“ He was the one who really knew how to farm – he had more experience than I did, so that was a big blow to us. So, I had to get up to speed on what we needed to do to grow crops and figure it out,” Kent explained.
Taking on the responsibility of the farm after Kirk’ s passing required Kent to quickly master every aspect of the operation. Although he had spent summers performing physical labor in the fields, he had never been involved in making key decisions about the business. From that point forward, he focused on learning the ropes and gradually built up his expertise. Over the years, the farm experienced periods of strong yields and profitability, but Kent and his family consistently chose to reinvest their earnings into expanding and improving the business. Profits rolled straight back into the farm, fueling incremental investments in acreage, vehicles, and equipment.
By the mid-1990s, Southern Valley had grown tremendously beyond those first few acres. Despite the farm’ s success, Kent understood early that a single-state footprint left him vulnerable to seasonal gaps. Florida’ s booming housing market was squeezing out farmland opportunities, but a new winter shipping route from Mexico to Florida promised a solution.
“ We heard there was a shipping service opening up from the port of Progreso, in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico to Tampa. So, we looked into possibly farming down there during the winter,” Kent explained. In 1994, he traveled to the Yucatán, met with Mexican agricultural officials, and purchased land south of Mérida. He built a packing facility there, imported harvest equipment, and housed visiting teams— establishing Southern Valley’ s first off-season production hub.
22 MoultrieScene OCTOBER 2025