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Six-Year-Old Girl Becomes The Youngest Certified Farmer In Georgia

Do you have a green thumb? If so, how do you utilize it? Are you more into flowers, maybe indoor plants? How about produce, growing a home garden and eating fresh veggies from your own backyard?

When one girl from Georgia discovered that's exactly what her green thumb preferred planting, she let that passion soar, and is now the state's youngest certified farmer.

Being able to grow your own food is an absolute pleasure.

Unsplash | Kelly Neil

Be it a single tomato plant lovingly kept on an apartment balcony, or a sprawling veggie garden across a backyard, every year more and more people test out their green thumbs by growing their own produce.

For some, what starts as a small experiment can grow into a long-term passion.

This is especially true for six-year-old Kendall Rae, Georgia's youngest certified farmer.

Kendall first developed her love of gardening thanks to her great-grandmother, Laura "Kate" Williams, who encouraged her to plant her first few seeds at just three years old. She picked it up right away, and swiftly moved on to growing a number of fruits and vegetables like zucchini and strawberries.

It's a hobby she loves deeply, and one her mom is happy to support.

In an interview with Good Morning America, mother Ursula Johnson said, "She started out in a patio garden and the patio garden grew from a little bitty something to, by the time her fourth birthday came, we had a full-fledged garden in our backyard."

"And then we moved, and now she has a farm," Ursula continued.

"The very first time we took her to go seed shopping, she spent $200! Whose kid does that? She started to see it go from a seed to a plant, and then die and come back. She saw the plant life cycle of that and was like, wow... She gets back here and she just explores. [...] She's fascinated by it. So if she wants to do it, we are going to be her support."

Kendall loves what she does so much, that she took the steps to become a certified farmer.

She received the business entity needed to become certified under the company name of aGROWKulture, and became a member of Georgia Farm Bureau and Georgia Grows. With her certification, she can now apply for things like grants, scholarships — she could even purchase land!

She doesn't want to keep this passion to herself, though.

She's on a mission to spread the joys of gardening with other people in any way she can. She runs a monthly gardening club for families, and Georgia state Rep. Mandisha Thomas has invited her to speak at press conferences supporting young farmers.

She's helped raise over $85,000 for young farmers in Georgia so far, and currently has a GoFundMe campaign to help support her business growth and development.

Kendall is an absolute shining star in the world of agriculture.

Her mother believes that she is the embodiment of young entrepreneurship and the future of Black farmers. Currently, only 2% of farmers are Black, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In the description for her GoFundMe campaign, Kendall writes, "My community is my village and I just want my village to grow with me."

h/t: Upworthy

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