Proud to be a Farmer: Brothers carry on farming legacy

BULLOCH COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC) - A pair of brothers carry on a farming legacy in Bulloch and Jenkins counties. They continue traditions as they also add new ones.

Follow J.D. and Ben Newton around the farm and it looks like second nature. They are fourth generation farmers getting fertilizer ready to plant peanuts and cotton for the season.

“There’s a lot of challenges, weather just being one. I mean, the unknown is probably the biggest challenge. But that has always been the case,” J.D. Newton said.

Both are in the mid-thirties but have been farming less than a decade. In some ways, the Newton brothers carry on a family tradition, but doing it from scratch.

They were in grade school when their dad, Don Ray Newton, was killed in an equipment accident here. Their grandfather carried on the business even when they left the farm for college.

But they returned and helped him part-time. After he died, they took over and teamed to launch DRN Sons Farms.

“We started out with 200 acres. That was our first crop. Pretty soon, we were up to 1,300 to 1,400. That is where we’re at now,” Ben Newton said.

They figure they’ve embraced new technology-like GPS guidance and diversified to start a cattle herd because they’re both young. They hope to carry this on and pass it to a fifth generation.

“What drives us is that we get to fulfil what our dad didn’t get to do a little bit.”

That legacy and independent spirit is what makes them Proud to be a Farmer.

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