Jewell and Russell Bean a natural for helping others down on the farm

For Russell and Jewell Bean, farming the natural organic way has become a way of life on their 88-acre property in Eufaula, Ala., just south of Columbus.

Giving back to their community and to others who may be exploring an opportunity in farming also is a natural for the couple who began operating Jewell’s more than 100-year-old family farm less than a decade ago after her father passed away. They returned to Eufaula from their home in the Atlanta area.

Today, the Beans stay extremely busy with their S&B Farm, managing plenty of livestock — including 40 or so goats, cows, chickens and rabbits — as well as growing collards, turnips, kale, broccoli, peppers, melons, strawberries, pineapples and a variety of spices.

The two were recently honored as 2017 Small Farmers of the Year by the Alabama Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) for their efforts to adopt environmentally friendly growing practices and showing others how to do them. They’ve worked with Tuskegee University, Auburn University and Alabama A&M as well, sharing their farm and expertise in an effort to educate others. The assistance they provide includes seminars and workshops.

The Ledger-Enquirer talked with the Beans recently to discuss their jobs and what it’s like down on a farm in south Alabama. For those needing more information on the farm and its services, email jewellstandfordbean@gmail.com or call 706-473-2865.

Q. Are there lots of farms in the area?

A. Russell: There are a lot of big farms, like the peanuts and cotton and those guys. But there also are a lot of small-scale farms like our farm. They can be anywhere from a half acre up to a couple of hundred acres.

Q. How did you get into this?

A. Russell: The farm is originally jewel’s grandfather’s farm. It’s been in the family 104 years. Of course, her father took it over, and he did other things. He worked for one of the building places here as a crane operator, and he also operated the farm. That’s how he was able to send the children to college and pay for their schools. He grew hogs and was really famous for his watermelons. His name was Roy Stanford and Jewell’s mother was Rosie Stanford. She was in the school system here as well. She worked in the lunch program. They’re really known well here in Eufaula.

Q. You’ve been doing this since 2008?

A. Russell: Right. We came down after her father got sick. We lived over in the Lake Sinclair and Lake Oconee area east of Atlanta. Since I’m a real-estate appraiser as well, I was able to move my business down here. After her father passed, we started looking at the farm and thought we would do something with it. We were able to meet people who told us about the NRCS programs available and we started going to different meetings all over and looked at the different types of farming.

A. Jewell: With my mom being in nutrition running the lunchroom for about 27 years before retiring, that gave me an interest in food. She used to work real hard with my father helping to feed the community, the churches and especially the elderly and the single parents. When we would go out and pick the vegetables, the peas and beans and greens and all, he would deliver them in the big barrels. A lot of people would say, ‘Oh, I don’t have it (money), Mr. Stanford, come back on payday.’ And he would just smile and say, ‘Oh, honey, go ahead and feed those babies. It’s all good.’ He got that reputation for just helping people. The people who could afford to pay, they were just happy to pay my dad and he was excited to accept the money so that he would have a chance to give to the poor and not have to worry about them having to pay him. He always taught us that Jesus took care of us, so we didn’t have to worry about the money.

Q. I understand you have three tunnel houses that allows you to grow year-round. Are they like greenhouses?

A. Russell: It looks like a greenhouse, but it’s not heated traditionally like a greenhouse with propane or other type of heat. It is mainly controlled by the solar. It heats up during the day and if we know it’s going to get cold we would shut it down and it maintains the heat inside of it. So everything inside is protected. And it’s planted in the ground versus with a greenhouse normally things are planted on top of tables and trays.

Q. How about plasticulture?

A. Russell: That’s something different. Plasticulture outside is when we do (produce) rows and you see plastic, which has a drip irrigation underneath. A well waters it down the row and the plastic covers the row in order to prevent weeds and traps the moisture inside. And you plant in the plastic itself.

Q. Is farming a tough job? Sunrise to sunset and physical?

A. Jewell: It is, it’s challenging. But you know, challenges happen in life. You have to be willing to endure and outlast the hard times because, guess what, the sun shall rise again. Therefore, we just laugh our way through it. It’s all about your humor and how you look at life. Is the glass half empty or half full? As they say, if it don’t kill you, it makes your stronger. That’s true. Russell and I find ourselves in the (physical) shape of the average student that we work with, and we work with tons of professors, some of the best scientists all over the country, from Auburn, A&M, Texas, wherever.

Q. So there’s no need to go to the gym and work out?

A. Jewell: No, honey. I gave up that gym membership when I left Atlanta.

A. Russell: Farming is not an easy job. people don’t really realize what it takes to bring food from the farm to the table. There are a lot of things within that. There some times I’ve had to get up at 2 o’clock in the morning or 3 o’clock in the morning. I hear something that didn’t sound right on my farm, because we have different animals. When animals are birthing you have to be around for that, or there are weather situations. With goats, it seems they like to drop kids at the worst time ever. It happens. And if a tree falls on a fence and your animal’s there you’ve got to get there quick and make sure they’re safe and protected from predators. It’s all of those things. So farming is challenging. Everyday is never the same. I tell people if you’re not flexible, you don’t need to farm, because it’s not for you.

Q. You’ve got 40 goats?

A. Jewell: Yes, and we have pigs also. We have chickens and guineas. We have two beautiful donkeys; they’re so big. And we have our favorite cow, Petunia, that’s right at the age now to go ahead and have her kids soon.

Q. These aren’t pets? These are working animals, right?

A. Russell: Yeah. We sell the goats for meat. And the pigs we’re raising, we’re going to have our own barbecue because we’ve had a small store that we’ve built here. On the weekends, we’ll have (barbecue from) grass-fed pigs. We have some heritage pigs called the Red Wattle. They were almost extinct. So we’re into preserving animals as well. They have a different meat taste and are not as fatty. We have our own smoker and are going to take them to a USDA slaughterhouse so they can have the stamp and we can sell them to the public and sell barbecue only on the weekend.

Q. When will you start that?

A. Russell: I’m building my stock up. It takes time. If I slaughter all of my meat I would have to wait several months later for pigs. Hopefully, we’re going to start that next year (in late spring).

A. Jewell: Another big thing we’re doing are the moringa trees and hibiscus trees. We do a lot of medicinal herbs. We carry everything from basil and thyme, oregano, fenil and a lot of Asian herbs. People get into the fenil. They put it into their soups and salads. People are going back to the old way of living because they find that using a lot of the herbs that we have here on Earth, they have a lot of healing properties. We don’t say they’ll heal your body, but they’ll help your body to heal itself.

Q. What’s the most challenging or toughest part of job?

A. Russell: When you’re dealing with vegetables, of course, it’s weeds. (laughs) We’re in the South with the warmer seasons and sometimes our challenges can be insects and weeds, and taking care of them on a natural basis. We do hand pulling and hoeing and things like that, so we don’t use chemicals. All of it is done naturally. There are very few natural chemicals available for growing organic, so that is a challenge. And when you’re working with animals, some things do happen. Sometimes animals die on you. I had a goat that stuck her head in a fence. So if you’re walking around your farm, you think of ways to make things safer. Not only for yourself, but safety for your animals. And, of course, the biggest challenge is getting someone on the farm to work for you who will do things right. I like to do things right the first time with excellence. That’s what my mother taught me. We don’t like working halfway with anything.

Q. Do you have employees on the farm?

A. Russell: We don’t have employees. What we do is bring people in. We do training here and we train small-scale farmers once a month. We give them hands-on training. And then my wife will get day labor at different times if we need extra help to do things, like when we were growing collard greens that a guy was buying to sell to the school system. We hire somebody when we come in and harvest.

Q. You host workshops. That’s part of your efforts to give back?

A. Russell: Yes. We host many of those here on the farm as well. We show people how to prune and how to weed and other different tools that are available, and how to use different (natural) fertilizers. We also talk about expected yield, and what you do when you’re in the business and need to make a profit. For instance, with a budget enterprise, we show them how to put it on a paper and how to work it. Maybe they want to grow collard greens. Once we go through the budget enterprise, if it doesn’t show a profit on paper, there’s no need in you doing it. So maybe you need to look at doing something different.

Q. What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

A. Jewell: Oh, giving back. Our motto here has always been our parents motto: Never give up, but always give back. Because we’ve learned through life that you make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give. That’s what we live by and it has proven to be successful. Because you can never out-give God. When you give back to people and you make sure that they’re successful — the other farmers, the people we’re mentoring — we’re automatically a success.

A. Russell: We also support a food bank here at one of the local churches that feeds about 500 families. We support them with money. We support them with food. My wife goes up and helps them prepare the food for the elderly and for anyone needs food. They get that once a month. So those are the things we really get joy out of. That’s what it’s about, when we can help others.

This story was originally published December 10, 2016 at 7:12 PM with the headline "Jewell and Russell Bean a natural for helping others down on the farm."