Farm Family Salute

2022 Farm Family Salute 11 June 2022 2022 Crawford County Farm Family Photos by Blake Sutton By Randy Rice East of Fort Smith, in the town of Mulberry, you will f ind Crawford County's Farm Family of the Year—the Tweedy Family Farm. Run by Eddie and Brenda Tweedy, the farm raises chickens and cattle. "My parents had the farm and I just took it over in 1986 from them," Eddie began. "They bought land across the road and built a house on it. My dad has passed away, but my mom is 95 and still around." Eddie still remembers when his parents began farming and captured his interest at a young age. "Dad and mom started out in the poultry business years ago," he said. "I was a teenager and I helped them out. We had two older poultry houses back then but, in 1999, we built a 400x40' chicken house and closed the other two. I have 5 bunches of chickens a year. At 20,000 to a bunch that's 100,000 chickens we supply to Tyson on an annual basis." In addition to the chickens, Eddie and Brenda have about 50 head of cattle right now. The cattle are sold at the stock- yards. Eddie recalls that starting out, he had a learning curve. "Like anything else, when you first start out you're inexperienced and then every year you learn something differ- ent about these animals, whether they be chickens or cattle," he said. "And over the years you finally figure it out, what it takes to keep them healthy. They require a lot of different stuff of course. You have to keep them fed with plenty of hay in the winter. You need to keep them vacci- nated. You need to stay on top of it all to keep them from getting sick." Both Eddie and Brenda got the farming bug when they were young. "There's always something to do, that's for sure," Eddie said. "There's never a dull moment with the animals always needing something. I've never ever lived in a city so I can't compare the two. I've been here in the country all my life and it's a good life. It has its rewards and, of course, it's got disappointments. But I think there's more rewarding moments than disappointments." "I actually sorta grew up on a farm," Brenda said. "I lived in Fort Smith when I was a kid but I was always staying with my grandparents and they had a commercial farm. I helped to harvest pecans when I was there weekends and holidays through the summers. My grandma had the cows. Grandpa said the cows were hers and he dealt with the vegetables and watermelons and such." Today on the Tweedy farm, Brenda is following in her grandmother's footsteps. Crawford County: Tweedy Family Farm Continued on page 12

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