DRN Sons Farm

DRN Sons Farm, located in Millen, Ga., is the result of a family that has been farming for five generations.  Owners John Douglas (JD) and Ben Newton started the farm after originally taking different paths after college.

The brothers’ great-great-grandfather, John D Newton, passed part of his farm to one of his sons, Jack Calhoun Newton. Jack and his wife, Pearl Aycock Newton, began farming the land and expanding their own operation.  In those days, the farm consisted of cattle, cotton, grain, and turpentine.  Jack passed away in 1939, and their great-grandmother, Pearl, continued to run the farm with the help of a lifelong farmhand, Buster.  Their grandfather, J. Ray Newton, was 12 at the time of his father’s passing. The grandsons had always heard stories about how Buster taught their grandfather how to farm and how Mama taught him how to run a business.  As times changed, turpentine and cotton left the area, so J. Ray diversified the farm into hogs, poultry, and peanuts.  In the late 1970s, Don Ray Newton, Ben and JD’s father, returned to the farm and worked alongside his father.  In 1984, he married Kathy, who came from a long line of farming in Bulloch County, where they grew tobacco, peanuts, grain, and raised cattle.  They expanded the farm by increasing the poultry operation and becoming a grower for Claxton Poultry.  They ran a grain elevator and trucking company.  In 1995, Don passed away in a farming accident, and J. Ray retired from farming a few years later.  Kathy continued to run the chicken houses until the early 2000s.  

Ben and JD vividly recall helping in the chicken houses and putting out wood shavings in the nesting boxes - it was hot work, especially in the summer.  After finishing high school, JD attended the University of Georgia, obtaining a degree in Ag Business. He then moved to Texas, North Carolina, and eventually returned home to work for various seed and chemical companies.  Ben attended Ogeechee Technical College in Statesboro and completed a degree in Ag Business as well.  He then worked for his grandfather, who worked in the crop insurance business after retiring from the farm.  After J. Ray passed away in 2012, Ben continued the insurance business that is still in operation today.  

DRN Sons Farm started in 2014 when brothers Ben and JD decided to continue their family’s farming heritage.  Aside from 200 acres of family land, they started from scratch. Today, the farming operation consists of around 1500 acres of cotton and peanuts.  The Newton brothers were born with farming in their blood.  They have a rich history rooted in agriculture - this is what led them to want to farm. They feel that they owe everything they have to God and to the agrarian and family values that were instilled in them by the generations that came before them.