Supporting Local Farmers in Shifting to Climate-Smart Agriculture

Chapters

00:00 Meet Meg Darnell and Ben Sterling 

00:46 Introducing Georgia Organics and McIntosh S.E.E.D. 

03:02 What Is the Drawdown Georgia Climate Solutions & Equity Grant? 

05:54 Piloting the Climate Smart Farmer Program 

11:01 Overcoming Historic Distrust of the USDA 

15:28 How Solar and Conservation Practices Build Resilience 

20:00 How Georgia Organics and McIntosh S.E.E.D. Work Together 

25:40 What Surprised the Team Most 

29:21 What’s Giving Meg and Ben Hope

Practicing climate smart agriculture can help Georgia farms be more productive and build soils that absorb more carbon from the atmosphere at the same time. But making changes to established growing practices can seem expensive and risky for many farmers.

To help ease this transition, a groundbreaking partnership between Georgia Organics and McIntosh S.E.E.D. is giving Black and Brown farmers in coastal Georgia technical assistance and support with grant applications to accelerate the adoption of climate-smart agriculture practices. In this edition of the Georgia Climate Digest interview series, host Eriqah Vincent sits down with Meg Darnell, Farmer Services Coordinator at Georgia Organics, and Ben Sterling, Program Manager at McIntosh S.E.E.D., to talk about how the Climate Smart Farmer Program is advancing equity and scaling climate solutions.

How Did the Climate Smart Farmer Program Get Started?

Supported by a Drawdown Georgia Climate Solutions & Equity Grant, Georgia Organics and McIntosh S.E.E.D. piloted a program to help Black and Brown farmers access USDA resources that were already available to them but often went unused. In its first cohort, all 10 participating farms applied for USDA EQIP conservation contracts, with nine approved, and one farm successfully installed solar through the USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program (REAP).

Why Has Trust Been as Important as Funding?

Ben is direct about a major barrier: distrust rooted in the USDA’s documented history of discrimination against Black and Brown farmers. McIntosh S.E.E.D.’s deep community relationships, including an 1,100-acre community forest used as a hands-on learning lab, have helped farmers feel comfortable enough to let technical experts onto their land in the first place.

How Do Conservation and Solar Build Real Resilience?

Meg and Ben walk through how practices like cover cropping and improved soil health directly boost crop yields, while solar and high tunnels have helped farmers cut costs, extend growing seasons, and enter entirely new markets, turning climate adaptation into a genuine business advantage.

What Makes This Partnership Work?

Meg and Ben credit their success to leaning into complementary strengths: Georgia Organics handles the administrative backbone, while McIntosh S.E.E.D.’s community trust puts a familiar face in front of farmers. “We couldn’t do this program without them,” Meg says. Their 2025–2026 continuation grant is expanding the program beyond a cohort model to reach even more farmers across coastal Georgia.

Whether you work in agriculture, philanthropy, or community development, this conversation offers a clear look at what it takes to build climate solutions that farmers actually trust and use.

What You’ll Learn

• How the Climate Smart Farmer Program helped its first cohort access USDA conservation and solar funding.
• Why historic discrimination at the USDA still shapes how Black and Brown farmers approach these programs today.
• How McIntosh S.E.E.D.’s community trust and Georgia Organics’ administrative expertise complement each other.
• How conservation practices and solar energy translate directly into higher yields and new markets for farmers.
• What surprised Meg and Ben most about working with the program’s first cohort of farmers.
• What gives Meg Darnell and Ben Sterling hope about climate progress in Georgia agriculture.

Continue reading in our companion blog to learn more about how Georgia Organics and McIntosh S.E.E.D. are advancing equity, scaling climate solutions, and supporting Georgia farmers.

Download the Interview Transcript

Prefer to read the conversation instead? Download the complete PDF transcript of this interview with Meg Darnell and Ben Sterling to explore their insights on climate-smart agriculture, trust-building, and equitable partnership.