Source: Kristen Sargent, NCSU COLLEGE OF AG & LIFE SCIENCES, Fall 2021


What started out as a 15-acre experiment for six-generation, family-owned Scott Farms has turned into 4,500 acres of sweetpotatoes a year and a profitable export crop.

Dewey Scott, an alumnus of NC State’s Executive Farm Management program, and his family’s operation in Lucama, North Carolina, are dedicated to providing quality sweetpotatoes to North Americans and Europeans. Once associated mostly with U.S. Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, sweetpotatoes are now a year-round superfood for people around the world.

Primarily focused on domestic shipping in the 1980s, the Scotts began delving into international markets around 1999. In 2018, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services named Scott Farms Exporter of the Year.

“It was trial and error,” Scott says. “It’s not a grandiose story. I just thought, 'Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to send sweetpotatoes overseas?’ It was neat, going to different markets because at that time, sweetpotatoes were extremely exotic in the UK.”

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