Bart Davis, of Davis Family Farms, was named the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce’s 2021 Agribusiness Person of the Year during this year’s annual community awards banquet.

TIFTON, Ga. — Bart Davis of Colquitt County was named the Georgia Farmer of the Year during the University of Georgia 2023 Georgia Ag Forecast event Friday, Jan. 27.

The recognition ceremony was held at the UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center in Tifton, Georgia.

He will be recognized at the Sunbelt Ag Expo on Tuesday, Oct. 17, where he will compete against other Southeastern farmers for the Swisher/Sunbelt Expo Southeastern Farmer of the Year award.

“It’s a great honor to be nominated as Georgia’s farmer of the year. I’m not one that’s ever been real big on recognition. I’m sure there’s farmers out there that deserve it more than I do,” Davis told Southeast AgNet. “But me and my family are honored about it.

“Farming’s been my life,” he said. “As a child, that’s all I ever wanted to do is farm and farm for my father. Of course, I lost him about the time I was graduating. I have got to farm, got married early in life. Me and my wife together have built a farm; a row crop farm and cattle operation. We’ve got three kids that are really involved. It’s just an honor to do every day what you love to do.”

Davis is chairman of the Georgia Cotton Commission and produces crops on more than 5,000 acres in Dougherty, Mitchell, Colquitt and Worth counties. He’s also chairman of the Georgia Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation, and he serves as a board member of the Southern Cotton Growers and as a member of the National Cotton Council and the Colquitt County Farm Service Agency.

This is the third award Davis has received in the last two years. He was named the Moultrie-Colquitt County Chamber of Commerce’s 2021 Agribusiness Person of the Year during last October’s annual community awards banquet.

Sometime before that, Davis and his family were awarded the Quail Forever and Pheasant Forever’s 2021 Precision Farmer of the Year award sponsored by John Deere. The operation earned the award after using precision agriculture to manage their farm for the last 15 years.

Davis’s chamber of commerce award nomination was submitted by Judd Lasseter, the CEO of Lasseter Tractor Company, and with a supporting personal letter from Chip Blalock, the executive director of the Sunbelt Ag Expo.

Lasseter and Davis have been business partners for 10 out of the 40 years they’ve known each other.

“Mr. Davis is a true advocate for agriculture. He exemplifies this through his day-to-day operations on the farm, community involvement in agricultural organizations and his commitment to passing along the importance of being a steward of the land to future generations,” Lasseter wrote in his personal nomination letter.