We asked people who grew up in rural Florida what it was like to live in communities defined by agriculture and what they thought would happen to such places, with development pushing deeper into the state’s heartland. Here’s what they said.

---

Sean Sexton, cattle rancher and painter from Vero Beach:

My father actually lived through the “golden age of cattle ranching in Florida.” Others might argue that it was even earlier than his life.  But he saw beef production in Florida become qualitative and scientific, even helped that to come about as a charter member of the Florida Beef Cattle Improvement
Association.

My father attended the University of Florida and majored in Animal Husbandry. He was very progressive toward cattle production, as was his father, who almost immediately installed a set of scales as he was establishing the ranch. (We still use the same set today which I perennially clean and maintain.)

The other part of this golden age was what seemed to be a great and ongoing celebration of our lives as we conducted the business of raising and marketing
cattle.

I remember a day trip to Barney Barron’s ranch to attend the sale of his calves. He threw a regular party over the whole event.  First-off, it took what
seemed half a day to get to LaBelle. (I was but a child, but given the roads and the cars we all had back then, I’m sure it was a much longer trip than today.)
We arrived at lunch time, and the whole thing seemed to be a fabulous social occasion first, and a business transaction second.  There were tours of the
ranch, inspection of the cattle and what seemed to be a very congenial and productive atmosphere of price competition among the buyers and certainly many more people present than anyone needed to conduct a sale.

Maybe that was the difference between now and then: the pure joy of life, the novelty of getting together (after long absence and the pure difficulty of doing so), and the time we took to do just about anything out of the ordinary.

My dad participated in cattle drives to a much lesser degree than some of his generation (for we were, by the actions of my grandfather, “landed” early on,
and limited to and taking care of cattle on particular pieces of ground.) But he did see and passed through that era of taking cattle across open ground
and worked his most productive years, raising his family just off of “Ranch Road” in Indian River County, our ranch among others on both sides of its run to
the other end of the county. All of them except ours disappeared into citrus during my lifetime.

Many things remain the same about the cattle industry: the closeness of our community, and that concerted interest in the problems we face together. We’ve
gotten bigger and smaller in certain ways and certainly more business-like and efficient. The grievous change is the loss, which seems ongoing, of large,
viable cattle operations from the landscape — most recently, Carlton’s 2 X 4, which my friends, Brady and Pat Pfeil, managed for 40 years and Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, which was a member of our FBCIA.

Even the Florida Beef Cattle Improvement Assn. is no longer in existence, somewhat undone by its own success and the advent of the personal computer.  In
the early time of its inception, we met annually, put on a steak luncheon, had people like Jim Lingle of the Wye plantation as a guest speaker, took time to
meet and exchange philosophies of cattle breeding and enjoyed a richness of doing so that seems to have escaped us these days. It was quite a lot like our
country and our culture at that same moment, so much not yet done, so much seemingly possible. 

A lot has run its course. We’ve seen a denaturing of Florida’s natural environment and usurping of open space and the familiar and in a sense, the wild. What would we have changed about this if we had the vision of our future back then, and more importantly, what do we want the State of Florida, in relation to our lives, to be in the next 50 years?

---

Adam Putnam, member of a well-known citrus and cattle ranching family in Polk County and a Republican congressman from Bartow:

“I wonder: Will my children be able to keep a horse in downtown Bartow, as I did, and feed it on the way to school? I remember the Brandon Mall being a dairy farm. Having children has really changed the way I view the world.”

---

Susan Wood, Suwanee County cattle rancher:

My name is Susan Wood. My husband Steve and my two children, ages 6 (Will) and 19 months (Layne), reside on the land that was my great-grandfather’s. We built our home on the site of the original home, making our children the fifth generation to live on this land. We raise beef cattle and hay. We live in Suwannee County, about 17 miles south of Live Oak.  I am a vice president of a credit union, and Steve is at law enforcement officer with the state Department of Agriculture.

Some of my most special memories were made in the old home that was on the property. I can remember my grandmother cooking in the old kitchen and also tending her chickens in the yard. I can close my eyes and still see these images. I can also remember following my Daddy around on the tractor and helping with the cattle. These are memories that, sadly, many children do not have the privilege of making nowadays. 

These are memories that I want my children to have when they grow up.  I believe that it is vitally important to let them know how special the land is and that they should always preserve it and along with doing so preserve their heritage. 

I think that it a very sad state that so much of our agricultural land is being turned into other things. I can’t think of any better way to raise my children than on a farm.

Get Weekly Deals | Write a letter to the editor | Subscribe and get two weeks free | Place an Ad