The Georgia farm that shaped Jimmy Carter will now be protected forever

The Conservation Fund announced Monday that it has acquired former President Jimmy Carter’s historic family farm, permanently protecting the southwest Georgia property where the nation’s 39th president grew up.

The 2,458-acre property outside Plains includes the former peanut farm and surrounding forestland. The acquisition also paves the way to expand the adjacent Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area to nearly 7,000 acres.

The Carter property is expected to open to the public for hunting, fishing and other outdoor recreation as soon as 2027.

Unlike the National Park Service’s Jimmy Carter Boyhood Home, which preserves the house where Carter lived as a child, the family farmland represents the larger working landscape of his youth.

Carter worked alongside his father, Earl, in the family’s peanut, corn and sugarcane operation while spending his free time exploring the surrounding woods and creeks.

Carter continued returning to the property throughout his life to hunt and walk through the woods with his wife, Rosalynn. He also made a final fishing trip to the property’s pond near the end of his life.

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At Carter’s request, the family preserved a stand of mature longleaf pine. In one of his final land management decisions, much of the property was replanted with young longleaf pine, helping restore the native forest that once covered the region.

Stacy Funderburke, vice president of The Conservation Fund’s central Southeast region, led the acquisition project and said the southwest Georgia landscape helped shape Carter’s approach to conservation.

“Long before Jimmy Carter protected millions of acres across America, he was a boy working the fields and roaming the woods of southwest Georgia,” Funderburke said. “This land shaped him and his legacy and he never stopped coming home to it. We’re honored to help ensure this land remains healthy habitat for wildlife and we look forward to the day it is open to everyone who wants to experience it.”

Members of the Carter family also praised the effort to preserve the land.

“For our family, this land was always about more than a farm,” Carter’s grandson, Jason Carter, said. “It was home — a place my grandparents treasured. We’re grateful to The Conservation Fund and to everyone working to make sure it’s protected for generations to come.”

Carter’s upbringing on the farm helped shape a presidential conservation legacy that included the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. Carter signed the law in December 1980, protecting more than 104 million acres.

He also established 39 units of the National Park System, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site and the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area in Atlanta.

The farm’s longleaf pine restoration also complements the neighboring Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area, which The Conservation Fund helped Georgia establish in 2019.

The project is part of ongoing conservation efforts to protect habitat for the threatened gopher tortoise and prevent the species from becoming endangered. Creeks on the property also support rare freshwater mussels.

The Conservation Fund plans to officially transfer the property to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2028. At that point, the former Carter family farm will formally become part of the Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area.