Self-proclaimed “flip flop” farmer Ashley Armstrong pictured a more glamorous life for herself – one far from the commercial row crop operation she had known since her days in diapers. Instead of settling into city life, her pursuit of a life lived with bigger purpose and service to a greater community led her right back home to her family’s rich soils near Bastrop, La.

“I wanted to try something different; I wanted to know what was out there,” Armstrong said. “It’s common knowledge that I fought coming back to the farm, even with a good commercial side.”

While Armstrong enjoyed growing up in fields of corn, soybeans and cotton – especially under the tutelage of her father, Harper, – she craved learning something a little different. She left the farm to pursue a degree in technology shortly after graduating high school in 2007, before switching to business management and later identifying a way she could make her own mark on the family legacy with produce.

“It’s been a learning experience,” Armstrong said. “I’m still learning every day about everything. I like it out here, it’s therapeutic, in a way.”

Field-based family

Harper Armstrong began farming his family’s Morehouse Parish land in 1949. With around 3,500 acres at the farm’s peak production, Armstrong Farms quickly became synonymous with quality farming, as well as educating and uplifting other local growers.

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The environment helped develop a deep respect for agriculture in Ashley, who makes the distinction between her for-fun farming career and her “professional” farming career.

“I have pictures of myself running through the cotton field in diapers,” Armstrong said. “But I didn’t start to farm professionally until around the time I graduated from high school.”

Today, the father-daughter duo has scaled back the farm to just over 1,000 acres of production, to make the operation more manageable for the dynamic duo. Each has a supervisory role over half the farm, roughly 500 acres to manage for each, and Ashley has dedicated over 100 acres of her division to fresh produce.

“I enjoy farming, especially the produce side,” Armstrong said. “We started produce about six years ago, with me running that side, while my dad focuses on the commercial crops.”

The move to fruit and vegetable production wasn’t taken lightly. Both farm partners had to be on board before a change that large was made. Environmental challenges helped realize the need for a new way to farm.

“On the commercial side, everything wasn’t always smooth sailing,” Armstrong said. “We had a rough time with floods and hurricanes. Things just weren’t going right. We wanted to go a different route.”

Related:Kelly Griggs lives out her calling on the farm

‘Professional’ at produce

Peas, butter beans, zucchini, greens, squash, cucumbers, sweet corn, watermelon and more make up the bounty of produce Armstrong has cultivated on her portion of Armstrong Farms. The diverse variety of offerings reflects years of trial and error. Those varieties specifically appear at the intersection of what grows well and what sells well for local customers.

“The produce side is rewarding, because I can see where the product is going,” Armstrong said. “It’s more hands-on; it’s more labor-intensive. But I can see where the product is going better than on the commercial side, and that’s the real rewarding part for me.”

Garden-variety produce is not a completely new addition to Armstrong Farms. A take-what-you-need style garden has long been a Southern staple for farmers to grow alongside crop ground to benefit the surrounding community, and it’s a practice Harper Armstrong started early on.

“It started with us just giving it away,” Armstrong said. “Every year, my dad would do something different, like plant some purple hull peas. It was his way of giving back. People would come out and take what they needed, or we might have some kids come out and pay them on the half to give them something to do for the summer. Eventually, it started to grow.”

When Ashley and Harper began considering produce as a portion of their business beyond an act of service, they knew the change would need to be significant and well-planned in order to work. They started with over 20 acres of peas, which required a special harvester hundreds of miles away in Minnesota.

Add in a pea shelling machine and a large cold storage unit, and Armstrong Farms was suddenly in the produce business in a major way.

“If we were going to do it, we were going in fully committed,” Armstrong said. “The shellers, the harvester, the cooler storage - all of those things - helped us establish a market, because then people knew we were in it.”

Personal connection

Over the last year, increased production allowed Armstrong to find an even broader audience for her produce – one that put her in the driver’s seat as a distributor as opposed to simply a farmer.

“We actually established a market where just this past year I’ve been partnering with the food bank,” Armstrong said. “I distribute directly to the food bank or directly to food pantries in the area.”

Ashley’s new market allows her produce to impact 10 local food pantries – about 2,300 total families – in a region where access to fresh, locally grown produce is incredibly sparse.

Pushed by continued demand from locals and travelers hungry for fresh-grown produce, the result was a business that expanded quickly.

“People know about us as a source for produce,” Armstrong said. “The people who want fresh, quality produce know now that we can provide it. I'm trying to keep  that going.”

In addition to distribution to local food pantries, farmers’ markets and drive-up sales, Armstrong said social media is a key marketplace for her produce, with around 80% of sales happening through platforms such as Facebook.

From the very beginning of establishing her own customer base and learning the ropes of growing a wider variety of crops, Armstrong said her father’s support has been unwavering. Considering her hard work and obvious passion, Harper was quickly on board with expanding into a new marketplace. “Dad’s been with me in this produce piece since the beginning, since he saw how passionate I was about it,” Armstrong said. “I’m continuing to work to find a good market so we can continue. It’s been a blessing, truly.”