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USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION
NEXT GEN
USDA, organizations provide learning opportunities for new farmers and ranchers By Jodi Stemler
W
HEN CASEY COX WAS
finishing her undergraduate degree in natural resource conservation at the
University of Florida in 2013, she wasn’t sure whether returning to her family’s Longleaf Ridge Farms in Camilla, Ga., was the life path she should follow. Cox, now 26, is an only child who grew up learning about growing corn and peanuts from her
father, whose family had farmed along Georgia’s Flint River for generations. She eventually decided that, even with the complexities of running a large operation in a rural community, she CONT I NUED
Casey Cox and her father, Glenn NATIONAL PEANUT BOARD