The face of the Harvest of the Month series on Louisiana Public Broadcasting, Crystal Besse does her homework to ensure she nails the history and culture of her adopted home.

Besse followed a career in public health from her native Tennessee to Louisiana, and five years ago she became director of Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program.

For the most visible aspect of her role, Besse researches the history of beloved Louisiana foods before writing scripts for the well-received series, which takes her to crawfish farms, rice fields and other agricultural sites across the state.

“I want to make sure that I honor the history of Louisiana,” she said. “I want to still cover the horticulture side, but I also want to cover the meaningfulness of it to the citizens of Louisiana.”

Away from the camera, Besse works to connect Louisiana schools to local foods and the people who grow them. Seeds to Success works to educate students and school staff about nutrition, agriculture and local foods. The program also helps schools purchase more locally grown foods and helps teachers and students grow gardens.

Growing up in east Tennessee, Besse’s father raised pointing breed dogs for hunting and kept Tennessee walking horses, and Besse participated in 4-H, joining cooking contests and baking biscuits at the local fair. She spent a great deal of time on the tobacco farm owned by the family of her longtime babysitter, Bonnie, where she would help set tobacco.

“I understood how essential the success of those plants was, how your family’s livelihood would depend on them,” she said.

Bonnie became like a grandmother to Besse, introducing the once-picky child to new foods and taking her along as she sold Avon around town.

“She taught me to really care for people,” Besse said. “And she taught me to be a focused person and to go for your dreams.”

Her dream of working in fashion led her to major in family and consumer sciences at East Tennessee State University. However, after managing a retail clothing store, she wanted a career change. She found a job she loved as a family and consumer science and 4-H agent with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.

While teaching canning and cooking and working with 4-H’ers, Besse also joined forces with other agencies including the Department of Public Health, which led her to study epidemiology in graduate school.

“I like working with people, and I didn’t want to work in a clinical setting,” she said. “Public health opened that door for me to do both.”

After earning a master’s of public health degree, she was hired by the Northeast Tennessee Regional Health Office to investigate foodborne outbreaks, and served on the board of examiners for the Tennessee Center for Performance Excellence. A fellowship with the Louisiana Department of Health led her to Baton Rouge.

When Besse joined the AgCenter Louisiana Farm to School Program in 2017, she was excited to dive back into extension work.

“It just was the perfect fit because I can bring my public health background and my extension and family and consumer sciences background,” she said. “It all came back together again. I’m back in extension doing things that I love to do.”

Besse’s love of local foods and horticulture extends to the home, where she keeps a garden year-round. She and her husband love spending time with their 3-year-old, Gemma, as well as exploring the outdoors and tending to their vegetables.

The Louisiana Farm to School Program has great potential to help children and agricultural producers, Besse said.

“I feel like this program is still growing,” she said. “I want to continue that growth. There’s a lot of people out there that use our resources and love it, but there are many who haven’t heard of us. We just want to be spreading the word and continuously trying to improve.”

Kyle Peveto is the editor of Louisiana Agriculture.

(This article appears in the spring 2023 issue of Louisiana Agriculture.)

Crystal Besse, director of Seeds to Success: The Louisiana Farm to School Program, takes Louisianians on a tour of farms each month in the Harvest of the Month video series. Photo courtesy of Louisiana Public Broadcasting