White Oak Pastures: A Conversation About Climate Solutions That Build Community with Jenni Harris

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Meet White Oak Pastures

01:39 The Journey to Regenerative Agriculture

05:02 What Regenerative Agriculture Looks Like on the Land 

06:26 Measuring Carbon Sequestration at White Oak Pastures 

08:34 A New Partnership: Solar Grazing with Silicon Ranch 

10:55 Why Agriculture Belongs at the Climate Table 

14:04 How a Changing Climate Is Already Showing Up on the Farm

It might be hard to believe that a single family farm in Bluffton, Georgia, is helping regenerate farmland, revive a small town, produce nutritious food for the community, and scale climate solutions in our state, but all of this, and more, is happening at White Oak Pastures.

Blair Beasley of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation talks with Jenni Harris, a member of the Drawdown Georgia Leadership Council and part of the fifth generation to raise livestock at White Oak Pastures, about her family’s climate smart agriculture journey, the carbon data behind their approach, and a new partnership bringing sheep and solar panels together on the same land.

From Industrial Agriculture to Regenerative Farming

Jenni traces White Oak Pastures back to 1866, and shares how her father, Will Harris, began shifting the farm away from industrial methods in the mid-1990s, building the business one grocery store demo at a time before grass-fed beef was widely understood.

What Regenerative Agriculture Actually Looks Like

Jenni explains how her family thinks about regenerative agriculture as restarting the natural cycles that industrial, linear production systems break, and how that philosophy shapes the way animals, land, and community all fit together at White Oak Pastures.

The Data Behind the Farm’s Carbon Footprint

Jenni shares the results of a 2018 life cycle assessment that found White Oak Pastures beef sequesters more carbon than it emits, making the farm a genuine carbon sink, and what that means for regenerative agriculture as a real climate solution.

Solar Grazing: Sheep and Solar Panels, Together

Jenni describes how her father approached neighboring solar company Silicon Ranch with an idea, using livestock to manage vegetation beneath solar panels naturally, and how that partnership now keeps hundreds of acres in active agricultural production while generating clean electricity.

Signs of a Changing Climate, Good and Bad

Jenni shares the tangible changes she’s observed on the farm, from the return of toads, lightning bugs, and dung beetles she never saw as a kid, to an unexpected challenge: managing a population of more than 80 bald eagles drawn to the farm’s outdoor-raised livestock.

What You’ll Learn

• How White Oak Pastures transitioned from industrial to regenerative agriculture across five generations.
• What “regenerative agriculture” actually means in practice, beyond the buzzword.
• The real carbon sequestration data behind White Oak Pastures’ beef production.
• How solar grazing lets farmland stay in agricultural production while hosting solar panels.
• What on-the-ground signs of ecological change, both encouraging and challenging, look like on a working Georgia farm.

Continue reading in our companion blog for more on how climate smart agriculture is building community at White Oak Pastures.

Download the Interview Transcript

Prefer to read the conversation instead? Download the complete transcript of this interview to explore Jenni Harris’s insights on regenerative agriculture and climate solutions in Georgia.