When Garrett Hawkins was in grade school, he wanted to be an archaeologist. His interests as a boy: Native American artifacts and dinosaur bones.
Instead, on the advice of an 8th grade guidance counselor, he decided to follow in his father’s and grandfathers’ footsteps, and signed up for agricultural education courses at Appleton City High School.
Now, he delves into the soil of his St. Clair County farm for his livelihood, and helps stake out a path for future farmers while raising the profile of Missouri agriculture at the state and national levels.
“I knew I wanted to be involved,” he said of choosing an agricultural career. “The farm is where I wanted to raise my kids.”
The choice hasn’t kept him down on the farm. Garrett is starting his second two-year term as president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, based in Jefferson City. Next Monday, March 13, he will lead a 75-member delegation to Washington, D.C., to talk with Missouri’s U.S. senators and congressional staff about issues affecting farmers.
Two key concerns: the 2023 Farm Bill Congress will start writing, which determines policy and funding levels for agriculture, food assistance programs and natural resources, and secondly, Biden’s Waters of the United States (WOTUS) Rule and how it impacts Missouri farmers.
“It’s an expansion of the Environmental Protection Act and Corps of Engineers regulations, not just of water, but of dry land as well,” Garrett said, “and that obviously affects farmers and ranchers.”
In addition to his office in Jefferson City, Garrett works on the 300-acre family farm he owns with his brother west of Appleton City, on the boundary of St. Clair and Bates counties, where they raise beef cattle.
Like all farmers, Garrett is up early, seeing to the morning feeding and checking livestock. Helping him are his three children, Adelyn, 13, Colton, 11, and Tate, 8. They are frequently “chute side,” Garrett said, but in a safe place when helping with chores.
“They love being engaged on the farm,” Garret said. “Colton is our livestock handler and Tate is a fix-it guy —he’s really good with tools.”
Adelyn has been blessed with leadership skills, like her father. A 1998 graduate of Appleton City High School, Garrett earned an agricultural business degree at Missouri State University in 2002, and is a graduate of the Missouri Agricultural Leadership of Tomorrow program.
He is on the leadership program’s board of directors, and was involved in the Farm Bureau’s Youth Ambassador Program and MSU’s collegiate chapter of the Missouri Farm Bureau.
He is now a regional vice-president of the national board of Alpha Gamma Rho (AGR) agricultural fraternity, and serves as the liaison with AGR chapters at universities in Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.
He has also worked with the Missouri Future Farmers of America program to provide advocacy training for high school students and summer internships.
Garrett said the next generation of farmers are part of the delegation heading to Washington, D.C., including two Youth Ambassadors, members of the Collegiate Farm Bureau, and young farmers and ranchers, as well as Farm Bureau board members and county presidents.
“We’ve set up meetings for the Collegiate Farm members with young professionals working in agriculture in Washington, D.C., to show them what is possible,” he said. “We’re also visiting the American Farm Bureau to learn more about the national organization.”
Garrett had led national lobbying efforts, helped shape Farm Bureau policy at the state and national level and has worked in agribusiness. From 2017 to 2019, he was deputy director of the Missouri Department of Agriculture, working with Governor Parson and the department director to protect and promote agriculture.
“We are fortunate to have leadership at the highest level behind agriculture as economic development,” Garret said of the current state administration, “and that embraces our strong farm heritage.”
As the leading industry in Missouri, agriculture is the number-one economic driver in the state, Garrett said. Missouri ranks second in the nation for number of farms, after Texas but before Iowa, with the average size of a Missouri farm being 300 acres.
Missouri also represents the diversity of agriculture in the nation, Garret said.
“The only two products we don’t have are citrus and sugar,” he said.
Garret said he switched his focus from archaeology to agriculture because of his family’s long legacy in agriculture. Garret and his brother are the third generation of their family to farm in west St. Clair county, and the fifth generation involved in production agriculture, he said, which included row crops, dairy and beef cattle.
His father owns a 500-acre farm near his sons’ farm. In addition to beef cattle, Garrett and his brother have added sheep for diversity, but it’s been a steep learning curve, he said. When he’s working in the field, Garrett keeps in touch with his office by telephone from the cab of his tractor.
Other days, he dons a suit and tie and drives to the Missouri Farm Bureau office in Jefferson City to attend meetings and conferences.
According to the last farm census, covering 2012 to 2017, there was a decrease in farm acreage in Missouri. Census data for the next five years won’t be available for another year — his census form is at home on his kitchen table, waiting to be filled out, he said.
“While we have seen a decline in numbers, we have seen growth in agricultural tourism,” Garrett said.
He predicts the next census will show a continued increase in agri-tourism, which provides the public with access to farms through you-pick plots and corn mazes, for example. Long a leader in agri-tourism, Missouri was the first state in the nation to have an agri-tourism committee, Garrett said.
“I also think we will see growth in the number of farms operated by women,” he said.
Having local support for farming is important, he said, and not just during “Thank a Farmer” Week in March.
Garret says it’s as simple as remembering the connection between the food you eat and the farmers who produced it. In addition to farming, Garrett serves on the board of directors of Ellett Memorial Hospital, which his great aunt and uncle founded, and as a deacon in the First Baptist Church of Appleton City.
“As you sit down at the table for breakfast, lunch or dinner, or even if you’re not at a table, but going through a drive-in window to pick up a meal, I encourage people to pause and think about where their food comes from, and the work that goes into it,” he said.
“That appreciation means the world to us.”
