US (FL): ‘Dirt Farmer’ wins statewide award
And he was recently awarded the 2014 Florida Farm Bureau Achievement in Agriculture Award. The announcement came with a plaque and a brand-new 2015 Chevy Silverado truck, the keys of which were handed to him Oct. 29 at the Florida Farm Bureau annual dinner in Ponte Vedra Beach.
“I found out that night (that I’d won),” said Lambert, who was one of three finalists for the esteemed award, which is given to a young farmer or rancher. He said the official photo shows his towheaded son, Micah, brandishing the keys.
Lambert said he applied for the award because he did not know of anyone in the ornamental plant industry who had won it or even applied for it before.
“The ornamental plant industry is an $18 billion industry for our state’s economy,” Lambert said. “We are viewed as a luxury, but there is a necessity to ornamental plants, not only economically, but health-wise and the benefits to the environment of ornamental plants.”
As a Hardee County Farm Bureau director, Lambert felt his involvement in the agriculture community earned him points as well as the financial stability of the company and the innovations Buckhorn Nursery is taking to conserve resources, primarily water.
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