Keynote

Will Harris – Saturday Night Keynote

Will Harris is a fourth generation cattleman who tends the same land that his great-grandfather settled in 1866. Born and raised at White Oak Pastures in Bluffton,Ga., Will left home to attend the University of Georgia’s College of Agriculture, where he was trained in the industrial farming methods that became popular after World War II. Will graduated in 1976 and returned to Bluffton where he and his father continued to raise cattle using pesticides, herbicides, hormones and antibiotics, feeding their herd a high-carbohydrate diet of corn and soy.

Though using these tools successfully decreased outgoing costs
for the farm, Will became disenchanted with the excesses of these industrialized methods in the mid-1990s. They had created a monoculture for their cattle, and, as Will says, “nature abhors a monoculture.” In 1995, Will made the audacious decision to return to the farming methods his great-grandfather had used 130 years before.

Since then, Will has successfully implemented these changes, and has been recognized world-wide as a leader in humane animal husbandry and environmental sustainability. Will is the past President of the
Board of Directors of Georgia Organics and 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.

Will lives in his family home on the property with his wife Yvonne. He is the proud father of three daughters, Jessi, Jenni, and Jodi. His favorite place in the world to be is out in pastures, where he likes to have a big coffee at sunrise and a 750ml glass of wine at sunset.