Meet the Farmer: Luke Jackson, Luke’s Homegrown Produce

I met Luke Jackson on a blustery late August afternoon at his Elm Grove farm to photograph the crop of Yellow Creole Corn he was in process of harvesting. After our brief conversation (a big summer storm was rapidly approaching), I was deeply inspired by his emphasis on sustainable growing practices and championing of heirloom foods.

Jackson moved back to Bossier Parish in 2023 after graduating from Duke University with an environmental science degree (he is currently working toward a master’s degree in agricultural science). Fond childhood memories of working in the garden with his grandmother and a love of food led him to choose farming and taking care of the land on which his food grows as a profession and in 2024 he launched Luke’s Homegrown Produce. He uses sustainable growing methods (much learned from books and YouTube videos), no chemicals or pesticides, and places a heavy emphasis on heirloom seeds in the crops he grows. 

After attending Slow Food North Louisiana’s 2024 heirloom food forum, where Jackson heard Slow Food Ark of Taste champion David Shields talk about the history of Yellow Creole Corn as a major crop in the region (now nearly extinct), he reached out to Kerry Heafner at the North Louisiana Seed Preservation Program of the LSU AgCenter to procure some seeds to try to bring the crop back to North Louisiana fields. He had success with his first attempt and will be saving the seeds from the best-looking cobs to grow an even larger crop next time.

Yellow Creole Corn is on the Slow Food Ark of Taste, which is a living catalog of delicious and distinctive foods facing extinction. By identifying and championing these foods, we keep them in production and on our plates. According to the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste catalog:

“Yellow Creole Corn is a flint corn . . . that derived from a West Indian landrace known as coastal tropical flint, which is also the ancestor of Guinea flint corn (a grits corn especially important in the South Carolina Lowcountry) and Marano Vicentino flint corn (a polenta corn from Italy's Veneto region).

Yellow creole corn may predate the arrival of Europeans along the Gulf Coast. In any case, it was the standard grits and meal corn of coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, and East Texas from about 1800 until around 1950. Yellow hominy grits was the standard morning dish among the Creoles of New Orleans and the Cajuns of rural Louisiana alike, and a letter from 1875 reported that Louisianans preferred oily, yellow creole corn to the white flint varieties from Ohio and Kentucky. Yellow creole cornmeal was also the essential ingredient in the famous Cajun dish known as "cush cush," which is prepared by frying cornmeal batter in bacon drippings in a cast iron skillet. Like Guinea flint corn, yellow creole became an article of commerce by the early 19th century and was grown as a commodity crop for export to Baltimore and Philadelphia in the 1830s. Also around this time, the variety spread to the interior of Louisiana, in the Red River basin, and into parts of Arkansas, and was cultivated here throughout the 19th century. Seed was sold by the major Louisiana seedsmen of the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Eichling, Steckler, and Reuter.

By the 1970s, yellow creole corn was functionally extinct in Louisiana's fields, having been replaced by high-yielding hybrid field corns. The cultivation of this historical variety is now restricted to just a handful of farms, where it is grown for household consumption, though there are efforts under way to restore it. Yellow creole corn has an extensive root system, natural resistance to weevils, and is fairly drought resistant, making it suitable for cultivation in extensive and otherwise sustainable systems. It cannot thrive in the overworked or sterilized soils that characterize conventional agriculture. While not as productive as many hybrid varieties, yellow creole corn is more flavorful and nutritious.”

When I asked Jackson what he planned to do with the crop, he explained that he did not grow enough to sell and will likely mill it for his family’s consumption (he has a Kitchen Aid mill for home use). He noted that he had enjoyed eating it as grits that were sweet in flavor. Masa could be another use for the corn, as it is high in starch. For it to be viable as a saleable crop, he would need to produce at least 40-50 pounds.  But this test crop was a good indicator that it could be productive again here in the Red River basin, and it is a low-maintenance crop which works well for Jackson’s busy schedule.

When I inquired about other items grown on the farm, he pointed me to the Seminole Pumpkin patch, another item in the Ark of Taste catalog.  He believes in the future he will focus on these two Ark of Taste plants for his own farm, as he sells most of the pumpkins to Chef Gabriel Balderas, who uses them at his restaurants El Cabo Verde and Zuzul Coastal Cuisine. By next summer, we may be able to call Luke’s Homegrown Produce a Slow Food Ark of Taste Farm.

Jackson now spends much of his time managing the farm of Chef Balderas, Nourishing Farm in southern Caddo Parish, which supplies his restaurants with most of the herbs and lettuces used and, beginning this summer, all of their chicken. They practice the same sustainable growing methods for the crops at Nourishing Farm as Jackson’s Elm Grove farm, and you’ll see perky chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys foraging around the property. They incorporate spent oyster shells from Zuzul as an additive to the soil, which (according to the LSU AgCenter) is an alternative to lime as the shells are made of calcium carbonate. This is done to raise the pH of acidic soil, increasing a plant’s ability to take up other micronutrients such as zinc, iron and manganese. It also helps aerate the soil and keeps it from compacting. And, as an added bonus, it reduces the restaurant’s waste.

We consider Farmer Luke to be a Slow Food Champion and are elated to have him practicing foodways that are good, clean and fair for our community! 

You can follow Luke’s Homegrown Produce and Nourishing Farm on Facebook and Instagram and they are listed in the Slow Food North Louisiana Local Food directory here on our website.