Contact: Crystal Drake, Office of Strategic Communications
To celebrate the extraordinary and lasting legacy of
George Washington Carver, Tuskegee welcomed P.J. Haynie, III owner
Haynie Family Foods, to deliver remarks at the 25
th annual convocation Friday honoring the renowned scientist and educator.
“I am honored to share the same profession as the great George Washington Carver, a Black farmer,” said Haynie as he walked the audience through the origins of what he calls a “never-ending fire in my belly for Black agriculture,” which began at the knee of his father who taught him how to drive a tractor by the age of 10.
A fifth-generation row-crop farmer and entrepreneur, Haynie is one of less than 10,000 Black, row-crop farmers in the U.S. today with a flourishing and expansive portfolio of businesses. His family's row-crop farm in Virginia, which has grown soybeans, wheat, corn, barley, canola and more since 1867. His great-great-grandfather, Rev. Robert Haynie, was one of the first formerly enslaved people in Northumberland County to purchase land.
Haynie currently owns and operates Haynie Family Farms, LLC, a grain farming business, producing corn, wheat, soybeans and canola and more throughout all four counties of the Northern Neck of Virginia. Haynie overseas the families farming operation in the Arkansas covering four counties across the Arkansas Delta while his father manages the Virginia operation.
Haynie introduced rice to the business and in 2020 became co-owner of the first Black-owned, food-grade certified rice mill in the U.S., located in the Arkansas Delta region in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The business offers products to rice consumers around the world. Haynie and his family also own and operate a transportation company specializing in food grade liquid bulk and dry bulk transportation, a timber harvesting company as well as a landscaping and excavating company.
“Food is the one thing that connects us all – there is no culture without agriculture,” said Haynie, adding that global demand makes it clear that people and industry will require more food derived from less and less land available.
“You are the men and women who will have to figure it out,” he said speaking directly to students. Nearly 700 Tuskegee students are currently working toward undergraduate and graduate degrees in the wide range of disciplines studied in the College of Agriculture, Environment, and Nutrition Sciences.
Haynie also encouraged students to order their endeavors around key principles that have served him well.
“Where do you come from? What are you called to do? What are you building that will outlast you?” he asked them to contemplate. “Perfect your skill, find your community and grow where you are planted.”
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