{"history":[],"article":{"id":"61215e91-ad6e-4eb2-8e67-e3136452d902","title":"Booker T. Whatley","slug":"booker-t-whatley","content":":::summary\n**Name:** Booker T. Whatley \n**Birth Date:** November 5, 1915 \n**Birth Place:** [Calhoun County, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/calhoun-county-alabama) \n**Death Date:** September 3, 2005 \n**Death Place:** [Montgomery, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/montgomery-alabama) \n**Fields:** [Agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/agriculture) \n**Workplaces:** [Tuskegee University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tuskegee-university) \n**Education:** [Alabama A & M University](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama-a-m-university) \n**Alma Mater:** [Rutgers University](https://bliptext.com/articles/rutgers-university) \n**Known For:** One of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture in the post-World War II era \n**Spouse:** Lottie \n:::\n\n# \n**Booker T. Whatley** (November 5, 1915 in [Calhoun County, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/calhoun-county-alabama) – September 3, 2005 in [Montgomery, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/montgomery-alabama)) was an agriculture professor at [Tuskegee University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tuskegee-university), [Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama), and a pioneer of [sustainable agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/sustainable-agriculture) in the post-World War II era.\nHe also aimed to \"generate an agrarian [black](https://bliptext.com/articles/african-americans) middle class\".\n\n# Regenerative farming system\nDr. Whatley is best known for his [regenerative farming system](https://bliptext.com/articles/regenerative-agriculture), in combination with the [direct marketing](https://bliptext.com/articles/direct-marketing) concept of [pick-your-own](https://bliptext.com/articles/pick-your-own) (PYO), a customer harvesting operation managed by farmers and growers.\nHe also popularized the concept of subscription [buyers club](https://bliptext.com/articles/buyers-club) for small farmers either as a separate business from a PYO operation or in conjunction with it.\nToday, PYO (or u-pick) farms are a worldwide phenomenon.\nWhatley believed that the [regenerative agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/regenerative-agriculture) for small farmers made greater use of the internal resources that a farm produced and, therefore, when properly managed would provide a more sustainable livelihood.\nRegenerative agriculture has a long history and can be traced to the [agricultural extension](https://bliptext.com/articles/agricultural-extension) work of Dr. [George Washington Carver](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-washington-carver) at [Tuskegee University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tuskegee-university) in the early part of the 20th century, as well as Carver's scientific contributions regarding the [nitrogen cycle](https://bliptext.com/articles/nitrogen-cycle) and the biological regeneration of soils in the southern United States where he introduced [crop rotation](https://bliptext.com/articles/crop-rotation) methods in combination with the planting of [nitrogen-fixing legumes](https://bliptext.com/articles/nitrogen-fixation), such as [peanuts](https://bliptext.com/articles/peanut), [peas](https://bliptext.com/articles/peas), and [soybeans](https://bliptext.com/articles/soybeans).\n\n# Education\nRaised on a family farm in [Anniston, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/anniston-alabama) as the oldest of his parents' 12 children, Booker T. Whatley received his [B.S.](https://bliptext.com/articles/bachelor-of-science) degree in agriculture from [Alabama A & M University](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama-agricultural-and-mechanical-university).\nUpon graduation, he was drafted into the [U.S. Army](https://bliptext.com/articles/u-s-army) during the [Korean War](https://bliptext.com/articles/korean-war), where he was assigned to manage a [hydroponic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hydroponic) farm in [Japan](https://bliptext.com/articles/japan) to provide safe, nutritious foods for the US troops stationed there.\nAfter completing his military service, and encouraged by the scientist who interviewed him for his assignment in Japan, Whatley enrolled at [Rutgers University](https://bliptext.com/articles/rutgers-university) to earn a [doctorate](https://bliptext.com/articles/doctorate) in [horticulture](https://bliptext.com/articles/horticulture), which he completed in 1957.\nHe later earned a law degree from Alabama A&M University in 1989.\n\n# Early years\nAround 1970, Dr. Whatley, who started his professional career at Tuskegee, began championing \"smaller and smarter\" as a successful strategy for small farmers, rather than competing for the same market as large farmers, and going broke in the process.\nSmall farmers, he advised, should not raise [commodity crops](https://bliptext.com/articles/commodity-crop) such as grains, but should instead raise higher-value crops such as berries and grapes and market them to a loyal group of customers (target: 1,000), who would harvest the crops themselves and pay for the privilege of doing so as members of a Clientele Membership Club.\nWhatley counseled farmers to put greater emphasis on marketing and identifying high-value crops and enterprises that are more profitable on smaller units of land, and, most of all, to pay greater attention to their farm's internal resources to their benefit.\nBy internal resources, Whatley meant the land and its soil, \"the sun, air, rain, plants, animals, people, and all the other physical resources that are within the immediate environment of every farm.\"\n\n# The Whatley Plan\nThe Whatley Diversified Plan for Small Farms, which he adopted as regenerative agriculture (a method of [sustainable agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/sustainable-agriculture)) from his association with [Robert Rodale](https://bliptext.com/articles/robert-rodale), the [Rodale Institute](https://bliptext.com/articles/rodale-institute) and [New Farm](https://bliptext.com/articles/undefined), involves four core components:\n

Creating a biodiversified PYO (pick-your-own or U-Pick) farm between 10 and 200 acre;

Producing at least 10 different products (agricultural and/or artisanal) on a year-round basis that are supported through a Clientele Membership Club (CMC), and operating in a county-wide area with a population of at least 50,000 residents;

Marketing to CMC members for 40% of supermarket pricing; and

Yield a profit.\n

\nWhatley's broader philosophy is summarized in **\"The Guru's\" (Dr. Whatley) 10 Commandments**.\n**Thy small farm shalt:**\n

Provide year-round, daily cash flow.\n
Be a pick-your-own operation.
Have a guaranteed market with a Clientele Membership Club.
Provide year-round, full-time employment.
Be located on a hard-surfaced road within a radius of 40 miles of a population center of at least 50,000, with well-drained soil and an excellent source of water.
Produce only what they clients demand—and nothing else!
Shun middlemen and middlewomen like the plague, for they are a curse upon thee.
Consist of compatible, complementary crop components that earn a minimum of $3,000 per acre annually.
Be 'weatherproof', at least as far as possible with both drip and sprinkler irrigation.
Be covered by a minimum of $250,000 worth ($1 million is better) of liability insurance.\n

\n\n# Later years\nUpon retirement from academia, Whatley focused on promoting his system of small-scale farming, quickly becoming a nationally known expert and an inspiration to readers of [Mother Earth News](https://bliptext.com/articles/mother-earth-news) and [Organic Gardening Magazine](https://bliptext.com/articles/undefined) in the 1980s.\nTo further expand his audience and to deliver his message for turning a small farm into a profitable enterprise, Whatley traveled extensively in the US and overseas, giving training seminars and sharing his ideas.\nMany of his ideas appeared over time in [The New Farm Magazine](https://bliptext.com/articles/undefined) and in his monthly Small Farm Technical Newsletter, which reached about 20,000 subscribers in fifty states and twenty-five foreign countries.\nIn 1985, [Tom Monaghan](https://bliptext.com/articles/tom-monaghan), founder and former president of [Domino's Pizza](https://bliptext.com/articles/domino-s-pizza), Inc., was so inspired after reading in [The Wall Street Journal](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-wall-street-journal) about Whatley's plan to help small farmers make big money he called to ask him to develop a 100 acre PYO corporate farm ecosystem at Domino's World Headquarters in [Ann Arbor, Michigan](https://bliptext.com/articles/ann-arbor-michigan).\nThe farm was part of a $300 million 1500 acre project that was to raise fruits, vegetables and herbs, as well as lamb, venison, fish, duck, quail, pheasant, mushrooms, honey, and Christmas trees.\nThe harvest was supplied to Domino's franchises in the Michigan area and to its employees through a Clientele Membership Club.\nWhile many in the agriculture establishment could not relate to Whatley's \"the farm as enterprise\" philosophy, Monaghan and Whatley were instant comrades.\nWhatley described the relationship in this manner:\nAlthough the [USDA](https://bliptext.com/articles/usda) and the [land grant college](https://bliptext.com/articles/land-grant-university) agriculture departments \"are pushing diversification, [they are] relying on traditional marketing outlets like farmers markets and cooperatives. That just won't work. Small farmers simply can't afford to pick, grade, wash, package and haul their produce maybe 100 miles or more to market, yet that's exactly what the so-called experts are telling them to do.\nTom Monaghan realized all that immediately.\nHe is no dummy when it comes to marketing.\nExcellent marketing is what helped him build Domino's Pizza into a $2 billion-a-year business with some 3,800 stores in seven countries.\nOne of the things that he quickly realized during his first year in the pizza business was this: It takes as much time to make a small pizza as it does to make a large one, and it takes just as long to deliver a small pizza. Dropping small pizzas caused an almost immediate 50 percent increase in his sales.\nAlmost the same thing happened when he eliminated [submarine sandwiches](https://bliptext.com/articles/submarine-sandwich) from his menu.\"\n\n# Contributions\nWhatley is among the modern pioneers of sustainable farming.\nAs Jeff Helms wrote of him in 2005 that he was a man 30 years ahead of his time:\n\"Almost 20 years ago, Whatley was writing about U-pick operations, community supported agriculture (CSA), drip irrigation, rabbit husbandry, farmer-owned hunting preserves, kiwi vines, shiitake mushrooms, veneer-grade hardwood stands, on-the-farm bed and breakfasts, direct marketing, organic gardening and goat cheese production. What’s even more astounding is that he was advocating many of these ideas in the 1960s and ’70s.\"\nThroughout his career, Whatley presented practical, positive entrepreneurial options for small farm operators that included production diversification, organic farming practices, farm [value-added](https://bliptext.com/articles/value-added) products and innovative, direct marketing schemes.\nThese sustainable alternatives have grown and flourished over the last two decades, being adopted by [USDA](https://bliptext.com/articles/united-states-department-of-agriculture) and several states.\nToday, they currently provide important [niche markets](https://bliptext.com/articles/niche-market) for small- and medium-sized farmers around the world.\nHowever, his fight with the US agriculture establishment was ongoing, as he believed that USDA and land grant colleges continued to push big farm policies on the small farmer who could ill-afford their programs.\nAmong the several plant varieties that Whatley created, the following are representative:\n\n# Publications","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-26T08:20:56.367Z","updated_at":"2025-01-26T08:20:56.367Z","search_vector":"'booker':1 'whatley':3","search_content":" \n**Name:** Booker T. Whatley \n**Birth Date:** November 5, 1915 \n**Birth Place:** [Calhoun County, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/calhoun-county-alabama) \n**Death Date:** September 3, 2005 \n**Death Place:** [Montgomery, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/montgomery-alabama) \n**Fields:** [Agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/agriculture) \n**Workplaces:** [Tuskegee University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tuskegee-university) \n**Education:** [Alabama A & M University](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama-a-m-university) \n**Alma Mater:** [Rutgers University](https://bliptext.com/articles/rutgers-university) \n**Known For:** One of the pioneers of sustainable agriculture in the post-World War II era \n**Spouse:** Lottie \n \n\n# \n**Booker T. Whatley** (November 5, 1915 in [Calhoun County, [Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama)](https://bliptext.com/articles/calhoun-county-alabama) – September 3, 2005 in [Montgomery, [Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama)](https://bliptext.com/articles/montgomery-alabama)) was an agriculture professor at [Tuskegee University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tuskegee-university), [Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama), and a pioneer of [sustainable agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/sustainable-agriculture) in the post-World War II era.\nHe also aimed to \"generate an agrarian [black](https://bliptext.com/articles/african-americans) middle class\".\n\n# Regenerative farming system\nDr. Whatley is best known for his [regenerative farming system](https://bliptext.com/articles/regenerative-agriculture), in combination with the [direct marketing](https://bliptext.com/articles/direct-marketing) concept of [pick-your-own](https://bliptext.com/articles/pick-your-own) (PYO), a customer harvesting operation managed by farmers and growers.\nHe also popularized the concept of subscription [buyers club](https://bliptext.com/articles/buyers-club) for small farmers either as a separate business from a PYO operation or in conjunction with it.\nToday, PYO (or u-pick) farms are a worldwide phenomenon.\nWhatley believed that the [regenerative agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/regenerative-agriculture) for small farmers made greater use of the internal resources that a farm produced and, therefore, when properly managed would provide a more sustainable livelihood.\nRegenerative agriculture has a long history and can be traced to the [agricultural extension](https://bliptext.com/articles/agricultural-extension) work of Dr. [George Washington Carver](https://bliptext.com/articles/george-washington-carver) at [Tuskegee University](https://bliptext.com/articles/tuskegee-university) in the early part of the 20th century, as well as Carver's scientific contributions regarding the [nitrogen cycle](https://bliptext.com/articles/nitrogen-cycle) and the biological regeneration of soils in the southern United States where he introduced [crop rotation](https://bliptext.com/articles/crop-rotation) methods in combination with the planting of [nitrogen-fixing legumes](https://bliptext.com/articles/nitrogen-fixation), such as [peanuts](https://bliptext.com/articles/peanut), [peas](https://bliptext.com/articles/peas), and [soybeans](https://bliptext.com/articles/soybeans).\n\n# Education\nRaised on a family farm in [Anniston, Alabama](https://bliptext.com/articles/anniston-alabama) as the oldest of his parents' 12 children, Booker T. Whatley received his [B.S.](https://bliptext.com/articles/bachelor-of-science) degree in agriculture from [Alabama A & M University](https://bliptext.com/articles/alabama-agricultural-and-mechanical-university).\nUpon graduation, he was drafted into the [U.S. Army](https://bliptext.com/articles/u-s-army) during the [Korean War](https://bliptext.com/articles/korean-war), where he was assigned to manage a [hydroponic](https://bliptext.com/articles/hydroponic) farm in [Japan](https://bliptext.com/articles/japan) to provide safe, nutritious foods for the US troops stationed there.\nAfter completing his military service, and encouraged by the scientist who interviewed him for his assignment in Japan, Whatley enrolled at [Rutgers University](https://bliptext.com/articles/rutgers-university) to earn a [doctorate](https://bliptext.com/articles/doctorate) in [horticulture](https://bliptext.com/articles/horticulture), which he completed in 1957.\nHe later earned a law degree from Alabama A&M University in 1989.\n\n# Early years\nAround 1970, Dr. Whatley, who started his professional career at Tuskegee, began championing \"smaller and smarter\" as a successful strategy for small farmers, rather than competing for the same market as large farmers, and going broke in the process.\nSmall farmers, he advised, should not raise [commodity crops](https://bliptext.com/articles/commodity-crop) such as grains, but should instead raise higher-value crops such as berries and grapes and market them to a loyal group of customers (target: 1,000), who would harvest the crops themselves and pay for the privilege of doing so as members of a Clientele Membership Club.\nWhatley counseled farmers to put greater emphasis on marketing and identifying high-value crops and enterprises that are more profitable on smaller units of land, and, most of all, to pay greater attention to their farm's internal resources to their benefit.\nBy internal resources, Whatley meant the land and its soil, \"the sun, air, rain, plants, animals, people, and all the other physical resources that are within the immediate environment of every farm.\"\n\n# The Whatley Plan\nThe Whatley Diversified Plan for Small Farms, which he adopted as regenerative agriculture (a method of [sustainable agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/sustainable-agriculture)) from his association with [Robert Rodale](https://bliptext.com/articles/robert-rodale), the [Rodale Institute](https://bliptext.com/articles/rodale-institute) and [New Farm](https://bliptext.com/articles/undefined), involves four core components:\n Creating a biodiversified PYO (pick-your-own or U-Pick) farm between 10 and 200 acre; \n Producing at least 10 different products (agricultural and/or artisanal) on a year-round basis that are supported through a Clientele Membership Club (CMC), and operating in a county-wide area with a population of at least 50,000 residents; \n Marketing to CMC members for 40% of supermarket pricing; and \n Yield a profit.\n \nWhatley's broader philosophy is summarized in **\"The Guru's\" (Dr. Whatley) 10 Commandments**.\n**Thy small farm shalt:**\n \n Provide year-round, daily cash flow.\n \n Be a pick-your-own operation. \n Have a guaranteed market with a Clientele Membership Club. \n Provide year-round, full-time employment. \n Be located on a hard-surfaced road within a radius of 40 miles of a population center of at least 50,000, with well-drained soil and an excellent source of water. \n Produce only what they clients demand—and nothing else! \n Shun middlemen and middlewomen like the plague, for they are a curse upon thee. \n Consist of compatible, complementary crop components that earn a minimum of $3,000 per acre annually. \n Be 'weatherproof', at least as far as possible with both drip and sprinkler irrigation. \n Be covered by a minimum of $250,000 worth ($1 million is better) of liability insurance.\n \n\n# Later years\nUpon retirement from academia, Whatley focused on promoting his system of small-scale farming, quickly becoming a nationally known expert and an inspiration to readers of [Mother Earth News](https://bliptext.com/articles/mother-earth-news) and [Organic Gardening Magazine](https://bliptext.com/articles/undefined) in the 1980s.\nTo further expand his audience and to deliver his message for turning a small farm into a profitable enterprise, Whatley traveled extensively in the US and overseas, giving training seminars and sharing his ideas.\nMany of his ideas appeared over time in [The New Farm Magazine](https://bliptext.com/articles/undefined) and in his monthly Small Farm Technical Newsletter, which reached about 20,000 subscribers in fifty states and twenty-five foreign countries.\nIn 1985, [Tom Monaghan](https://bliptext.com/articles/tom-monaghan), founder and former president of [Domino's Pizza](https://bliptext.com/articles/domino-s-pizza), Inc., was so inspired after reading in [The Wall Street Journal](https://bliptext.com/articles/the-wall-street-journal) about Whatley's plan to help small farmers make big money he called to ask him to develop a 100 acre PYO corporate farm ecosystem at Domino's World Headquarters in [Ann Arbor, Michigan](https://bliptext.com/articles/ann-arbor-michigan).\nThe farm was part of a $300 million 1500 acre project that was to raise fruits, vegetables and herbs, as well as lamb, venison, fish, duck, quail, pheasant, mushrooms, honey, and Christmas trees.\nThe harvest was supplied to Domino's franchises in the Michigan area and to its employees through a Clientele Membership Club.\nWhile many in the agriculture establishment could not relate to Whatley's \"the farm as enterprise\" philosophy, Monaghan and Whatley were instant comrades.\nWhatley described the relationship in this manner:\nAlthough the [USDA](https://bliptext.com/articles/usda) and the [land grant college](https://bliptext.com/articles/land-grant-university) agriculture departments \"are pushing diversification, [they are] relying on traditional marketing outlets like farmers markets and cooperatives. That just won't work. Small farmers simply can't afford to pick, grade, wash, package and haul their produce maybe 100 miles or more to market, yet that's exactly what the so-called experts are telling them to do.\nTom Monaghan realized all that immediately.\nHe is no dummy when it comes to marketing.\nExcellent marketing is what helped him build Domino's Pizza into a $2 billion-a-year business with some 3,800 stores in seven countries.\nOne of the things that he quickly realized during his first year in the pizza business was this: It takes as much time to make a small pizza as it does to make a large one, and it takes just as long to deliver a small pizza. Dropping small pizzas caused an almost immediate 50 percent increase in his sales.\nAlmost the same thing happened when he eliminated [submarine sandwiches](https://bliptext.com/articles/submarine-sandwich) from his menu.\"\n\n# Contributions\nWhatley is among the modern pioneers of sustainable farming.\nAs Jeff Helms wrote of him in 2005 that he was a man 30 years ahead of his time:\n\"Almost 20 years ago, Whatley was writing about U-pick operations, community supported agriculture (CSA), drip irrigation, rabbit husbandry, farmer-owned hunting preserves, kiwi vines, shiitake mushrooms, veneer-grade hardwood stands, on-the-farm bed and breakfasts, direct marketing, organic gardening and goat cheese production. What’s even more astounding is that he was advocating many of these ideas in the 1960s and ’70s.\"\nThroughout his career, Whatley presented practical, positive entrepreneurial options for small farm operators that included production diversification, organic farming practices, farm [value-added](https://bliptext.com/articles/value-added) products and innovative, direct marketing schemes.\nThese sustainable alternatives have grown and flourished over the last two decades, being adopted by [USDA](https://bliptext.com/articles/united-states-department-of-agriculture) and several states.\nToday, they currently provide important [niche markets](https://bliptext.com/articles/niche-market) for small- and medium-sized farmers around the world.\nHowever, his fight with the US agriculture establishment was ongoing, as he believed that USDA and land grant colleges continued to push big farm policies on the small farmer who could ill-afford their programs.\nAmong the several plant varieties that Whatley created, the following are representative:\n\n# Publications","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}

History