Carter Family Sells 2,458-Acre Georgia Farmland to Conservation Fund for $8.5 Million

PLAINS, Georgia — The family of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter has sold 2,458 acres of their historic family farmland outside Plains to The Conservation Fund for $8.5 million, placing a landscape that shaped the 39th president's life into permanent conservation.

Soil, timber, and politics ran together here for decades. The deal transfers agricultural fields, pine stands, and wooded trails into protective trust, shielding the ground from commercial subdivision. The Conservation Fund confirmed the purchase on November 9, structuring a roadmap that will ultimately transfer the sprawling tract to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources in 2028.

The land carried deep personal resonance for the Carter dynasty. Jimmy Carter grew up working these rows alongside his father, James Earl Carter Sr., tending crops of peanuts and cotton. Following his father’s death in 1953, Carter surrendered his active commission in the U.S. Navy and returned home to manage the rural enterprise. That decision anchored his political trajectory. Even after ascending to the Oval Office in 1977, Carter regularly bolted back to Plains to walk the woods, fish isolated ponds, and hunt turkeys away from the glare of Washington.

Timberland, Wildlife and the 2028 State Transfer

Tens of millions of public visitors could eventually set foot on the acreage. Under the operational roadmap outlined by conservation officials, the property will merge into the neighboring Lanahassee Creek Wildlife Management Area. The consolidation creates a unified public reserve spanning roughly 7,000 acres.

The state plans to open the acreage as early as 2027 for hunting, fishing, hiking, and outdoor research.

The tract holds exceptional biodiversity. Its canopy shields native longleaf pine forests while offering sanctuary to gopher tortoises, quail, white-tailed deer, and wild turkeys. In his later years, Carter personally directed the property's ecological restoration, demanding the replanting of native longleaf pines to restore the acreage to its pre-industrial timber footing.

An Environmental Track Record Rooted in Plains

Carter’s presidency left deep statutory marks on American soil. In 1980, he signed the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, setting aside more than 104 million acres—a move that still stands as the single largest federal land protection measure in U.S. history. He pushed through the creation of Georgia’s Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, mandated wilderness protection corridors, and famously mounted early solar panels on the White House roof. Plains was the laboratory for those priorities.

Humility governed his final encounters with the property. As advanced age robbed Carter of his mobility, he continued surveying the tree lines by car. Secret Service details fell back out of view, granting him solitude across the dirt roads he first plowed as a boy.

"The farmland remained my father’s favorite place, even when he could no longer walk through it independently," said his daughter, Amy Carter, emphasizing that the family sold the acreage so the general public could access the woods that anchored his life.

The Conservation Fund will manage stewardship operations across the 2,458-acre site over the next two years while coordinating infrastructure, trail access, and wildlife baseline studies ahead of the formal 2028 transfer to Georgia wildlife authorities.