Darius McKoy, the 2026 Small Farmer of the Year, didn’t have a tractor when he started farming four years ago in Sampson County, North Carolina.

“I started out with a rake, a hoe and a shovel,” the 43-year-old Air Force veteran said of turning a former sheep farm into a fruit and vegetable farm.

McKoy was resourceful, though, and found ways around his lack of farm equipment in 2022 — like using silage tarps to prepare his soil for planting. “In a span of eight to 12 weeks, it creates the area for you,” he said. “That’s how I created each plot, initially.”

Ingenuity was one of the qualities that built things that built 12:03AM Farm: Others were inquisitiveness, internships, a community that rallied around him and a lot of hard work.

“I had a lot of opportunities to go on a lot of different farm tours through the apprenticeships,” said McKoy, who participated in the Air Force SkillBridge program. The program allows retiring airmen to train for careers in the civilian world.

McKoy took part in N.C. State Cooperative Extension’s Soldier to Agriculture internship; the Sustainable Vegetable Production Apprenticeship at the Center for Environmental Farming Systems; and the Farm Foundation’s Young Farmer Accelerator Program.

“As a first generational farmer, you don’t know what you’re getting into. You don’t know what you don’t know, and it was important to me to educate myself,” said McKoy, who named the farm using his 21-year-old son’s Dec. 3 birthday and his 15-year-old daughter’s initials.

“I took what I learned along the way, and I had a vision,” said McKoy, who has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural communications and leadership from the University of Mount Olive. “A lot of my military friends came, some family members came, and they helped me see my vision through.”

McKoy also serves as a mentor to other beginning and veteran farmers; offers farm tours to 4-H students and teaches sustainable farming practices to university interns.

Small Farms Week 40th Anniversary Celebration at the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University Alumni-Foundation Event Center.

He hosts demonstration workshops that allow participants to pick their own food, such as squash or Chinese eggplant, and take it to an onsite chef to learn how to use it in a meal.

“Some people don't know how to cook fresh food,” he said, "and so they'll be able to take that recipe with them.”

His farm partners with The OOPS Foundation, a youth development nonprofit, to provide fresh produce weekly to more than 200 families across three counties.

Walter Adams, agriculture and natural resources technician II for Cooperative Extension at N.C. A&T, nominated McKoy for Small Farmer of the Year. “What's so amazing to me, is somebody who can take an operation from scratch and then build it up, as he has in such a short amount of time,” Adams said of McKoy.

McKoy also volunteered at J&J Martin Farm Produce, owned by Joyce Martin Bowden and Jeannette Martin Horn, sisters who were named the 2023 Small Farmers of the Year.

“He said he didn't know anything about farming, but it was hard to tell because whatever you showed him, he was truly interested,” Martin Horn said.

“I attribute a lot to my village,” said McKoy, who finds working with the land therapeutic for his post-traumatic stress disorder after serving seven tours in combat. "They have been the ones who've been here for me. Whether it was physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually — they've been the ones that helped me.”

He gives back in that same vein, noting the promise he made to James Joyner, the farmer who previously owned the land McKoy now farms. “I made a commitment to be a good steward of the land,” he said. “We’re both veterans, so to be able to continue that legacy while supporting other veterans through the farm has been really meaningful to me.”

Working with a USDA architect team, McKoy has blueprints to build a farm school, a grocery market and event center to host weddings and agricultural events on his farm.

“Hopefully, down the line in the next few years, we’ll be able to break ground on that,” he said.

Among those cheering him on are the Martin sisters, who were among his first mentors. “I’m just very proud of him, very proud of his accomplishments and how quickly he learned,” Joyce Martin Horn said.