Much Respect to People Cultivating Real Change in Agriculture
September 13, 2024 
Congratulations to Mark Smith of Smith Farms Company in Yuma, AZ, for being named the 2024 Grower Achievement Award national winner. He is among the three regional Grower Achievement Award winners this year. Photo courtesy of Smith Farms Company
Back in the 1990s, I worked with Dorothy Day’s granddaughter. It was the first time I heard Day’s story. Day became a Catholic after years of radical social activism in the early 1900s and went on to help establish the Catholic Worker Movement, The Catholic Worker, and many other impactful efforts. To be clear, she remained a radical after her conversion, but her goals shifted. Her granddaughter told me Day never wanted to be canonized because she felt it would let people off the hook from helping others. Her tireless work was due to seeing a need and filling it, not because she was saintly. (She was indeed nominated for sainthood, which is still under consideration.)
The winners of American Vegetable Grower’s Grower Achievement Award are not as radical as Day, but they embrace the concept of finding realistic solutions to common problems. They’re nominated by their peers and industry allies for displaying excellence.
One of our guideposts in selecting regional winners is how much of an impact the grower has on the industry. Think about how the 2020 national winner, Paul Allen of R.C. Hatton, helped change how the press covered growers during the pandemic. Stories filled with outrage at the dumped food switched to a compassionate narrative of how the broken transportation system was hurting farmers and the public.
And last year’s national winner, Matt McGuire of JV Smith Farms, who understands startup companies that may hold answers for issues like labor, traceability, and conservation, need real support.
As Matt told me: “If everyone had the same attitude of, ‘Let’s see how he does and make sure he doesn’t have any problems,’ [the company with a new idea] will go out of business. But the trouble is, the industry has a problem here, now. We will be in the same spot seven years from now without the technology.”
All three of our 2024 regional winners, Anais Beddard of Lady Moon Farms, Nic Welty of 9 Bean Rows, and Mark Smith of Smith Farms Company, more than live up to the standard of improving the vegetable industry.
I’m happy to announce Mark Smith of Smith Farms Company is our prestigious 2024 Grower Achievement Award national winner. Previous national winners select the new winner, which means not only do industry allies and peers nominate our winners, but they ultimately select who wins.
Smith’s comprehensive and pragmatic approach to water issues and the need for broadband earned him this year’s top spot.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Dorothy Day as a nun.
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