Joey Lankford: Can Digging in the Dirt Change Your Life?

Joey Lankford’s journey is anything but predictable. He went from running a 10-location healthcare company in his early 30s to selling everything he owned and moving his family to the tip of South Africa. When he eventually returned home to Tennessee, he started something totally different: a workforce development farm on state land. In this episode, Joey traces the thread connecting those wild shifts. It all started with adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia, which completely changed how his family viewed their purpose in life. He shares what he found living in the townships outside Cape Town—the unexpected joy, the friendships that reshaped him, and a simple greenhouse of tomatoes that eventually inspired his farm, Cul2vate. Now, that same vision is helping previously incarcerated men and women across Middle Tennessee build new careers.

Thought-Provoking Quotes:

"What we thought was the adoption of a baby girl to save her from the plights of Africa actually ended up being God's upside-down story of her redeeming our lives and giving us purpose and mission." - Joey Lankford

"It was harder to move back from Africa than it was to move to Africa — because I knew what I was coming back to." - Joey Lankford

"There's something about putting your hands in the dirt with somebody that makes it not matter if you just got out of jail or if you drove a Bentley up to the barn. The dirt just sort of equalizes it." - Joey Lankford

"We all have addictions — yours are just socially disapproved of. Mine just don't create the need for anyone to put me in a cage. But they take me to the same end: separation from the Lord." - Joey Lankford

"When people talk about doom and gloom, I'm like — no. The kingdom is moving at warp speed. There are people doing some really cool stuff, using their resources to redeem a lot of broken things." - Joey Lankford

Links, Products, and Resources Mentioned:

Cultivate — Joey's workforce development farm ministry; farms behind churches across Tennessee employing previously incarcerated individuals.

Men of Valor — Nashville-based reentry ministry Joey named as a key source of Cultivate workers.

Goodwill Industries — Partner organization providing life skills training for Cultivate graduates on a monthly basis.

Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee — Early distribution partner mentioned in building out Cultivate's food-giving model.

Tennessee Farm Bureau — Partner that helped establish the Meet the Need foundation, which supplies protein for Cultivate food boxes.

*Watch this interview on Andrew’s YouTube channel!

*All episode music is by Andrew Osenga.

Guest’s Links:

Cul2vate’s website

Joey Lankford’s Facebook

Joey Lankford’s Instagram

Joey Lankford’s X

Connect with Andrew:

Website

YouTube

Substack

Spotify

Facebook

Instagram

How to Remember by Andrew Osenga

Hold the Light by Andrew Osenga

*The Pivot is produced in conjunction with Four Eyes Media.