#18 Will Harris

Will Harris is the owner of White Oak Pastures, a nearly 5,000 acre farm in southern Georgia that raises 10 species of livestock and produces organic vegetables and honey. He is a fourth-generation cattleman, who tends the same land that his great-grandfather settled in 1866.

After graduating from the University of Georgia's School of Agriculture in 1976, Will returned home to Bluffton where he and his father continued to raise cattle with pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, and a high-carbohydrate diet of corn and soy. Over the years Will grew disenchanted with industrialized agriculture, beginning with concerns over animal welfare. In 1995, he made the decision to return to the farming methods his great-grandfather had used 130 years before.

Since Will has abandoned intensive agriculture in favor of a wholistic system, he has been recognized all over the world as a leader in humane animal husbandry and environmental sustainability. He served as President of the Board of Directors of Georgia Organics, is the Beef Director of the American Grassfed Association, and was selected 2011 Business Person of the year for Georgia by the Small Business Administration.

Head over to White Oak Pastures to learn more and to order their various animal products.