About the Farm!

Whitton Farms is an organically-inspired, specialty-crop farm located in the beautiful Arkansas Delta.  Husband & wife, Keith & Jill Forrester are proud to have called this lovely place home since 2002.

Keith grew up in Whitton living the country life. He spent many of his days chopping cotton, learning to weld, working on machines of all sorts, frog gigging, fishing, hunting for arrowheads, hunting wild game, and flat out gettin’ dirty. One of his favorite things to do was to run from his mama’s house down to his mamaw’s trying to decide who was cooking the better dinner. Keith comes from a long line of farmers.  In fact, it was his great-grandmother, a widow with 4 children to care for, who settled in Whitton, and took to sharecropping in order to provide for her family. From that humble beginning is where the Forrester farming tradition was born.

Keith is a graduate of Arkansas State University, and served two years (1996 -1998) as a sustainable agriculture volunteer working with the Primary School Self Reliance Program for the U.S. Peace Corps in Lesotho/South Africa. After returning from Africa, and meeting Jill, Keith taught & coached at his hometown school of Rivercrest Jr. High & High School for 4 years. Since Forrester began raising vegetables in 2002, he was elected & currently serves on the Arkansas Farmers Market Association Board of Directors, and Memphis Farmers Market Board of Directors .

Jill was born & raised in Jonesboro, Arkansas. She spent many of her days at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s reading books, swinging on a potato sack swing, doing lots of cartwheels, poking around the vegetable garden, eating lots of salmon patties, and harassing her younger siblings Mark & Jennifer. Jill is also a graduate of Arkansas State University, and taught math in Blytheville, Arkansas & Marion, Arkansas before turning to specialty crop farming full time. Forrester is a former board member for the ASU Regional Farmers Market, and currently volunteers her to time to serve on committees for the Memphis Farmers Market.  She also enjoys speaking about life on the farm, & the importance of the local food movement to local & regional schools.

Now, the farm is flourishing in ways no one ever imagined it could. Each year this husband & wife team continues to work hard to provide a stable source of healthy food options for local & regional residents alike.  Heirloom vegetables, cut flowers, shiitake mushrooms, berries, chickens, culinary & medicinal herbs are raised on the retired pasture land where Keith’s Grandfather Jess, allowed his many horses to graze for 50 years. Plans for farm expansion are always on the horizon. Bigger is not necessarily better, in the Forrester’s opinion, but diversity in what you grow, and raise is, and that is the direction Whitton Farms is headed.

Contact

Keith & Jill Forrester
5157 W St Hwy 118
Tyronza, AR 72386
(901) 526-1361 | whittonfarms@live.com

Where to find us!

• Memphis Farmers Market
• Memphis Botanic Garden Farmers Market
• Trolley Stop Market – Memphis
• Arkansas Regional Farmers’ Market