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Hillsboro resident Callie Roper sells vegetables for education

Callie Roper photo: Tennessee Tech sophomore Callie Roper is pictured with some sweet corn at her family farm in Hillsboro. Roper has been selling her own vegetables since she was about six years old.

For Hillsboro resident Callie Roper, farming is in the blood. A fifth-generation farmer, the Tennessee Tech sophomore has turned what was once a small sweet corn patch into her own vegetable business to support her college education.

“I love the outdoors,” Roper said. “I do not like to be stuck inside. I am very much someone who likes to work with their hands.”

Roper said for her, it all goes back to that first patch of sweet corn.

“I had my first crop of sweet corn when I was probably about six years old,” she said. “Dad made the mistake of planting sweet corn for me and my sister for a little pocket money and I just never stopped, I loved it.”

It was around when Roper started high school that she realized she wanted to be involved in farming for the rest of her life.

“That is when I started looking at colleges and I decided on Tennessee Tech,” Roper said. “I am there doing ag business.”

“Dad didn’t realize when he was planting that sweet corn patch that he was starting a whole ag business thing and the entrepreneurship that has gotten me where I am today,” she added.

Over the years, Roper has expanded from sweet corn, and these days offers up a variety of locally grown vegetables that includes corn, green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, kale, peas, okra and broccoli.

Roper said she mostly sells her vegetables at local farmers markets, including the Coffee County Farmers Market and the Rutherford County Farmers Market.

“I also wholesale to different produce markets around in Middle Tennessee and I do some on Facebook,” she said.

Roper said the hot item right now is sweet corn.

“That is the word on the street,” she said. “You go in the market and that is the first thing everybody wants.”

Okra is another popular item this time of year.

“Everybody at this point in the summer, they want some fried okra,” Roper said. “Green beans are coming in hot. I am going to have them probably well into fall.”

“Another thing that is really big right now is summer squash and zucchini,” she said. “People love to fry that.”

By the time mid-August hits, Roper said it is time for her to start shutting down her vegetable business for the season as she prepares to go back to school.

“Eventually I would love to sell year-round,” Roper said. “We were blessed enough to get a grant from the state and we are going to be putting in a hoop house where hopefully we can grow year-round.”

Roper said that while she is currently a sophomore, she is hoping to graduate from Tennessee Tech a semester early so she can have the whole spring off and get a good start on the growing season.

As far as long-term plans go, Roper said she wants to farm.

“I don’t think there is anything wrong with living a simple life and there is nothing wrong with wanting simple things and to be around family and to enjoy the land that we have been given,” she said. “I want to row crop with my dad, I want to stay in the produce business. I would love to eventually be selling all over Tennessee in wholesale.”

Roper thanked her parents for making her early business ventures possible.

“My parents are the reason I am able to do what I am doing,” she said. “This is setting me up for the future. This is something I want to do for a long time.”