Kendall Rae went from planting collard greens with her great-grandmother to securing a college future most teens only dream about.
The great Southern agrarian tradition has always been passed down through generations – but rarely from a 3-year-old to herself. That’s how early Kendall Rae Johnson, now 10, began farming. Today she’s Georgia’s youngest certified farmer, and recently, she became something else too: a full scholarship recipient.
As reported by Nick Fouriezos for Open Campus, South Carolina State University stunned Kendall Rae during a campus visit this month by offering her the 1890 Agriculture Innovation Scholarship, worth about $83,500. For a child still finishing elementary school, it was a moment more commonly seen on the football recruiting circuit than at a research farm.
“She zeroed in on plants and wanting to grow things, so we just stuck behind it”
As the story goes, her path started on her great-grandmother’s back porch, where she learned to grow collard greens. By six, she held a USDA license, becoming the youngest certified farmer in the country. Her one-acre family farm in Atlanta now produces peaches, strawberries, beets and okra. She’s even developed her own marinara sauce and honey.
“I like helping the community out with fresh fruits and vegetables,” she said.
Her parents, Quentin and Ursula, had no farming background, but when they saw her dedication, they backed it fully. “She zeroed in on plants and wanting to grow things, so we just stuck behind it,” her father explained.
Atlanta resident Kendall Rae Johnson, the youngest USDA-certified farmer in the US, visited South Carolina State University during her national college tour and was surprised with a full scholarship offer from SC State President Alexander Conyers. During her visit, she toured the… pic.twitter.com/hUfIDW6fPS
Kendall Rae’s offer capped a tour of historically Black land-grant universities, or “1890 institutions,” where she promoted agricultural education as the USDA’s National Urban Agriculture Youth Ambassador. Each stop deepened her knowledge, from robotics workshops to driving a John Deere tractor on SC State’s 300-acre farm.
President Alexander Conyers said the university saw her maturity and focus as exceptional: “It’s not every day you meet a 10-year-old who talks about microorganisms, crop counts and longhorn cattle.”
For the Johnson family, the offer provides both relief and motivation. For higher education, it may mark a shift, recruiting extraordinary young talent in the same way colleges chase future athletes.
As for Kendall Rae, she already has her sights set higher: “How big is the farm I want? I want at least 100 acres. And I want a longhorn, baby.”
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