At only six years old, Kendall Rae Johnson is acknowledged as the youngest certified farmer in the state of Georgia.
With the help of her mother, Kendall established her own farming company, aGROWKulture, and joined many agricultural associations, including the Georgia Farm Bureau and Georgia Grown, a branch of the Georgia Department of Agriculture.
With that, she was recognised as a farmer and qualified to apply for loans, grants, and scholarships that would aid in the expansion of her farming operation.
“She started in a patio garden, and the patio garden grew from a little bitty something to, by the time her fourth birthday came, we had a full-fledged garden in our backyard,” Kendall’s mother, Ursula Johnson, told Good Morning America. “And then we moved, and now she has a farm.”
Kendall’s great-grandmother, Laura “Kate” Williams, is said to have given her a green thumb. Since then, she has grown a wide variety of produce, including strawberries, okra, carrots, squash, and zucchini.
Additionally, Mandisha Thomas, a Georgia state representative who discovered and helped Kendall, created a monthly gardening club and provides subscription food boxes. She has so far raised $85,000 for the cause and aims to use it to educate other families and young, aspirant farmers about gardening and farming.
Kendall now wants to collect $10,000 to expand her backyard garden so she can reach more people in the neighbourhood and grow more fruit. She created a GoFundMe campaign, which has received about $3,000 so far.
