“Farm Bureau Today” on RFD-TV will feature two progressive North Florida farming operations on June 25 at 6:30 p.m.

The program visits Donnell and Robert Gwinn’s family farm in McAlpin and Jay Fraleigh’s nursery near Madison. Both farming operations won Commissioner of Agriculture Charles Bronson’s Agricultural-Environmental Leadership Awards in 2007.

The Gwinn brothers grew up on the family farm. On their more than 1,100 acres they have a small cow-calf operation and grow peanuts, iron clay peas, bahia grass seed, and hay. But they are best known for the premium watermelons they ship from their own packinghouse and sell throughout the eastern United States and Canada. They were among the first farmers in the Suwannee basin to participate in a program to demonstrate Best Management Practices (BMPs) that protect the environment and increase productivity.

Jay Fraleigh is the sixth generation on his family’s farm in Madison County. While the family traditionally planted shade tobacco, cotton and row crops, Fraleigh has taken the operation in a new direction. In 1999, he and his wife, Donna, opened Fraleigh Nursery. Jay also created Gro-Eco, a system of growing that not only cuts water use by 80 percent, but also eliminates irrigation runoff and produces healthier plants.

The Florida Department of Agriculture produces the program for Florida Farm Bureau as part of an outreach campaign to increase public awareness of agriculture, the state’s second-largest industry. The campaign focuses on the message, “Safe, Affordable and Abundant: Food for Thought from Florida’s Farmers.” “Farm Bureau Today” repeats at 4:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, June 26 and at 3:30 p.m. EDT on Saturday, June 28.