James Alex Hardy from Hawkinsville has been selected as the 2020 Master Farmer award recipient by the ABAC Alumni Association at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.  This award is normally presented at the Alumni Awards Luncheon at Homecoming each April. The event will be rescheduled, possibly during the fall term.

The ABAC Master Farmer Award is presented by the ABAC Alumni Association in recognition of alumni who have distinguished themselves as outstanding farmers.  The award is based upon leadership in the home and community as well as the use of wise and unique ideas in farm management and operations.  Service to the college is also taken into consideration.  The Master Farmer Award was first presented in 1955, making it the oldest of the awards presented by the Alumni Association.

Hardy graduated from ABAC in 1969 with his degree in agriculture.  The Hardy family has been growing peanuts in the heartland of Georgia for over 70 years.  Hardy Farms is a leading producer of fresh green and boiled peanuts with an annual output of over six million pounds of green and boiled peanuts that are sold all over the United States.

The family-oriented business is divided into three parts which include Hardy Farms, which grows the peanuts; Hardy Farms Peanuts, LLC, which processes and markets the green peanuts; and Hardy Peanut, Inc., which processes and markets the boiled peanuts through super markets, roadside stands, and mail orders along with running the peanut roasting facility.  The Hardy peanut fields are spread over 1,000 acres of Middle Georgia countryside and approximately 300 acres in Florida.

Hardy is a former director of the Dodge County Farm Bureau, a former director and chairman of the board of the Heart of Georgia Peanut & Gin Corp., in Hawkinsville, and a director and former chair of the Agriculture Committee of the Hawkinsville-Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce.

A District High Yield Award Winner for Peanut Production several times, Hardy has been a District Soil and Conservation award winner, and Hardy Farms was named the Business of the Year by the Hawkinsville-Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce.  Hardy is a member of the Georgia Farm Bureau, the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, the Hawkinsville-Pulaski Chamber of Commerce, and the Georgia Peanut Growers Association.

Hardy and his wife, Jacque Hargrove Hardy, have two sons, Brad and Wade.  Hardy is an ABAC Alumni Association Lifetime Member and is an annual attendee at An Evening for ABAC scholarship fundraiser.