37: From Farm to Family Table: A Farmer’s Perspective on Feeding Your Kids

In this episode, Sarah sits down with Kim Kornegay of Kornegay Family Farms & Produce for a behind-the-scenes look at life on a modern family farm. Kim shares her unique perspective as both a mom of three and a fourth-generation farmer, offering insight into how agriculture connects directly to the meals we serve our families every day. From growing sweet potatoes to getting dinner on the table during busy seasons, this conversation bridges the gap between farm and family life in a meaningful (and practical) way.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

•  What it’s really like to work on a multi-generational family farm 
•  How growing food impacts the way Kim feeds her family 
•  Why family meals matter at every stage of life (and how that perspective shifts over time)
•  A behind-the-scenes look at how sweet potatoes are grown, harvested, and stored 
•  Common misconceptions about farming, food production, and modern agriculture 
•  How science and technology are improving farming practices and food quality 

Follow Kornegay Family Farms & Produce on Instagram: @KornegayFFP

Follow Kornegay Family Farms & Produce on Facebook

Visit their website

Check out Sarah's turkey sweetpotato meatball recipe here!

Transcript

Sarah Schlichter (00:47)
Kim Kornegay of Kornegay Family Farms joins us as a guest on the podcast today. Kim joined the family business in 2012 after being a stay at home wife and mother for three boys for the prior 10 years. On the farm, Kim manages payroll, human resources, account receivable, and public relations as well as overseeing the food safety program, but she does a little bit of everything.

She enjoys educating tour groups on how important agriculture is to our society, not only for food and fiber, but the positive effects it has on our economy and local communities. I think you'll see throughout this conversation how Kim talks about being a mother, but also a farmer and how she really utilizes that food that she grows when cooking for her family. It was a fascinating conversation and it's really interesting to get the perspective of a female farmer.

And I really hope you'll find it interesting and take some of these lessons on to your kids. So without further ado, let's get to Kim's interview.

Sarah Schlichter (01:46)
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today we have our first farmer on the podcast and it is a dear friend of mine and a female farmer and I think you will all enjoy this episode very much. So without further ado, I will let Kim Kordegi-LaCuire go ahead and introduce herself.

Kim (02:06)
Hey everyone, thank you for this opportunity, Sarah. I am a farmer, I farm from a desk is what I tell people. So you may not see me driving around in a tractor and that's really for everyone's benefit. do things on, I do paperwork side. So I manage the HR, food safety, some invoicing, payroll, I manage our social media, do community outreach, give tours.

Things like that. So just trying to give the personal side of the farm is kind of what I do and do all the farming inside. It's pretty much in a nutshell my job description.

Sarah Schlichter (02:41)
and tell

us where in North Carolina you all are based.

Kim (02:44)
So we're in Princeton, which is in Johnston County. So basically 45 minutes east of our state capital, which is Raleigh.

Sarah Schlichter (02:51)
and I have been there. It is a beautiful operation. it's a family operation. So tell us a little bit about the family.

Kim (02:57)
That's

correct. So I would say I'm the fourth generation. My grandfather grew up on a farm. My dad loved farming, but my grandpa really had a job in town. They lived in town, but he would come to the country is what they called it on the weekends. And when my dad was probably about five or six years old, my grandfather said, I think I'm going to start farming a little bit.

on the weekends and at night. just from that slow beginnings and in part-time farming, it kind of just evolved as my dad got older, that's all he ever wanted to do. So when he got old enough basically to drive a tractor, he started that. Fast forward to when my parents got married, it began to continually and more quickly evolve into a full-time farming operation. That was in 1973.

And then my grandfather retired a few years later from the town job and became a full-time farmer himself. So just over the years, low and steady growth, hired neighborhood help, kids that were home out of school in the summertime. That was probably, maybe had 100 acres back then. Now at this point we are farming about 10,000 acres in multiple counties. We have guest workers that come in.

seasonally, we also have year-round employees So when it was my, when my parents first got married, it was them two and my grandfather and one full-time man and so now we have, you know, 10 people on the farm side year-round, 40 people in the packing house, the sweet potato packing house. And then the kids that are on the farm now are my children and my brother's children.

in ages ranging from 16 to 23. So there's one that's still in school that works here in the summer and the rest of the boys are out of school and are here full-time right now. We feel like a couple of them are probably going to stay. This will be their full-time careers. Maybe a couple others are still trying to figure things out. But yeah, that's where we are right now at this point.

The kids are our kids and they're the fifth generation. That's a pretty cool thing to see being on a family farm.

Sarah Schlichter (05:00)
Yeah, yeah, and I've learned so much from seeing your farm and working with North Carolina Sweet Potatoes, who is a great partner that I've had over the years. And I feel like all of us, we need to do a better job, especially in the nutrition world, of bridging that gap between agriculture and nutrition. Like this food that we talk about, how is it getting to our plates?

telling that story. And I feel like especially this podcast is geared towards busy parents trying to make food easier. Maybe they have picky eaters. We're going to be talking about easy meals, but some of the crops that Kim and the farm grow and we're starting to think about spring produce here and thinking about new ways to use that and sometimes telling that story, especially for kids like

Remember when we visited that farm and we saw the watermelon or we saw those sweet potatoes in the ground? Like how cool is that to see it on our table? So my hope is that some parents here can take away, learn more about the story, see what resonates with you and your family. And when serving kids and family meals, hopefully there's a little bit more meaning behind it.

Kim (06:05)
Absolutely.

Sarah Schlichter (06:05)
So why don't you tell us Kim, starting off, what does a typical day look like for you as a sweet potato farmer? I know you also farm other crops and a mom of three, three boys, right?

Kim (06:16)
Yes, ma'am. I think we've talked about this before. You know, you have three children. I have three children, but we're in different seasons of our lives. And my children are two thirds out of the nest. You have ways to go in yours, but the similarities we have, you'll want it all back. Trust me.

Sarah Schlichter (06:32)
Feels like forever.

Kim (06:36)
You know, the similarities between us is having all your children around the table is very important to you. Cooking something that they're not only going to enjoy the way it tastes, but is going to fill them up and help them grow. Mine aren't growing boys, so to speak, anymore since they're adults, but you still want them to know that you've put time and effort into this meal that you

take pride and it means something to you to be able to feed them even when it's simple or more complex. And so I think you know no matter if your kids are three months or 30 years old having them around the table is huge to you and it's a bigger deal to me now. I didn't realize how important it was at the time when they were small because like you just said you're kind of in the season of life where you wish you had at least one extra set of hands or a clone of yourself to get it all done and

And I look back on those times, like I just didn't savor it enough. And it's hard to savor, trust me, I know, because I'm not that far removed from it that I don't remember it. But if I could go back, I would be in the moment a little bit more. And that was not your question at all. I kind of went on a bunny trail. Yeah, but a typical day for me, you know, used to be

Sarah Schlichter (07:44)
An important topic though, I am all about sitting together at the table for sure.

Kim (07:50)
Fix breakfast, get them to school, go to work, and then pick them up from school or be able to have my mom pick them up or a friend and then stop work and go to the grocery store if I had not been too smart and not planned ahead. Going to the grocery store two or three days a week, I'm trying to get better about planning now. It's a little bit different now. they can worry about themselves for breakfast. I might have leftovers for lunch.

But I try to cook Sunday lunch and then Monday through Thursday nights as much as I can. And I usually cook about four nights a week. Of course they all have girlfriends now and want to hang out with their guy friends also. So they may not always be home. I send a family text out between two and three every day, I'm cooking tonight. And they may or may not be around because of, they might be working late or they, like I said, they might be hanging out with a friend or a girlfriend.

But if they say, I'm going to so and so's tonight, I'll eat it for lunch tomorrow. They'll let me know that it's not going to go to waste. My efforts and the food is not going to go to waste because they will eat leftovers or if I cook on a Thursday and I don't cook on Friday and Saturday nights, they'll have it on Friday night or whatever. So that's kind of a typical day for me is just trying to get food on the table at some point, do my job here, be a good example for them, be a good example for my employees and do whatever.

I have to do here, both places, home and work.

Sarah Schlichter (09:11)
Mm-hmm, and you did kind of touch on this talking about, know, sitting together at the table. Does being a farmer growing up in agriculture the way you did, does that change the way you think about feeding your family? Does it impact that mentality at all or even, you know, your boy's point of view on

Kim (09:28)
I think that it's not something that we may have discussions about, but I think it's all in our minds that this is cool that we are a part of this. And whenever I'm fixing sweet potatoes as part of our meal, know, we grew these, we had a part in this and there's other people across the world.

in this country that are doing the same thing, eating sweet potatoes that we grew on our farm. It's so cool to have that so close by to us. We also grow watermelon, so of course we're all super excited when watermelon season comes in and we get to enjoy that fruit as everybody does. I think

that growing up as much as a child could understand it was cool to them and I think as they've gotten older it's become a little bit more meaningful to them. I know that I didn't think about it when I was a kid and I hate to say this but I didn't really start liking sweet potatoes until I was probably 20 years old or so. I was a very picky eater growing up.

But yeah, it's just super neat to be part of that process and to get to eat something and then to know. And so if we're not eating sweet potatoes or we're eating something else, even though we may not know exactly how that crop is grown, we realize there's a lot that went into this tomato or this squash or, the meat or even, you know, the starches that we're eating. mean, there's a lot that goes into it. And I think being in agriculture,

that might be something that's more on our minds than say the typical consumer.

Sarah Schlichter (10:52)
For sure. And I know farmers don't get days off. And we tried our own mini garden last year and it was doing well, but then we took a vacation. It got really hot. We came back. Our cucumbers were dead. You know, we took time off. Farmers can't do that. You have to be attending to the crops every day. And I do know, there's busier seasons, like maybe the planting season, the harvest. So during those busy seasons, what...

What do family dinners look like? How are you getting meals on the table? Are there more convenient foods you're using or is it more prep and then reusing leftovers?

Kim (11:29)
Well, know, for me, since I'm not on the production side, I, in the summertime when it is busier, and the sun is shining longer.

I'm not going to try to home at 430 and have supper ready by 6 or 630 because I know it's going to sit there and get cold if I do that. So for me, it just means cooking a little bit later. So I have a little bit more flexibility to get more stuff done at the office. And then when the boys come in at 830 or 9 o'clock, whenever it is, that's kind of what busy season looks like for us. Because of being

farming from a desk and being a female, I'm not beholden to, you can't look at this field until these rows are plowed or these potatoes are gotten in if it's harvest time. And I don't say being a female because I know lots of women farmers that run equipment and stuff like that. But speaking personally for me, there's...

no one is relying on me to get a crop in. So I have that flexibility to be able to, you know, go home and get supper done and just keep it warm, so to speak, till everybody else. And my husband has a regular job, so he likes to eat at a regular timeframe. And that's kind of just, you got to be flexible and try to work around everybody's schedules. sometimes I do come across something

that is pre-packaged or whatnot and I'll throw that in or I may know, zhuzh it up a little bit with some some kind of Italian stuff. I may zhuzh it up with some extra parmesan or or extra stewed tomatoes or whatnot. But yeah, nothing is off the table. No pun intended when it comes to just trying to make something healthy for your family.

and not spend five hours on prep time for something that's going to be gone in 20 minutes or less sometimes. There's all kinds of tools, thankfully, to make meal prep and...

fixing meal for your family so much easier. I don't know what I would do if I had a stoker fire every morning at 530 or earlier just to prepare something as simple as coffee, you know, to get the water hot or have to go out to the barn and get the eggs. Although I think that's a wonderful thing, but if we were living in frontier times, I would not have been a very good pioneer woman. To help you go out and milk the cows and we're very blessed

Sarah Schlichter (13:49)
you

Kim (13:52)
to live in a time where there's so much convenient food, food available for us.

Sarah Schlichter (13:58)
Yes, and I'm a big fan of that. mean, obviously I love supporting farmers, going to farmers markets, cooking from scratch, but sometimes in seasons of life, we're heading into a busy sports season. And I know three nights a week, at least, we're gonna have to be out during dinner time. So either I prepare ahead of time or I have some convenient options like frozen meals with wholesome ingredients and I can add raw veggies. I can roast a bunch of sweet potatoes, which I did yesterday.

and refrigerate them to kind of add to meals throughout the week. So I like to tell parents it's not all or nothing. If you do love to cook from scratch and you have time to do that and you love to meal prep, that's amazing. But if you don't, it's not like you're all of sudden failing or your kids are gonna be malnourished, right? We do have so many, to your point, healthy, convenient options in the freezer section and the canned food goods because of...

We'll talk a little bit more about sweet potatoes and storage. know, like they are available year round and we can store them, you know, for a few weeks. So having the technology we do having like an instant pot and an air fryer and things like that to cook meals quick really is such a blessing. So I always try to tell parents, yes, let's utilize it.

Kim (15:06)
and it's not caught too. Yes.

Absolutely.

Sarah Schlichter (15:11)
So let's talk about sweet potatoes. So I know a lot of people probably are not aware of how hard they are to grow. I mean, even for me, every time I see the process and learn about it, I'm like, wow, so you have to transplant them into the field. They don't start in the field. So talk to us a little bit about what makes them such a special and unique crop.

Kim (15:30)
Well, they are so cool and they truly are a year round crop. know, sweet potato harvest is in the fall, but we start getting our crop ready in the spring. So back in the fall when we were harvesting, you know, the dirt is turned over, sweet potatoes grow underground, the dirt is turned over and then they're manually harvested here. And so even in the fall,

When the workers were separating out the potatoes, they were separating out what we a sweet potato, which is very small potato. mean, you know, very, very small.

and they wouldn't put those in the bucket that's going to end up being in packed for you know consumers. They were separated out and put in bins and put in storage directly for us to use now in the springtime to make our seed beds. So the seed beds that we started bedding about three weeks ago those came from the crop that was harvested last year. So they're they're put in the ground covered up with dirt

covered up with plastic and just you know left there to let the warmth of the soil and that greenhouse effect. because sweet potatoes are root vegetable. They're going to start sprouting and then eventually we'll take those plastic covers off and that those vines and those sweet potato plants are just going to go crazy when they are irrigated and have rain and sunshine and that's the that's where we get the plant slips from.

usually between May and June, May 15th and June 30th.

That's where those are gonna come from. And then underground, those potatoes are gonna grow for about 120 days. We're not gonna see exactly what they're doing underground because they're underground. My dad calls it like you're kind of growing a treasure

So sweet potatoes are super cool in that, in that respect that you are working with right now, but you're also sowing the seeds for next year right now. I to that perspective, we don't have watermelons left over from last year, you know, or strawberries unless, you know, you froze them.

There's not fresh produce available from last year, but because of sweet potato, it being a root vegetable, the storage technology that we use, air flow and refrigeration, we're enjoying sweet potatoes right now that were harvested last year. So that's just one of the, we could talk all day about that, but that's one of the really cool things about sweet potatoes. Absolutely, yeah.

Sarah Schlichter (17:30)
Thank you.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And just a little more about that storage technology. So on the tours I've seen that and it's like this, it's down to a science, right? It has to be a certain temperature, certain humidity and these sweet potatoes are stored and essentially what would be like them being underground. right? Am I right?

Kim (18:04)
And there's wooden

crates that's about 40 bushels worth of 2,000 pounds and those crates have slots and when the potatoes are harvested, know, we wash them off. They go straight from the field to the storage rooms. The way they're preserved through that technology is those slats allow airflow. So there is air.

pushing from the back of that building all the way through to the front. Those slats and just the way the potatoes are in that bin allow that airflow. There's humidity around 90 % And then the temperatures maintain between 50 and 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

just to kind of have those underground mimic what they would be like underground just to keep them from breaking down, from sprouting any further. It's just the perfect kind of airflow and temperature and humidity. These environmental factors controlled that are allowing that sweet potato. I tell people when I give tours,

sweet potato you eat in May is just as good as the one you had at Thanksgiving because of this technology that's been developed.

Sarah Schlichter (19:04)
it truly is amazing and talking more about the sweet potato I mean, I feel like it is just one of the most versatile foods So it's one that I do baby lead weaning a ton because it's soft It's mashable, but it pairs well with so many foods like whether you're using it in baking with eggs with any meat with fruits with veggies And it's so easy to manipulate in different recipes

Plus when we talk about the nutrition, the vitamin C content helps with iron absorption. If you're pairing it with an iron rich source and fiber, which is important for all of us, older adults who have trouble chewing, it's soft, right? So there's so many reasons it's so easy for me to talk about sweet potatoes, which is why I've done it so many times at conferences.

plus it's naturally sweet in kids like that. So when you're trying to serve foods to kids, it is one that's generally easier to accept. Now, I'm curious, you said you didn't enjoy them until you were 20. Was there a turning point? Was it a different way they were prepared or you just, you just.

Kim (20:06)
I just decided to stop being so picky.

I just decided to stop being a picky eater. There was probably about three things I liked as a kid growing up, hamburgers and french fries and you I didn't like green beans. I liked baked potatoes, you white potato. I didn't really like spaghetti that much. I didn't start eating salad until I was probably about 16. And you know,

If I had been my mother, I would have made me eat more things and given me no thank you bites. But I just decided to just start eating, trying different things and like, well, I actually like this. This is good. And the way my mother prepares potatoes is wonderful. It's one of my favorite ways. And I don't know why I put it off for so long, just except for.

just being a picky kid and not wanting to try new things. But maturity, that you are granted as an adult kind of made me to open up my horizons and to try something that's been in my family since 1953. So yeah, I'm glad I did.

Sarah Schlichter (21:03)
Fast forwarding to now, what are some of your favorite ways to serve, cook, or enjoy sweet potatoes?

Kim (21:08)
Well, a

baked sweet potato is just always great because you can make a batch for the whole week. My dad's getting ready to have some dental surgery soon, so we're already going to bake a bunch of sweet potatoes. I'm probably going little bit of protein powder in those just to bulk him up some after his surgery when he's trying to eat some soft foods.

something that is really simple to do and is good in the fall is I'll leave the skin on and I'll just cube them and we'll roast them with some Brussels sprouts or red onions.

And then, know, Thanksgiving, sweet potato casserole is always a go-to. I mean, there's just so many ways that you can enjoy sweet potatoes. I've had recipes kind of making a sweet potato hash with some bacon that's been cut into chunks and fried and, you know, with a little bit of that bacon grease and some green onions. I mean, there's just so many ways that you can.

eat sweet potato and prepare sweet potato that's good at lunch, good at breakfast, good for supper, by itself. You know, it is, and over here, we're not supposed to say anything bad about sweet potatoes, but I mean, truly, it is a delicious, versatile, and nutritious food.

Sarah Schlichter (22:17)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I throw them in smoothies sometimes. cause again, they're so easy to blend up and then I use them in meatballs, which I feel like lightens it up for the kids. Like it gives that natural sweetness, but it, just blends so well if you're mixing it in the batter. So, have these baby lead meatballs that do really well on my blog and they're sweet potatoes with, ground turkey. You can really use any ground meat, but, yeah, I think sometimes they get.

Kim (22:18)
This is the least we can do.

Sarah Schlichter (22:42)
the reputation of like the Thanksgiving side dish and people only think of them at Thanksgiving. So it's a great reminder that they're here year round, they're fresh year round because of everything we talked about. So utilize them, their spring, their summer, their fall, their winter, their everything that you need them to be.

Kim (22:58)
Grocery store

all the time too. I mean, they're just, are year round availability. You know, might not see them at a roadside stand in the summer because they're pushing and rightfully so all the fresh produce coming off. But in your grocery store, I haven't been to a grocery store yet that does not have sweet potatoes available whatever time of year it is.

Sarah Schlichter (23:17)
Yes. And sometimes you'll be able to find like purple sweet potatoes or some other varieties depending on your grocery store, which is always fun to different colors. So just so the listeners know, Kim, when you you all are a pretty big operation from what I remember. So where are you exporting to? What other states can we find your produce? And it won't have your family farm name, will it?

Kim (23:27)
Absolutely.

No, so we don't sell under our brand. We do what's called co-packing. So you'll see, another brand. We're in a lot of Costco's and so that's under the Market Fresh brand, but on the traceability sticker, which is on one side of that box, should be Carnegie Family Farms and Produce, Princeton, North Carolina, USA on that sticker. we're not.

Suppliers of Costco of course, but if you are shopping in Morris, Illinois or College Park Georgia or Monrovia, Maryland

or anywhere in North Carolina, chances are you're eating Carnegie Family Farms and produce sweet potato. We go into Walmart sometimes. We ship a lot up North to some regional retailers. Every part of the country has its regional stuff in in Western North Carolina's Ingalls. We have food lines here.

in the eastern part of the state. There's Sable Lots and I think Giant Eagle and Weis are up around Pennsylvania. So we've shipped those places, Walmart and Kroger as well. And then export, we're gonna send potatoes to the EU and the UK.

So, you know, any of your listeners are traveling over there, they may see our name and they may not. They do a lot of repacking over there and they don't have what is kind of like a supermarket over here like we do. So the displays are going to be a little bit smaller. So most likely, potatoes are going to be...

the majority kept in the back room and just a small amount put out for display because I just think the footprint of their grocery stores are much smaller than what we have over here.

Sarah Schlichter (25:13)
yeah, how cool. So if you are in any of those states, regions, you shop at Costco or Walmart, you could very well be talking to the source of your sweet potatoes who is very much involved in the back end of the operation. again, thank you for all you do Kim for feeding us.

Kim (25:29)
Sure,

and North Carolina is the largest sweet potato producing state in the country. So we have, lots of packers and shippers that are sending sweet potatoes. If my farm, if we only supplied

Walmart, for example, we still wouldn't have enough to support only Walmart. mean, thankfully sweet potato consumption has increased through the years and people are realizing how good it is not only for you, but to eat taste wise. And so North Carolina has answered the call and about 60 % of the sweet potato production in the whole country comes from North Carolina. So you're most likely eating a North Carolina sweet potato if you are, definitely on the

East of the Mississippi.

Sarah Schlichter (26:10)
There you go. I know I am, which we're right above you in Virginia. So I'm sure a big part of our imports are our crop comes from North Carolina. How about the watermelon? Are you shipping those to similar states, regions?

Kim (26:22)
They're going pretty,

they're going more closer in proximity because when we started growing the watermelons, I was surprised at how many states to the north of us, watermelons. I didn't realize that Delaware and Maryland were big

watermelon producing states. So the season kind of follows the watermelons. they're shipping out of Florida right now. and as each season gets, you know, it'll be Florida first and then it kind of go up to Georgia watermelons and then South Carolina and hit us. The sweep spot is usually July 1st through August 30th. And then it just kind of goes up the eastern seaboard is when the melons are ready.

in a perfect world. Everyone is the state above you is ready to start shipping when the state below them, you know, longer sees it. It doesn't always work out that way because we can't control the environment, of course. so we'll we'll generally be shipping down to Georgia a lot in North Carolina, up north to, you know, New York and New Jersey, different outlets there until

the other states that are more further north their crop comes in.

Sarah Schlichter (27:30)
Okay, very cool. Good to know. mean, shipping watermelon seems like logistically harder just because they're so much heavier.

Kim (27:36)
It is and shipping watermelons is a whole different animal than shipping sweet potatoes. I mean we may load 20 trucks a week for sweet potatoes, we may load 20 trucks a day for watermelons. They come off so quickly and people are just ready for them because you'd wait all year long for that narrow window where watermelons are going to come in and be

perfect and it's just a short amount of time you can enjoy them. So logistically speaking, watermelons is just a whole different animal than sweet potatoes. You still can't, load more than 40,000 pounds of product just because of the the DOT rules and regulations. But it's just, it's really fast-paced and it's very different than sweet potatoes for sure.

Sarah Schlichter (28:23)
And on the topic of just farming and everything that goes into it, I'm curious, what are some misconceptions that people or consumers have or things that maybe you hear the general public say and you're like, that's so far from the truth. What can we clear up for you?

Kim (28:39)
Well, I don't know if you noticed on my water bottle, have pro-GMO here. And I think just in the past few years, there's just a lot of misconceptions about things that are put into our food that are dangerous or food is being genetically altered. I mean, food has been genetically altered for hundreds of years just because people

taking one plant and grafting it with another and creating a new plant, something like a raspberry, for example. And I'm not a horticulture specialist,

but where did the seedless grape come from? Well, it came from someone grafting properties of the seedless grape with a regular grape and being able to develop different things from different plants to hybrid and graft and make something.

better. And these are all advances that have been done at the seed level. I tomatoes are better now because of just the horticultural practices that have been put in place to make a better tomato. I I don't think we ever had cherry tomatoes before. You did we have cherry tomatoes 50 years ago? I was so picky. I wasn't born yet, so I wasn't eating them.

But I mean, there's so many things. Science sometimes is like the villain and the bad guy. And we want our food to be all natural. Well, hemlock is also all natural. And you wouldn't eat it. So I think we need to embrace all the technologies that have been given to us by modern horticultural practices.

impacts and fertilizers that we can put on our food production that helps us to have better yields. We're using less pesticides than ever in farming production. We're using good implements and applications that target specific pests and weeds. So science has helped us be

better and more efficient farmers than ever before. If we did not have things like scientific technologies, we would not have the yields we would have. We would not have the quality that we have in produce. that's just what I think is something cool. You don't think science when you think farming.

Sarah Schlichter (30:50)
Thank you.

Kim (30:55)
and agriculture, but you know the marriage of the two and especially you know just relationships that agriculture has with North Carolina State University and the different research that has come from them and farmers up north in Ohio have the blessing of know Cornell and Ohio State and Indiana and Florida is a big agriculture state so is Georgia and South Carolina and I know just from personal experience

those main universities are involved in agriculture to make those farmers better. Different things, problems that the citrus farmers have faced in Florida, they're working hand in hand with the University of Florida and Florida State in how to combat different things that they're facing. So science makes us better farmers, which in turn allows us to feed truly the world.

Sarah Schlichter (31:46)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (31:46)
Thank

Sarah Schlichter (31:46)
Yeah, you heard it here folks. We don't need to be afraid of technology when it can help us. can help farmers use less pesticides and you know, water more precisely. On one farm tour I went on there was like this overhead drone that could water exactly where, so they're wasting less water. So it's a better use of resources having that technology.

Kim (32:06)
Absolutely. that's

just one example. Just the different technologies that we can use with GPS monitoring on our farm equipment. So we're not over spraying. We're staying in the row. We're having straight rows, which is going to be better yields for everything. We can know exactly where we've been, track where everything is. Just the technology and the track.

and the monitoring of where our equipment is and what we're doing with that and who the operators are. And there's just so many things that we've been allowed to do through technology to make us better farmers and more efficient farmers than we've ever been before.

Sarah Schlichter (32:46)
Yes. Well, thank you for sharing that. I think that's an important message to get out to the public. So as we wrap up, I have two quick questions for you, Kim. The first is, what meal would you be making if it was your last meal on earth? What would your meal be?

Kim (33:01)
wow, it would probably be my husband fixing grilling filet mignon on charcoal with steaks that he had gotten from our friends that grow their own beef, cattle. A really good baked sweet potato.

and a delicious salad with homemade ranch dressing that I've made arugula and iceberg lettuce and all the fixings and probably for dessert tiramisu. I wouldn't have made that though. I make a good Italian cream cake but I cannot make a great tiramisu. That would be a meal. I could die a happy woman if I had that on my stomach.

Sarah Schlichter (33:35)
Hehehe

It sounds very balanced to me and a lot of different flavors and textures. sounds delicious. Okay, last question. If you could give any advice to your younger self or the parents now with younger kids in these stressful phases of life, what would you tell them?

Kim (33:54)
Well, I need some tissues because my husband says I'm really too hard on myself when I think about the mistakes I made as a first time parent and a parent of toddlers. If I could go back in time,

Even though I felt like I was a very present mom, I know there are times that I was a little impatient because I had so much to do and so many places to go and things to be. I would tell first time mother, 26 year old Kim, and then 28 with two children, and then 31 with three children that you are gonna miss this.

take it all in when those kids want you to lay with them for

two more minutes or five more minutes, do it. Cause even though you wanna be close to your children, it's different. And you wish you could go back and have that son put his arm around your neck and tell you you're his best girl. Don't rush it, don't wish it away.

Because you can't you can't get back and I love my adult children and have great relationships with them But it's just different and we have fun vacations because they can pack their own bags and And nobody needs a special license or a car seat. So those are really good times to but don't wish away the time with your toddlers

Sarah Schlichter (35:01)
Yeah.

Kim (35:10)
And if you could do magical things, I would go back and spend the day with those little toddlers.

Sarah Schlichter (35:17)
That's great advice, Kim. Thank you. And thank you for sharing all of your wisdom with us. Thank you for all of the agriculture work you put in to feed the masses. listeners, if you ever find yourself near Benson, North Carolina, you should definitely stop by the Kornegay Family Farms.

Kim (35:34)
We're Benson

is the Sweet Potato Commission's office, but we're in Princeton. But we are just 12 minutes off of 95. So, and we have a website, corneagyfamilyproduce.com, and our social media, which I have poorly managed over the last few months because I do not have a young.

Sarah Schlichter (35:39)
Tristan.

Kim (35:52)
Person with a young intern, does all the trends and stuff. But if you want to check us out on social media, we're KornegayFFP on Instagram and Kornegay Family Farms and Produce on Facebook.

Sarah Schlichter (36:04)
And we'll make sure we put all of that in the show notes. And as well as the places that Kim mentioned, you can find those sweet potatoes and any of the recipes we talked about. We'll put all of those in the show notes. Thank you, Kim. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Kim (36:17)
After I recover, I will. No, it's good to be with you, Sarah. Thank you for thinking of me for this time. I appreciate it.

Sarah Schlichter (36:19)
you