23 May 2015 Living the American Dream at Holland Bottom Farm
Story and photos
by Stephanie Byrnes
If you ask Larry Odom how long he’s been farming, he’ll tell you “since the dirt was made, baby.”
Odom is the owner of Holland Bottom Farm in Cabot, and anyone who’s stopped at Larry’s Highway 321 food stand during strawberry season can tell you he grows some of the sweetest produce in all of Arkansas.
From watermelons and strawberries to peas and okra, Holland Bottom Farm supplies Central Arkansas with some of the best this earth has to offer. Using some of the newest technology available, Holland Bottom Farm is able to pick and sell fresh produce daily. While renowned for their strawberries, there isn’t a time of year you can’t get exactly what you are looking for.
A short conversation with the man behind this famous farm reveals he is as alluring as the produce he grows. Pull up to Holland Bottom any time, and he’ll meet you with a smile, a handshake and certainly a story that will bring you back to a simpler time that he says he still enjoys today among everyone else’s hustle and bustle. “I’m living the American dream,” Odom said as he looks at the 800-acre farm that he now calls home.
Odom knew from an early age that he didn’t want to live in poverty, and growing up in the rural parts of Austin, just outside of Cabot, forced him to understand just what that meant a little too well. “We didn’t have running water,” Odom remembers about those early years. “I was 14 and I looked around and knew I didn’t want to live like this the rest of my life.”
It was the fear of being without that led Odom to pursue his education. His roots grow as deep in Cabot soil as the plants that fuel his livelihood. Born and raised in Austin, Odom graduated from Cabot High School in 1962. “I had a few good mentors,” Odom credits for his pursuit then of a college education at the University of Central Arkansas.
“People don’t really understand the American farmer,” Odom said about his college education. “When they think about people farming they think it’s because they couldn’t do anything else, but farmers have higher IQs and more education than the average U.S. citizen today.” As Odom describes the operation of farming hundreds of acres, it’s clear to anyone that it takes more than a little knowledge to be successful. Each week Odom sends samples of his farm’s soil to the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville for analysis of the element composition. A balanced element make-up is essential in growing the healthy, hearty crops that Odom sells each year to thousands of Arkansans.
After 33 years of farming and experiencing the success of having a community support him in his endeavors, Odom says more than anything he just wants to serve as an ambassador to the community. “I want the next generation to know that you don’t become successful at anything unless you learn something every day.”
It’s clear that this motto has served the seasoned farmer well as he experiences what he calls the “American Dream” — rows of blooming peach blossoms scattering the fields in front of his home and acres of strawberries beginning to bud in the cool, early morning.
“It’s a privilege to do what I do,” Odom said.
