Farms: Meet the Young Dairy Farm Family of Georgia

Emory Young is a second-generation dairy farmer in Tennille, Georgia. His parents started the farm in 1947 and he grew up with two brothers, Charles and Russell. According to Charles, the oldest of the brothers, his father initially had to be convinced to get into dairying. “In 1946 a county agent came out and was talking to farmers struggling to grow cotton, corn or soybeans and said they were trying to get farmers in the dairy industry,” said Charles, “Milk turned out to be good for us because every two weeks you got a paycheck and we had a cash flow.“ The Young family started the dairy with 15 cows. Now they’re milking about 230 and have a total of 550 animals in the herd. They own about 500 acres and rent another 600 acres for crops.