Christina Woerner McInnis on Alabama Agriculture, Family, and Public Service
She is a fifth-generation Alabama farmer, the founder of a soil testing company now on shelves in every Lowe’s in the country, and she is running to become the first woman ever elected as Alabama’s Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries. Christina McInnis joins me on this episode of Living It Up with Lenise for an honest, wide-ranging conversation about what’s really happening in Alabama agriculture — from an outdated farm bill and SNAP spending priorities to Chinese ownership of American farmland.
Christina shares her journey from growing up in Elberta to building AgriTech Corp and SoilKit, her vision for pairing Alabama’s 29 million annual tourists with our $77 billion agriculture industry, and why she believes the questions we should be asking are simple: Is this good for the Alabama farmer? And is this good for our children?
She also opens up about the personal cost of running for office as a woman — including a threatening predator who targeted her family — and the generational strength that keeps her going.
Lenise: Today's guest is someone I've had the pleasure of speaking with before. But her story has gotten bigger since the last time we sat down together at a volleyball tournament. Christina Woerner McInnis is a fifth-generation farmer from Elberta, Alabama. She went to Foley High School, graduated from Auburn University, and swore she would never go back to farming.
But farming had other plans. Christina is the founder of Soil Kit, an agricultural technology company that started as a simple solution for garden center customers who didn't understand their soil results. That idea is now a nationwide product.
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Christina: We built Soil Kit, which is an AgriTech corporation. And we just built it for us. But what happened is, Lowe's caught on and said, "This is exactly what we've been looking for." We are now launched with Auburn University, University of Florida, and just as of a couple months ago, SiteOne.
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Christina: Let's use Sweet Grown Alabama as an example. Sweet Grown Alabama is a certification for things grown in Alabama. It is beautiful. Rick Pate started it—it's actually independent of the Alabama Department of Ag and Industries, but he serves on the board. It brands Alabama; it sells Alabama.
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Lenise: Living It Up with Lenise has been a production of the FOX10 Podcast and myself, Lenise Ligon, with music provided by Kendall Faust. If this episode resonated with you, I would be so grateful if you would share it... Until next time.
