Plains, Ga. – Forestry students from the University of Georgia’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources visited Carter Farms, Inc., in November to learn about the stewardship and land management philosophy of former President Jimmy Carter and his forestry consultant, Blake Sullivan, who conducted the tour.

Sullivan, who studied business at UGA before graduating from Columbus State University, then earned a master’s degree in forestry at Duke University, has managed the Carter Farms, Inc., since 1982, when the Carters returned from Washington, D.C. He spent the morning with the 50 or so students then arranged for them to eat lunch with the former president at Mom’s Restaurant in downtown Plains.

The first stop on the tour was at the edge of a cotton field, which had recently been harvested.

“The Carter farm is a multiple use farm,” said Sullivan. “The land, located in Webster and Sumter counties, has been in President Carter’s family for 100 years this year. Mrs. Carter’s family farmed around here even before that, and her family land is now included in Carter Farms, Inc., as well.”

Sullivan said when the Carters went to Washington they put their farmland in a blind trust, and much of it sat idle during their years in the White House. Upon their return, Carter asked Sullivan, a registered forester and owner of Sullivan Forestry Consultants in Americus to help them rehabilitate the land and diversify their holdings.

“While Mr. Carter doesn’t necessarily require that his land makes a profit, he does expect it to make enough to cover the property taxes and expenses,” said Sullivan. “And, when the farm is profitable, those profits are divided among the Carters and their children.”

Sullivan’s management recommendations included planting trees on the less productive farmland and where crops couldn’t be irrigated. Today most of the land is in pine trees, much of it planted under the federal government’s Conservation Reserve Program.

“But we still grow crops, including cotton, soybeans, 20 acres of pecans – and of course, peanuts,” said Sullivan, grinning. “As long as President Carter owns this land, we will grow peanuts.”

Most of the crop land is leased to sharecroppers on a 50/50 split, meaning both the costs of production and the profits are shared equally.

“We don’t just lease the land because then we become what the IRS calls a ‘passive investor.’ So we actively share in the farming operation with our farmers,” said Sullivan. “We rotate peanuts, cotton – and then a grain crop, usually corn or wheat – on the third year.”

Sullivan said the former president likes to hunt turkeys, so they manage year-round food plots just for that purpose. Much of the forestland is leased to deer hunters to offset property taxes.

“We manage the deer herd, too, conducting age and gender surveys so we can let the hunters know what to cull,” said Sullivan. “And we have a relationship with our hunters, which is important. We even host a cookout, so we get to know each other.”

At another stop, students saw a 16-acre stand of slash pines that Carter planted by hand in the mid-1950s. While a forester might see the trees as “over-mature,” Sullivan said they are off-limits to him.

“Mr. Carter likes to see those trees,” said Sullivan, nodding toward the trees across a dirt road. “It gives him a lot of pleasure to see them grow and to walk among them. That’s a part of his value system.”

Sullivan said he and Carter meet every other month, touring the fields and forests in a truck, so they can discuss various management options.

“President Carter is very interested in the details,” said Sullivan. “Not only does he want to know what varieties of agricultural crops we planted, but the yields per acre. So I have all that information when I meet with him.

As far as the forests, he enjoys intensive as well as selective harvests. He has no problem with clear-cutting, if that’s what needs to be done. We try to be good stewards of the land and to practice forestry in a way that promotes Mr. Carter’s value system. We’ve thinned the trees you see around us twice already, and next we’ll have a controlled burn in here,” he continued. “These areas that were [log-loading] ramps will be planted in food plots. We usually keep food plots less than an acre in size, as long as there’s enough sun to get to the ground. Otherwise they don’t grow well. And we have made a conscious decision not to rake straw under our pines because of the loss of water and nutrients.”

The students saw the infamous pond where, in the early 80s, Carter was approached by an “attack rabbit,” as he fished from a small boat. The hapless rabbit, spooked from the bank by a horde of reporters, sprang into the pond and headed straight for the President’s boat.

“Just about any animal can swim if scared enough,” said Sullivan with a chuckle.

The group’s last stop, in a two-acre stand of tall, straight Paulownia, afforded some students their first look at these odd, smooth-barked trees. As they gathered around, Sullivan recounted his not-so-favorite experiment with the trees.

“One thing Mr. Carter loves is woodworking,” he said, the hint of a smile in his face. “And one time someone gave him a handmade wooden bowl made of Paulownia. He loved that bowl, so he decided we should plant some of the trees. So we planted two acres – and I've got to say, even though these trees are fast-growing, they require a lot of tending. What you see here represents a tremendous amount of labor and nurturing. These trees send out suckers that need to be pruned. So there’s always something to do in here. These trees are about five years old, and I figure so far we’ve spent about $1,200 an acre on them. They’re just not competitive, at least here in the U.S., with the limited end-user markets.”

Sullivan told the students it is crucial today to look at forestry with a worldview.

“That’s why it’s important to attend these conferences, like the timberland conference [UGA] just sponsored in October,” said Sullivan. “They give you a global perspective on the markets around the world, and that’s what you have to understand in order to be competitive today,” he continued.

“If you grow trees, you’ve got to use them, because otherwise, you won’t be able to afford to practice proper land stewardship. And not only is that important and very satisfying, it’s also the right thing to do.”