Lancaster CI Farm Program CO Langford’s Innovative Idea Speeds up Carrot Harvesting

Correctional Officer B. Langford supervises the inmate farm program at Lancaster CI in Trenton, Florida.  His inmate work squad recently planted 15 acres of carrots to be used throughout the state for food service operations.  Officer Langford’s squad began harvesting the carrots approximately 2 weeks ago.  Harvesting such a large amount of carrots is usually accomplished with the use of a combine, which is specially designed to pull the carrots up in bunches, as the ground becomes very compacted and pulling them by hand is a very tedious process.  These machines cost several hundred thousands of dollars.

Officer Langford came up with the idea to use some scrap material that was on hand and attach it to a tractor which he runs along the rows of carrots.  This loosens the rows of carrots and allows the inmate work squad to harvest the carrots at a much faster pace and in much larger amounts, without the use of very expensive machinery.  Officer Langford’s squad is averaging over 6,000 lbs. of carrots harvested each day as opposed to less than 2,000 without the use of the device he made.

Device used to loosen the ground for harvesting of carrots	Work squad harvesting carrots
Officer Langford shows how device loosens crops.