Shalonda Summers Grows Barnwell Chicken Farm from Half Acre to 11 Acres

Shalonda Summers has spent years selling hormone-free eggs and organic produce out of a half-acre operation called Humpty Dumpty Poultry Farm in Barnwell. Now she is relocating the business to roughly 11 acres, a gamble she is willing to name out loud: it could amount to nothing.

The planned move represents one of the more striking examples of small-farm ambition in a region that has been losing agricultural ground for two decades. South Carolina shed 1,908 farms and approximately 292,000 acres of farmland between 2002 and 2022, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. In Barnwell County, which borders Allendale directly to the east, what remains of the farm economy often depends less on scale than on the networks farmers build around themselves.

Summers has been building hers. At the planned expansion site, she met with Ronald Moore, a beekeeper from the Barnwell County town of Kline who co-owns R&C Low Country Bees, to discuss placing bee colonies on the new property. Moore frames the partnership in terms that apply as much to the broader region as to his hives: "We've got to have each other in order to make things work."

Construction is already underway on a greenhouse at the new site, with James Summers and Brian Busby providing labor. The full 11-acre footprint will require far more than a greenhouse to generate returns. An operation that size raises real questions about what a larger poultry farm means for its immediate neighbors, including how animal waste, odor, and increased farm traffic are managed, questions that carry regulatory weight for any growing operation in South Carolina.

What the expansion also brings, if it holds together, is a greater volume of the hormone-free chickens and fresh eggs that Humpty Dumpty Poultry Farm already sells at the Barnwell Farmers Market. The farm participates in the state's Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program and accepts SNAP benefits, making its products accessible to lower-income households across the region. Whether that supply can scale to serve buyers beyond Barnwell, potentially reaching Allendale County, depends on whether the relocation delivers on its ambition.

Summers has also used the farm as something harder to quantify in a business plan. She has recruited teenagers with what she called "troubles," at school or elsewhere, inviting them to work alongside her with the chickens. One young man named Jamarrion had spent about three weeks at the farm by the time of his most recent visit, arriving after getting into trouble and expecting little. "It was a little random, but when I finally got to see what it was about, I loved it, man," he said. "It just really amazed me what really goes on in the world other than just being in the house."

Organizations like the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association and the South Carolina Black Farmers Coalition have helped farmers like Summers stay connected to grants, resources, and peers across the state. Whether those networks prove sufficient to carry an 11-acre operation through its first years is the question Barnwell County's newest large-scale poultry farmer is now positioned to answer.