Story and photos by Dave Alexander, Publisher
The main road through Vidalia, Georgia, is filled with signs that remind you that you are in the sweet onion city.
There are other sweet onion options, of course, as there are other communities that embrace and celebrate alliums. But in Vidalia, you can get a room at the Onion Inn, work out at Sweet Onion Fitness and get a manicure at Sweet Nails. Even the local bank incorporates an onion into its logo. Vidalia is all about onions.
The city is just part of a 20-county area in southern Georgia where growers can officially call their onion crop Vidalia Sweets. The sweetness is due to a combination of mild weather and low-sulfur soil.
Paving the Road
Michael Hively’s road to the Vidalia region was a different one than most growers take. In an industry that often sees farms handed down from generation to generation, Hively bought a farm in 2012 and started growing onions.
Although he’s a relative newcomer to farming, Hively is a produce veteran. He worked in the financial and operational side of the industry since graduating college in 1982. Hively went to work for a couple different vegetable packer/shippers in Florida before he and his wife, Cindy, started Red Sky Ag and began growing sweet onions in 2012. The Hivelys grow and pack their onions in Claxton, Georgia, 30 miles and two counties away from the town of Vidalia but smack dab in the middle of the Vidalia growing region.
That first year, Red Sky grew 67 acres of onions. Hively then bought another farm and a small packing shed in 2015, before eventually building a completely new and modern packing facility in 2017.
The Fast Lane
The Hively farm grows 200 acres of onions, including reds, whites and Vidalias, and another 200 acres of watermelons.
Hively not only grows but packs onions for smaller growers in the area without equipment and also imports and packs Peruvian and Mexican onions. The imports allow Hively to provide product to customers 52 weeks a year and also to keep employees working all year in the shed so that he doesn’t have to employ seasonal workers.
The imported onions are brought into the U.S. by container in 50-pound bags by Michael Cutler Company. Hively bins, dries and re-packs them in Claxton. Peruvians are worked September through March. The Mexican onions come in mid-February and usually last until Vidalias start packing, so there is overlap between the imports. Early spring is a busy time at Red Sky Ag, but the grower still finds time to do things right.
The Right Road
Cindy Hively and daughter Heather Kinlaw are constantly focused on doing things right, especially when it comes to food safety. Both women are in charge of good manufacturing practices for Red Sky. Every day is spent working on food safety at some point, whether it is documentation, training employees or quality assurance.
The hard work has paid off, as the farm has earned a food safety rating as high as 98 percent. Red Sky has had a Prima certification for five years.
“Getting a 98 percent score is very hard to do. All the daily and monthly paperwork must be done, and we have to make sure everyone is trained and knows what they need to do,” Kinlaw says.
Potholes
The Hivelys made the jump into growing because of Michael’s produce experience. They are doing well now, but he says it was tough starting out.
“It’s tough to get into agriculture if you are not a family farm or if the farm is not being passed down through generations,” Hively says. “I think the biggest issue we have in our industry is we can’t go to the bank and tell them what we are going to get paid for the crop. Mother Nature works against us sometimes, and we can’t tell the bank what the open market will be.”
The grower is concerned about the graying of the American farmer and hopes that younger farmers can somehow get involved. It can be a difficult thing to do for someone straight out of college. Banks are strict and loans are hard to get for working capital because of the risk involved and a lack of collateral.
“A bank does not want to own an onion grader,” Hively says.
Even if funding challenges can be overcome, he cautions you have to know the right people to market your product and get it to the end user.
“We are blessed to have the people that we do marketing our products,” he says.
Clear Road Ahead
Despite the hardships and difficulties he had getting to this point, Hively says agriculture is a rewarding career.
“It is a pleasure working for yourself, being outside and starting with a seed that ends up an onion in a box,” he says.
The future plan at Red Sky Ag is for Heather and her husband, Steven, to take over the operation. When that happens, as second-generation farmers, they will have an easier road in Vidalia.
