G&R Farms hires Vidalia onions veteran

G&R Farms has added Rawls Neville as sales manager.

A Vidalia onion industry veteran, Neville joined the third generation southeast Georgia Vidalia onion grower on April 1.

Neville began his career as a farm hand and has held jobs as an operations manager at both Four Corners Farms and Van Solkema Produce. He also ran Rawls Neville Farms in Brooklet, Georgia, southeast of Statesboro, Georgia.

In 2022, Neville expanded his industry interests with the new title of owner when he purchased Van Solkema’s Georgia facility and partnered in an onion and watermelon growing operation with Hilliard Farms.

No stranger to G&R, Neville has worked with G&R Farms since 2015 in a storage and packing relationship through his previous businesses.

“It’s always a blessing to work with committed industry professionals who understand our business and are equally passionate about quality and service,” Steven Shuman, G&R Farms’ general manager, said in a news release. “Rawl’s attention to detail and his knowledge of all facets of the supply chain from growing to operations, as well as the responsibility of the sales relationship make him a valuable addition to our team.”

Neville became involved in the Vidalia Onion business as a grower-packer, and other than an a short ag sales tenure at AimTrac, a farm implement dealership, Vidalia onions has always been his career path.

“I’m lucky that I was able to get to know G&R as a company over the last nine years and learn about their people and their culture,” Neville said in the release. “They are a great group of individuals and they excel at whatever they do thanks to their deep bench of talent and are willing to do the hard work. It made it easy to says yes when they asked me to come work for them and I can’t wait to grow my experience with them.”

Neville is a graduate of Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, within the counties covered in the Vidalia marketing order.

In his off-work hours, Neville enjoys spending time with his wife Kimberly and their daughters. He also enjoys hunting and fishing and rooting for the Georgia Southern Eagles.

G&R began in 1945 with a small southeast Georgia farm. It grows a variety of crops on more than 5,000 acres. In addition to sweet onions and pecans, the third-generation family farm also grows peanuts, field corn, soybeans, hay, wheat and rye and operates a 1,500 cow-calf beef herd operation. G&R grows conventional and organic sweet onions.