Page 2 - AR Farm Families 2020

2N • Sunday, December 20, 2020 • Salute to Farm Families
Advertising Supplement to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
COURESTY OF ARKANSAS FARM BUREAU
The Sweat family of McCaskill (Hempstead County) has been named the 2020 Arkansas Farm Family of the Year. The honor was announced Dec. 10 during a virtual event honoring the county and district Farm Families of the Year. The Sweat family, from left, includes Denise; Sara, 17; Anna, 13; and Chris.
Founder of Hempstead County Goat and Sheep Buying Station wins 2020 honor
Chris and Denise Sweat of McCaskill (Hempstead County) are the 2020 Arkansas Farm Family of the Year. e honor was announced Dec. 10
during a virtual event honoring the county and district Farm Families of the Year.
e Sweats have two daughters, 17-year-old Sara and 13-year-old Anna. e family’s 505-acre farm consists of natural mixed timber, along with hay, cattle, registered seedstock, hair sheep, and Californian and Jersey Wooly rabbits.
Chris is a fourth-generation farmer, and he and Denise have been farming together for 23 years. Chris is the founder and co- owner of the Sheep and Goat Buying Station in Hope. The station was established in 2009 and has helped grow the sheep and goat industry in southwest Arkansas, marketing approximately 3,000 sheep and goats annually. The Sweats’ registered seedstock is marketed and promoted by livestock shows, and the majority of their registered cattle are sold to Texas 4-H and FFA members as show projects.
“It’s a great honor,” Chris Sweat said after the announcement. “It makes me think of all the Farm Families of the Year before us — some of them were great mentors for us. It was great just to be selected as the Hempstead County Farm Family, then to go on and be the District winner was even more overwhelming to us. To learn that we were chosen as the state farm-family winner is just very humbling.”
As Arkansas Farm Family of the Year, the Sweats will compete with nine other southeastern-state winners in the Swisher Sweets/Sunbelt Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year program in Moultrie, Georgia.
Arkansas has had two Southeastern Farmer of the Year winners: Brian Kirksey of Clark County in 2008 and Wildy Family Farms of Mississippi County in 2016.
“We congratulate Chris and Denise Sweat on being named the 2020 Arkansas Farm Family of the Year,” said Ashley Wallace, state coordinator for the Farm Family of the Year program. “This