Farmers preparing for harvest season

WEBSTER COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Fall brings holidays, festivals, and harvest.

From August to November, you’ll find most farmers in their fields, bringing in a season’s worth of work.

For some, it’s a hobby, but for Stephen Bailey, it’s a lifestyle.

“I grew up in Alabama, my dad’s family farmed here. And they did that as far back as the 1940’s and 1946 they started. When I graduated college in 1998, that’s when I came back and up I’ve been farming sweet potatoes ever since that time, ” said Bailey.

Bailey grows sweet potatoes.

Every spring, he plants seed potatoes, after months of growth it’s time to bring them in..

“We have a machine that kind of brings the potatoes up out of the ground. And from there, people sort them based on size, shape, and that kind of thing,” said Bailey.

On average, Bailey will harvest around 400 bushels of sweet potatoes per acre.

Some of that crop will stay in Webster County, but much of it will spread out across the region and the country.

“I have individuals who will come and get like a truckload, pickup load and sell on the side of the road all the way to Walmart and Kroger. There’s grocery store-level sales, and there’s processing that goes on all over the United States. Potato chips, french fries, those types of things. So really, for every way you sort them, there’s a different market for each of them,” said Bailey.

Some years are more challenging than others.

“Well you know potatoes are sensitive to what’s going on in the weather. Planning early was not ideal. So our yields are not ideal right now either, but we’re seeing it pick up as we get to each field, the quality is better, ” said Bailey.

But Bailey plans to keep his family tradition going.

“As long as I can survive as a sweet potato farmer, that’s what I intend on doing. And when I got out of college, I was like, you know, I want to be able to retire at a certain age but the longer I do this, the more I hope I never have to retire from doing this, ” said Bailey.

Bailey is already putting up his seed potatoes for next year.

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