Farmer’s Effort to Give Thanks Explodes into Humanitarian Cause

Jacko Garrett’s remarkable 40-year quest to feed the hungry began with a single trailer of grain from his farm and continues today with millions of pounds of grain directed to the needy.

By Chris Bennett

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October 12, 2021 09:20 AM

Jacko Garrett’s effort to give thanks through the bounty of his farm has grown into one of the most remarkable humanitarian efforts across the entire agriculture industry. Garrett’s 40-year quest to feed the hungry began with a single trailer of grain, grew into monthly deliveries, and continues today as a river of plenty with millions of pounds of rice in the flow, all directed to the needy.

Some farmers write their own history—and Garrett, 78, has made his mark. “If you hear my story, just remember I’m a nobody,” he says. “The Lord gives every single person a gift when we’re born. My gift was knowing how to handle a shovel in a rice field.”

Born Curious

Roughly 45 miles south of Houston, rice is king on the flat, black gumbo of Danbury, Texas. Garrett Farms revolves around rice, livestock, and live oak silviculture. “I was blessed to be raised on this farm by my father, Jack, and he was tougher than nails, but such a good, great man,” Garrett describes.

Garrett took the reins of the family operation’s cattle production in 1966, farming on the side. In 1983, his wife, Nancy (passed in 2014), took control of the cows, leaving Garrett to raise rice for seed: He began growing Foundation seed for the Texas A&M AgriLife Beaumont Research Center. “We did some really innovative things. When seed was scarce we dropped our seeding rates to 5-10 lb. per acre with a Monosem vegetable planter and put roguing lanes in our fields which made it very easy to inspect fields and rogue them in an orderly fashion. We made sure we had pure seed.”

“Rice has always been my love in farming and I was born curious about every variety. For several years I grew a quarter-acre of every rice variety I could get my hands on from Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri. The purpose was to determine the characteristics of each variety, how each emerged, tiller, head, yield, and fight disease issues. Rice has been my life.”

Since 2008, Garrett has grown hybrid seed exclusively for RiceTec, and he recently sold the cattle portion of the operation to his grandson, Garrett Harvey. “It’s a true blessing to be in farming. We have a crew of 12 fulltime employees that want to be here, and the numbers show that. We have three employees that have been here over 40 years and we’ve got young men already on seven to eight years that will carry on with my grandson. Farming and ranching allow people to learn life skills way beyond growing plants and that means everything from changing a flat to riding a horse to driving machinery.”

“I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else, and it’s that appreciation of farming that helped spur me in 1980s to want to give something back.”

Sincerely. Rewind to 1984.

10 Million lb.

American farmers ran the gauntlet in the early 1980s, subject to anemic markets and exorbitant interest rates. Collapse of entire operations was a frequent reality across farm country, and Garrett Farms was caught in the financial melee and rocked by the ripple effect of a dismal agriculture economy. “I remember 1981 and how tough it was for us and all farmers,” Garrett recalls. “We had literally just bought two brand new tractors and just like that, the farm program chopped our acreage in half, dropping us from 1,800 acres to 900 acres.”

Further ratcheting up financial pressure, Garrett had just built a house, and suddenly needed more income to pay the note. An old high school friend, and rice buyer with Uncle Ben’s, Ray Brewer, suggested Garrett open a rice sales office, and offered to provide grading lessons. “Rice sales became a source of income that the bank didn’t have a lien on, and it was the best thing I ever did, and helped pay my house off. It really helped me get through some hard times.”

Several years later, in 1984, Garrett and his father, Jack, deeply appreciative of opportunities provided by the agriculture industry, visited Brewer, searching for a means to “say thanks” with a bounty of rice. Garrett posed a question: If a truckload of rice was donated to Uncle Ben’s, would the company mill the grain for the Houston Food Bank?

“Ray checked things out and we got a green light and the rice went to the Houston Food Bank. It was just a one-time way to say thank you for the blessings we had in our life, but then I asked some other farmers if they wanted in and suddenly it kinda snowballed with five or six farmers.”

Using an 18-wheeler as the delivery vehicle, Garrett took the truck to each farmer’s home dryer. “They’d turn on their auger and run it as long as they wanted. Some guys dropped in 5,000 lb. and some dropped in 20,000 lb. It was just our small way to give a little bit of rice to people in need.”

Loaves and fish, almost 40 years later, that “little bit” multiplied to roughly 10 million lb. of rice.

Unheralded Donors

In quick time, Garrett and his farmer group were delivering four to five loads of rice per year to the HFB. The logistics caught up to Garrett in 1999: “Just being able to keep up with donations was difficult. I created Share the Harvest Foundation (STH) and generally all we give goes to the Houston Food Bank, except for things like hurricane relief or an earthquake in South America.”

The list of unheralded donors and contributors is “incredible,” Garrett emphasizes. “We’re able to give 42,500 lb. of milled rice to the food bank every six weeks. Last year we were able to provide 10 million servings of rice to the food bank. That’s only because so many people help and charge nothing. So many incredible people and businesses that don’t ask for any attention.”

After donation of fertilizer, chemicals, seed, transport, aerial application, and much more, STH only paid for water costs from Gulf Coast Water Authority in 2021, thanks to the combined efforts of: Rice-Tec, BASF, Texana Seed Co., UPL, Syngenta, FMC, Garrett Flying Service, Lissie Flying Service, Colorado County Rice Mill, Simplot, American Plant Food, Shimek Farms, Lower Colorado River Authority, Valent, Gowan, Eagle Lake Rice Dryers, Corteva, Winfield United, Jacko & Nancy Garrett Farms, VP Serodino, Klinka Lollar, John Lollar, Susan Baker, Wiese Crop Insurance, and Northwoods Presbyterian Church.

“Gina Maness is our contact for Share the Harvest, and she can be reached at gmaness@garrettfarms.com for any donation inquiries,” Garrett details.

Maness describes Garrett as “a man of faith who believes wholeheartedly in the importance of sharing blessings,” but the Texas rice grower responds with a heavy dose of self-deprecation. “I’m only a guy who puts his britches on one leg at a time like everyone else, loves farming, and is grateful for everything I’ve been given. I promise you any farmer with any crop can do what we’ve done. Believe it.”

Sow and Reap

Looking to the future, Garrett hopes farmers in other states can initiate food programs fueled by barter, such as corn, pinto beans, or most any crop for a rice trade. “There’s so many avenues to go down,” he notes. “You can get a bunch of farmers in your area to donate a single acre each of corn or any crop, then sell the grain and donate the money to your local food pantry. Nobody ever has to go through us; you can do everything in your county or state. You’ll be amazed by how much food you can get on the table.”

Stamped in bold onto each of his business cards, Galatians 6:7 is Garrett’s guide. In the 1990s, Garrett visited fellow rice producer Sherman Cullum in Fisher, Ark., and spotted the verse printed on Cullum’s seed sacks: As a man soweth, so shall he reap. “I asked Sherman, ‘Could I use that verse?’ and he replied, ‘It’s God’s verse, not mine.’ From that point, Galatians 6:7 became my farm motto. How could I be given the gift of farming and believe anything else?”

What does the future hold for Garrett and his rice crusade? “I’m gonna keep the ball rolling to promote this program because I’ll be forgotten in time like everyone else, but people will always remember a helping hand. See, the Lord has done all of this and I just played a tiny role that could have been filled by anyone. I’m just a guy who loved to grow rice.”