White Oak Pastures growing new life for Bluffton | PHOTO GALLERY

ALBANY — The Harris family, which has steered Georgia’s White Oak Pastures for five generations, is now putting its ingenuity and green touch for business to work in the farm’s hometown of Bluffton.

Over the past 20 years, since making the decision to certify their cattle farm organic, the Harrises have found success in a multitude of businesses stemming from the company’s core values of animal welfare, environmental stewardship and support of the local economy.

Click here to learn more about the evolution of White Oak Pastures

While it’s easy to see how the farm has grown thanks to its first two missions, it takes looking off the farm proper to see the potential impact of supporting the local economy.

Jenni Harris, marketing manager and all around cheerleader for White Oak, recently explained how her father, Will Harris III, has turned his attention to the family’s ancestral hometown as focus of one of his latest business ventures, a venture that may prove to be the family’s most ambitious.

“The town of Bluffton (aside from farming) is my dad’s other passion,” said Harris. “We’re really excited about the future of Bluffton.”

Harris said her father is determined to revitalize the rural community, which has struggled over the past 50 years as the local farming economy has shrunk in the face of large-scale industrial farming and processing in the Midwest, something that deeply impacts a farming family from an area with a rich farming history.

Established in 1815, Bluffton lies roughly 3 miles from the Kolomoki Indian Mounds, which are the largest Indian mounds east of the Mississippi River. The mounds help tell the story of Bluffton, which at one time was the center of a thriving Native American community.

“The town of Bluffton is my dad’s other passion,” said Harris. “Indians settled here because they found that it has really, really rich soil. This is where the Appalachian Mountains go subterranean. We’re also like a finger in the Gulf climate. It rarely snows, and you can grow something green 52 weeks out of the year. The growing season is tremendous.

“Farming was a major economy in Bluffton. When farming was industrialized in the ’50s and ’60s, the people went away. They moved to Albany, Dothan, Columbus, Tallahassee where the jobs were. So now Bluffton is basically a dying rural town.”

To change that, the Harrises have begun purchasing vacant homes in the community and remodeling them for their employees. Currently, about 15 employees have moved into the town, and things have begun to change.

To further revitalize the community, the family has leased the former Herman Bass Store in downtown Bluffton and plans to turn that location into a retail store where they will sell their products, as well as some from other area vendors.

Additionally, Harris said the farm has purchased the town’s former Methodist Church, which quit holding Sunday services in the face of population decline, and has started turning the location into the farm’s business office.

“We’re doing what we can,” said Harris. “It’s happening slowly, but it’s changing. We’re excited about what it can be.”