On a stretch of permanently conserved land in Mansfield, rows of winter greens sit quietly beneath a sky that no longer behaves the way farmers once expected it to. The most recent Christmas Day reached the mid-70s; days later, temperatures dropped back into the 30s. For Judith Winfrey, worker-owner of Love Is Love Cooperative Farm, these shifts are not abstract data points—they are lived realities.

“I often say that farming is like a Zen master,” Winfrey said. “It just really teaches you acceptance all the time.”

That philosophy extends far beyond the fields. Love Is Love isn’t only an organic farm, it is a worker-owned cooperative built on shared decision-making, land conservation and the belief that healthy food is a right, not a privilege.

“I think that healthy food is essential,” Winfrey said. “Therefore, farming—in our case, organic farming—is essential.”

Love Is Love Farm began in 2007, when Winfrey and her husband, Joe, were farming in DeKalb County. As their customer base grew, so did their vision. They wanted to expand production, but more importantly, they wanted to farm collectively. 

“We wanted to expand, and we wanted to farm in collaboration with other growers,” Winfrey explained, naming Demetrius Milling, a young farmer who was working with them at the time, as one of many who were eager to start farms of their own. 

Together, they set the groundwork for what would become Love Is Love Farm and made the deliberate decision to organize as a worker-owned cooperative.

That choice would eventually lead them to Newton County. Partnering with The Conservation Fund’s Working Farms Fund, Love Is Love identified a larger property where they could grow more food for more people while securing the land for agriculture in perpetuity. Since 2021, the farm has operated on 70 acres in Mansfield, acres that, by design, will never be developed.

“I’m interested in finding ways to conserve more farmland and participate in other projects that might help conserve more farmland, especially as we’re in this kind of rapidly developing county that’s close to metro Atlanta,” Winfrey said.

Today, Love Is Love Farm is collectively managed by Winfrey, Milling, Joe Reynolds, Russell Honderd and Monica Ponce.There is no single boss. Instead, decisions are made by consensus; what to grow, how to market, who to hire and how the business operates day-to-day.

Each worker-owner has specialized areas of focus, but the shared responsibility allows for something rare in agriculture: Balance.

“The co-op becomes really helpful,” Winfrey said. “It helps us be able to do more, it also helps us be able to take vacations and have a better work-life balance than many farmers are able to have.”

For Winfrey, the cooperative model represents a hopeful evolution of the family farm.

“I see a pathway for this farm business to continue for generations,” Winfrey said. “I see it serving the community for generations. I see it serving young people who want to farm for generations. In some ways, it’s kind of a new model for the family farm.”

Love Is Love serves hundreds of families through its Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, providing weekly boxes of produce grown just miles from where it’s eaten. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when global supply chains fractured, the importance of that proximity became impossible to ignore.

“It reinforced our commitment to growing food close to the people who would eat it,” Winfrey said. “To shorten the supply chain.”

CSA members remain the heart of the farm’s operation. In Newton County, they pick up their produce directly at the farm on Thursdays, shop for extras at a small on-site store and participate in members-only events, from strawberry and sunflower u-picks to an annual harvest dinner.

“We do really see our CSA members, as — the farm belongs to them too, in a sense,” Winfrey said. 

But Love Is Love has always aimed to serve people beyond those who can easily afford organic food. That commitment is reflected in Winfrey’s long-standing leadership in food access work.

Winfrey is a co-founder of Wholesome Wave Georgia, the organization behind Fresh for Less, a program that doubles SNAP/EBT benefits when used on fresh produce. At Love Is Love, that partnership has made local, organic food accessible to families who rely on food assistance.

“It’s opened it up to people who need financial assistance with their food,” Winfrey said.  

Yet the future of such programs is uncertain. SNAP cuts are expected in 2027, forcing farms and food access organizations to rethink how they will continue serving vulnerable communities.

“We’re really thinking about how [we can] continue to provide food access for more of our community,” Winfrey said. “Fundamentally, we believe that everyone has a right to healthy food. Everything we eat literally becomes who we are.” 

That belief animates much of Winfrey’s work beyond the farm. Her leadership roles span organizations including Georgia Organics, Slow Food USA, Project Threadways, Community Farmers Markets and more, each connected by a commitment to sustainable systems and collective care.

Winfrey rejects the notion that farming is a profession of last resort.

“People have this idea that farmers farm because they can’t do anything else,” Winfrey said. “But I think farmers are some of the most intelligent people I know.” 

For her, farming was a deliberate choice, a response to a desire for work that felt meaningful.

“I wanted to do work that felt like it mattered,” Winfrey said. “We get to help steward the Earth. We get to feed people. We get to grow delicious food. We get to be in a community with the people that eat our food, and we get to be in the wonderful community of other farmers.” 

Over the next decade, Love Is Love hopes to expand its CSA, especially in Newton County, onboard another worker-owner and complete a major milestone: Purchasing the farm outright from the nonprofit partner that helped acquire it.

She also hopes to revive and expand educational field trips for local students. Last year, the farm hosted Newton County kindergarten and pre-K classes through USDA SNAP-Ed grants, funding that has since been cut.

“It’s wonderful to have young people out on the farm,” Winfrey said. “It’s good for them, and it’s good for us.”

In a world defined by rapid development, climate uncertainty and growing inequality, Love Is Love Cooperative Farm offers an alternative vision; one rooted in cooperation, stewardship and shared leadership. And at its center is Judith Winfrey, quietly reshaping what it means to lead.