News

Barnwell honored as national Apple Grower of the Year (2)

By Lightning Reports, Published: July 21, 2023

EDNEYVILLE — Kenny Barnwell, a sixth generation apple grower and passionate advocate for his fellow farmers, has been named American Fruit Grower 2023 Apple Grower of the Year.

A feature in American Fruit Grower magazine covers Barnwell family background in Edneyville.

“My grandparents on both sides grew apples, but my mother and father were educators," he said in an interview. "When I went to college, the last thing on my mind was becoming an apple grower. I came back and didn’t really hunt for a job that hard. I started helping in the family business. My uncle had taken over what my grandfather had done, and I kind of grew into it.”

Most of the article focuses not directly on apple farming but on how Barnwell has aggressively lobbied for his industry's interest — in economics, disaster relief, research, import-export issues, labor — in Washington and Raleigh. As legislators in the state capital and county commissioners here began to tune in to the threat to farmland from development, Barnwell has been in the thick of it. The Fruit Grower article's headline calls him "a great defender" of apple growers and all farmers.

“We need to make sure we protect our farmland. We need to work on protecting specialty crops a little more than we’re doing now,” he says in the interview. “Two years ago we became a net importer of specialty crops for the first time in the history of the United States. Wouldn’t you rather have something that is grown in the United States?”

“The land in Henderson County is very pricey. All these people have figured it out,” Barnwell continues. “They come from New York and Chicago, where they sold all their high-dollar houses there. They go to Florida and buy a condo there and decide it’s too hot, and hurricane season comes, and they come back up to Henderson County. We’ve had that tradition forever.”

Barnwell will travel to Chicago in August to accept his 2023 Apple Grower of the Year Award, sponsored by Valent USA, during the U.S. Apple Association’s annual Apple Crop Outlook and Marketing Conference. Mark Williams, director AgHC, the county's farm advocating nonprofit, nominated Barnwell for the award. He had already received the regional apple grower of the year from the magazine earlier this year.