Boot scootin' berries: Randy Little trades spurs for berry pastures
Randy Little has gone from boots to berries ... and he's not kiddin'.
Formerly the Ozarks' king of western wear, Little now spends his mornings among thousands of strawberry, blackberry, and blueberry plants on a farm in western Greene County.
Whether frozen, pre-picked, or picked yourself, Missouri Berries' blueberry and blackberry plants are now ready for customers to harvest by the bunch. Little told the News-Leader that all his strawberries have already been picked this season.
Hours at Missouri Berries are based on field ripeness and weather and can be found on the Missouri Berries Facebook page.
"It's great to see these develop," Little said. "You take all year to wait for one month. And all the things that can happen between freezing, the late frost, everything else."
Little is best known in the Ozarks as the former owner of PFI Western Store, home of Bootdaddy. PFI started selling feed in Springfield as Preferred Farmers Incorporated in 1975 and became a Springfield mainstay when the business began selling western wear. The store was also home to the famed Party in the Parking Lot concerts, and brought Professional Bull Riders (PBR) shows to Great Southern Bank Arena for more than a decade. PFI was sold to western wear chain Cavender's in 2021.
It was a fast move, Little says. Within 30 days of signing a letter of intent to sell the company, PFI, its inventory, and its real estate were owned by Cavender's. When that sale happened four years ago, an attorney who represented PFI told Little he'd better find a hobby.
"It was the hardest thing to make that decision, but when you do it, then you got to live with it," Little said. "So you better stay busy afterwards."
Little found his hobby: berry farming. He took over a 40-acre U-pick berry-farming operation near Republic, which was previously run by a young family living near the property. Little spends his time these days driving a golf cart through rows neatly lined with 54,000 strawberry plants, 6,000 blueberry plants, and 1,250 blackberry plants.
He recruited a team of bankers, attorneys, pilots, farmers, friends, and family to help plant strawberries and blueberries. For the blackberries, he got down on the ground and planted them himself.
"It's a process, but I planted every one of these one by one by one by scooting down and planting them, just to see, at my age, if I could," Little said, gesturing to the ripe blackberry plants.
Little, 73, has always been a farmer. But his specialty was cattle (of which he still has about 400 head). He knew he needed more education on the berry industry. Little turned to Google for advice on cultivating berry crops, and he found that mitigating disease in the plants would be his greatest challenge. Little also found helpful programs through the University of Missouri and the University of Arkansas.
"My degree was in economics, and I wound up in retail. And I thought, 'I'm done with school,'" Little said. "You're not. You go to strawberry school, you go to blackberry school, you go to blueberry school, and you repeat. And then you go online and you look for diseases."
Little said everything on a berry farm is labor-intensive. Whether its harvesting, rotating strawberry plants, weeding, or covering plants to protect from diseases and the weather, the Missouri Berries team stays busy. On a given day, there might be 8-10 employees working. The berry-pickers, however, come in much larger numbers.
"There's nothing about a berry farm that doesn't take a lot of labor," Little said.
On June 2, Missouri Berries hosted its first ever "Bluegrass in the Berry Patch" featuring talent Rhonda Vincent. According to Little, customers and part-time employees alike have followed the family from PFI to Missouri Berries. Admission to the farm is free to the public, and berries cost $4.25 per pound. In addition to fields of berries, the farm also features a kids activity area, a Little Free Library, a walking storybook trail, photo opportunities and picnic tables. It's also hard to miss the concession stand, complete with frozen berry lemonade and berry doughnuts.
Still, Little imagines more for Missouri Berries. He knows it would take a lot of work, but he's looking for someone interested in the agritourism industry to take Missouri Berries to the next level. His vision would take advantage of the entire acreage, featuring an event center, wedding chapel, and other agritourism amenities. The property already has a fishing pond, and Little has plans for a pumpkin patch, too.
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"I know what I would do if I was 50, but I'm not," Little said.
Little said he is open about what happens next, and he is actively looking for a partner with those ambitions in the agritourism industry. He doesn't want to sell the land to developers who would build houses near the farm. As Little puts it, "they don't make any more land." He'd rather see it be used for agriculture or agritourism.
"This needs to go to someone who enjoys agritourism and people," Little said. "Eventually that's what I'm wanting to do, is to make sure it goes to somebody down the line that enjoys the agriculture side or the agritourism side, because it's becoming bigger and bigger," Little said.
This article originally appeared on Springfield News-Leader: Former PFI owner opens Missouri Berries, u-pick berry farm in Republic
