Grow your AgriRoots contest winners innovate their way to more fruitful businesses

Ten finalists in Capital Farm Credit’s Grow your AgriRoots contest this year are bringing innovation and regeneration to farms and ranches across Texas.  
 

The business owners recently shared their passion at Capital Farm Credit headquarters, where they vied for top prizes of $10,000. Five were contestants in the Rising Star category for operations less than 2 years old, and the other five contestants were competing for the Trailblazer award, having 2-to-10 years of experience.
 

The top two finalists in each category received $10,000, and the runners up each received $1,000.
 

For many of the finalists, the use of technology and data have been game changers in streamlining their operations, and considerate use of land is helping create and conserve vibrant properties statewide. Meet our winners!
 

Trailblazer Award

Julie Lewey – Lewey is a multigenerational land steward and dedicated cow-calf producer with deep roots in ranching and a passion for conservation in the Uvalde area. Her operation, named Ranches & Rivers, LLC, carries forward a legacy of responsible land use while embracing innovative practices.
 

“Reclaiming Texas agricultural land, one forgotten ranch and fragmented parcel at a time,” is how she characterized her operation during a presentation to a three-judge panel.
 

Lewy integrates adaptive grazing that allows for sufficient recovery of areas by moving cattle to different paddocks using virtual fencing. Implementing virtual fencing was quite a feat to achieve. It required the use of multiple cell towers to cover 11,000 of her 22,000 acres of sprawling, hard-to-access countryside.
 

R&R was founded in 2023 “out of sheer determination – guided by a commitment to stewardship, financial sustainability and durability,” she said.
 

Lewey also operates a beekeeping enterprise, producing honey and supporting pollinator health.
 

The award money will go toward a water trailer to expand the grazable acreage for her cattle, as well as a honey extraction system that will allow her to harvest more hives, increasing honey production and producing wax candles and balms.  

Rebecca Hume – Hume owns and operates VRDNT Farm, a tech-forward, diversified vegetable enterprise nestled in the heart of the Lost Pines in Bastrop. VRDNT is a shortened version of the word “verdant,” meaning green grass or enriched vegetation. Hume’s mission is to nourish the land and the local community by growing high-quality, nutrient-dense food.
 

Hume’s passion for agriculture sparked at age 16 while growing up in Asia, where her parents served as medical missionaries. Cornell educated in international agriculture, she has owned and operated a diversified vegetable farm on nearly 11 acres since 2019. Her specialty crops include over 100 varieties of fruits and vegetables.
 

“After having lived overseas for all my life, I really wanted to live in the United States. I wanted to do something in my own home country to make a difference,” she said. “I decided that I wanted to devote my career to being a producer and an innovator in the space of agriculture and creating healthy food systems.”
 

VRDNT Farm features direct-to-consumer farmers market sales, as well as subscription boxes for hundreds of customers each week.

Rebecca integrates cutting-edge farming automation, including a robotic tractor that reduces labor costs and increases operational efficiency for the uber-organic, super fresh produce. Any leftover or less desirable produce is donated to local charities.
 

She will use her award money to purchase supplies to expand her operation to include flowers and other plants to be cultivated in a greenhouse before planting, receive organic certification and increase connectivity to expand the use of her Farm-ng Amiga robotic tractor.

Rising Star Award

Matt Fuller – Fuller is a seventh-generation Texan and the founder and owner of TexAg Drone Services, a family-owned agricultural technology business in Montgomery.
 

What started out as a quest to protect his family’s honeybees from dangerous chemicals has resulted in an agricultural drone company that provides commercial chemical applications and precision pest control to farms and ranches across Texas. Beyond his drone business, Fuller operates a diversified agricultural operation that includes cattle ranching, pecan orchards and honeybee colonies. The Fullers were long-time farmers and decided about 12 years to become beekeepers.
 

“Seeing how the bees work on our farm really changed my viewpoint on a lot of things that we do with spraying,” he said. “We used to just spray for the sake of spraying, Now we leave portions of our farm wild to support them, and we’ve found that it really supports all sorts of animals. We have wild turkeys coming back now. We have deer on our property, and so we’re very, very happy about the way we’ve worked with honeybees.”
 

Fuller’s low-flying drone is made in Richmond, Texas, so he doesn’t have the recent tariff complications that come with cheaper drones made overseas, he said.
 

His drone services do much more than just spraying crops. He helps with livestock counts, checking animal health and wildlife management such as thermal feral hog hunts.
 

With his award money, he will continue paying for drone and trailer equipment, fund labor to enhance spraying services, fund marketing for the company and secure insurance and permitting.

Paul and Carina Exley – Cuteness abounds at Doublegate Family Farm in Flatonia, owned by Paul and Carina Exley, with assistance from their two girls, ages 3 and 5, and their guard dogs, Hank, Dolly and Bjorn. 

Together, the family operates a small South Texas farm raising about 3,500 pastured chickens, as well as ducks and honeybees. They are also working to restore endangered weeder geese and livestock guardian dog breeds. They have an egg-packing barn and have plans to add an orchard with fruit trees and pecan trees, as well as sheep and mushrooms to diversify their operations.
 

“We’ve got enough room to add maybe 500 more birds, and the demand for the eggs is high. But – no pun intended – we don’t want all our eggs in one basket, because that’s the situation that sinks a lot of farms,” Paul said. “Instead, we’re trying to be able to make better use of the space we have available and be able to regenerate the land that we have.”
 

Paul has a bachelor’s degree in poultry science and a master’s degree in agriculture from Texas A&M University and brings over a decade of experience in poultry production – from large commercial operations to backyard flocks. Carina, raised in the pasture-based farming world, has 11 years of experience managing livestock, gardens and farm-to-table programs through Home Sweet Farm and Heifer International.
 

Together, they are dedicated to land stewardship, animal welfare, and supplying high-quality products to the Austin, Houston and San Antonio regions through ethical, efficient and sustainable farming.
 

With the award money, they plan to purchase fruit trees and berries, as well as construct a mushroom grow room and sheep paddocks.

Finalists receiving $1,000 included some who gave presentations and others who didn’t, but they are all winners. They were:
 

Trailblazers: 

Pamela Garrett, Broken Halo Grass Farms
Jamie and Cory Halfmann, Halfmann Cattle Company
Tanner Cadra, Cadra Ranch
Andrea Woods, Flying Circle W Ranch
Taylor Huffman, Western Belle Farm

Rising Stars:
Katie Cardenas, Rancho Encino Floral
Tara Henne, Shaggy Girls Cattle Company
Kris Vandenberg, Vetted Farms
David Mejia, 98 Farms
Imran Ghani, Wildberry Farms