Worleys named Farm Family of the Year for North Carolina
By Other
Published in News on January 13, 2005 2:02 PM
The Bryant Worley family of Wayne County has been chosen as North Carolina's Farm Family of the Year by the state's Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.
The Worley family, which includes Bryant, his wife, Debbie, and their daughter, Brooke Norris, is the first in Wayne County to be chosen for the distinction.
Bryant Worley, right, accepts the award for North Carolina's Conservation Farm Family of the Year. Also pictured are, from left, son-in-law Kelvin Norris and daughter Brooke Worley Norris; wife, Debbie; and Grover McPherson, state conservation association president.
Worley farms 600 acres of cotton, 200 acres of soybeans, 80 acres of wheat, 50 acres of hay and has 30 acres of pasture and 300 acres of woodland.
Worley has implemented swine waste, forestry, pasture and hayfield management. He is also involved in wildlife management that includes erosion control through grass buffers and residue management on cropland.
In his poultry operations, Worley oversees waste, nutrient and pest management.
He grows no-till soybeans on rented acreage and planted highly erodable land to pines. The farm relies on biodiesel fuel to operate equipment.
Worley's operation, located near Princeton, hosts agriculture students from N.C. State University's summer program.
Over the years, the farm has been the place where high school agriculture classes have studied poultry operations; Wayne Community College students toured wildlife buffers; the Center for Environmental Agriculture visited several times when studying soil science and nutrient management. An international group from Turkey is scheduled to tour it in November.
Worley has served on the district's Soil and Water conservation board, the Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, the state Agribusiness and Pork councils, was past president of the county's Young Farmers, named the county's Outstanding Livestock Producer in 1996, and took second place in cotton production in 1997.
Among other offices, Mrs. Worley is past chairman and present treasurer of the Golden Leaf Board, serves on the agricultural foundation of N.C. State's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the NC Tobacco Foundation and was named Wayne's Outstanding Woman in Agriculture in 1993.
The Worleys are members of Pine Forest United Methodist Church in the Rosewood community.