By Kayla Stroud, Communications and Events Specialist
HK Farms
Who: Handy Kennedy and Family
Where: Cobbtown, Georgia, Tattnall County
HK Farm’s history dates to 1869, when Handy and Jane Kennedy, formerly enslaved, purchased 175 acres. The family expanded its landholdings over the years, passing the farm from one generation to the next.
“It’s about three different things: the lineage, the land and the legacy,” said fourth-generation farmer and rancher Handy Kennedy. “It’s in my blood. It’s in my DNA. We want to make sure that we don’t let the people who have done so much before us down.”
The family has grown cotton, tobacco, peanuts, squash and other crops and now sells beef through its cattle business, AU Beef. The farm also grows muscadines and peaches and leases land to other farmers.
Generations of family members still live on the property and work to preserve its legacy.
Quick Picks Q&A
We spoke with members of the Kennedy family, including Handy Kennedy and niece Lindsey Brooks and niece-in-law Tiffani Johnson.
Favorite season on the farm?
“I feel like the middle of spring for me, because that’s when we really start planting stuff, and that’s the beginning of when you start seeing green.” — Lindsey Brooks
How do you feel your farm impacts your rural community?
“Whenever we’re able to grow vegetables and raise cattle and put that back into local food systems, that’s amazing.” — Handy Kennedy
What does this legacy farm mean to you?
“I think, as an in-law, just from the outside looking in, I can see the appreciation that they have for the legacy and the lineage — all the hard work that was done before them.” — Tiffany Johnson
“When you’re working and you’re doing things outside of the farm, you remember what our parents, what our grandparents, great-grandparents had done and say, ‘If they could do it in the times that they were in and with the labor and the resources that they had, then I know I could do it — not only on this farm, but whatever other endeavors that I have, too.’” — Lindsey Brooks
What are you looking forward to on the farm?
“The next trail ride will be in November. It’s the weekend after Thanksgiving. People start coming on Black Friday. They have the actual trail ride Saturday morning. Friday night we have a fish fry, oyster roast, DJ, and then Saturday night the same thing, but we have vendors that come out.” — Lindsey Brooks