The Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum has partnered with Chuck Rhoads, Keep Mississippi Beautiful, Keep the Reservoir Beautiful/Pearl River Experience, USDA, Genuine MS® and a hand full of farmers to create a “living exhibit” made from canned vegetables and surrounded by live produce, fruit trees and plants that are grown in Mississippi. The concept behind the project is to create awareness for our state and the farmers that work night and day to feed us. After, the duration of the exhibit, the second concept will be to donate all produce and canned goods to a local food bank.

Chuck Rhoads, the master mind behind the project, a retired teacher and member of the Mississippi Craftsman’s Guild, is an artist from Brandon. He has spent his career bringing out the talents of MS children throughout inner city of Jackson and rural areas of Rankin County. Chuck has received countless awards for his work across MS. The attention to detail is indescribable.

The Ag Museum built the platforms for this project to fit inside their lobby for all to see this 4Hx16Lx10W Mississippi, shaped out of cans. Keep Mississippi Beautiful donated all the cans for the creation of the state. Delta Blues Rice out of Ruleville donated ninety pounds of rice used to designate the rivers in the state. Cockrell Farms has donated the greenery around the exhibit, Donna’s Produce #6 and Keep Rankin County Beautiful has sent fruit trees to represent the abundance we have here in the state. Each week a Genuine MS® member will set-up a stand of fruits and vegetable grown right here in in the magnolia state to show the hard work and dedication our farmers exhibit to feed us.

This exhibit will be up starting Thursday, June 25^th at the MS Agriculture and Forestry Museum lobby. Take time out of your day to go see this amazing exhibit. It definitely represents “Mississippi CAN Harvest”