to increase knowledge, increase production, share the information in such a way... that is in the farmer’s interest.”

Jennifer’s goal from the start was to receive a formal education at college while also learning from the farmers themselves who had the practical knowledge and know-how that went beyond the academic. She envisioned a partnership of shared learning and growing.

“When I went to school, it was about getting that background information about farming but then also with the realization that the farmer’s knowledge is beyond what I could actually comprehend in school,” Jennifer explained. “So, I’m trying to enhance that knowledge and that sharing of information. And what it is that I need to share and how I can be helpful. With the hope that I’m growing and learning - I’m learning from them and we’re growing together.”

Jennifer continued her education and received a doctorate from Virginia Tech in vocational tech education with an emphasis in sustainable development.

“That allowed me to bring over all of the agronomics studies into the implementation and capacity building on behalf of small farmers. Isn’t it great how that worked out?” Jennifer exclaimed.

“I couldn’t see how it would work out that way, but I was hoping that was how I could pull these pieces together. Because sometimes people want you to believe if you’re an agronomist, like I am, that you don’t really work with farmers, you tell farmers what to do, you don’t work with farmers … But my emphasis and interest was always to see how it is in the field, to enhance the learning and the knowledge that the farmers already have … and how to help them grow and be successful. To be able to find that kind of space in there in the development issue.”

Bringing together her understanding of crop and soil health, coupled with her education in sustainable development and teaching has put Jennifer in an excellent position to help small farms reach their full potential.

It was with an eye toward bringing together her educational background with practical hands on experience that Jennifer looked to return to her grandmother’s farm.

Jennifer standing in the cold frame tunnel used for growing turmeric and ginger. The tunnel was damaged during Hurricane Michael in 2018.

“When I had the opportunity to come back to the farm, my emphasis wasn’t on growing agronomic crops so to speak, but it was more on enabling healthy living, healthy soil, healthy environment and benefiting the communities and benefiting the farmers in that kind of way - that good food pathway.”

Returning to her grandmother’s land has been a positive experience for Jennifer who remembers visiting the farm as a child.

“It’s been so enjoyable,” Jennifer said of her nine years on the farm. “It’s been such a delight to grow food, to touch the soil, to believe that I have a smile from my grandmother, it’s been so enjoyable. And the food is good and tasty. And to have customers and the community say they like the smell of the strawberries, or they’re so delicious... that’s such a joy.

Jennifer and her husband Ronald Gilmore produce USDA certified organic produce at Lola’s Organic Farm located in Glenwood. Ronald works the farm full time, while Jennifer shares her time between the farm and her position at Florida A&M University where she serves as coordinator of the FAMU Small Farm Program.

Achieving organic certification was something Jennifer and Ronald chose to do from the very beginning. Not only is it a way of setting themselves apart in the market, but the certification allows potential customers to know something of their practices up front.

“The certification has helped us in that way,” Jennifer explained. “It speaks for us, on behalf of us before people even meet us ... so it’s been great because we’re so small.”

But certification is not just a marketing tool, Jennifer believes in being a good steward of the land and not only looking out for her own health and that of the farm, but for the wellbeing of her community also.

“Organic agriculture is about the building of healthy soil and biodiversity and it is about building that kind of biodiversity and healthiness throughout that whole system of agriculture and using your natural resources and low inputs and you’re not using GMOs and the toxic chemicals and that kind of thing in your farm environment. And the strategies you use to support that - that would be the message of organic agriculture.”

Jennifer is not just a proponent of organic methods on her own farm, she also assists other farmers through her work as a board member for the National Organic Standards Board, the Organic Farmers Association, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement - North American Board and Georgia Organics. Her various roles within these different organizations give her the opportunity to influence policy development and procedures on behalf of organic farmers and organic farming throughout the nation.

Lola’s Organic Farm is also used to test out organic farming methods and as a teaching tool for other farmers.

“For me, organic agriculture or agroecology, which is the same foundation as organic farming systems was the message that could be shared with farmers that would enable them and give them the skills to improve their soil and to improve their farm environment and grow the most healthy crops or animals that they could grow for their communities,” Jennifer explained.

“So, therefore you’re helping the communities, you’re building healthy food systems for the communities. You’re building healthy people, healthy local environments and healthy global environments, it has the idea of expanding and growing … like the pebble in the pond,”

“That was where I found myself in my agronomic studies,” she continued, “and that is the knowledge and the emphasis that we share here on the farm.”

That one opportunity. That one pebble in the pond. That one life-altering chance to transition Miss Lola from a sharecropper to a landowner is still generating positive changes. The land provided Lola the opportunity to provide for herself and her family.

Now, two generations later, as a direct result of that opportunity, Jennifer is using her education, her knowledge, her passion and her land to not only impact her local community through good stewardship and healthy foods but is able to help shape and inform the organic movement on a national level.

Lola’s legacy of farming, of hard work, of determination, of good stewardship that was cultivated so many years ago is growing strong today!