June 2025
There are 6,000 active and retired agriculture Extension agents nationwide. Only 78 are in the agents’ Hall of Fame. Bob Hochmuth is now one of them.
Having Bob inducted into the National Association of County Agricultural Agents Hall of Fame at its annual conference in June means we have a national treasure running our research and demonstration farm in Suwannee Valley.
During his decades of devotion to science in support of Suwannee Valley agriculture, Bob has written his legend helping one farm at a time.
He’s managed a rare thing these days – to bring more people into farming, people like Scott and Billie Rooney. They had spent 30 years in business in the city and only decided to farm in retirement. But they knew nothing about farming.
Bob enrolled them in his Small Farms Academy where they learned the tools and techniques of the trade. And he once spent an entire day on their farm figuring out and then remedying a problem with pH in their soil. It was a turning point in the Rooneys’ success with blueberries.
Emil Belibasis was already an established farmer when he met Bob back in the 1990s. Belibasis was searching, though, for the future of farming. Bob showed him one possible version of it. He took Belibasis on a tour to visit hydroponic greenhouse growers of vegetables.
Based on what Hochmuth had shown him, Belibasis set up a Quonset hut and began growing tomatoes. It launched him into three decades of success in hydroponics that at its peak expanded to a five-acre greenhouse. Belibasis says Hochmuth was with him every step of the way, whether through variety trials, hurricane recovery, or identifying the source of disease. Bob even helped with emergency response when Belibasis had his fertigation tanks collapse.
Bob is both the visionary who saw the potential for hydroponics, and he’s a classic Rockwellian agent who makes house calls at farms.
Others know him as “the watermelon guy” who connected UF/IFAS with the industry statewide and is the go-to when the industry faces a threat – or when it seeks an opportunity to support UF/IFAS.
Bob’s resume documents an impressive list of awards – including the Farm Bureau’s first ever Extension professional of the year in 2017. Bob’s reputation, though, is built on I-wouldn’t-be-in-business-without-him testimonials from folks like the Rooneys.
Bob has been a driving force behind Suwannee CARES, the FFBF-IFAS partnership that recognizes farmers for environmental stewardship. He’s an ambassador whose trolley tours in Live Oak show politicians and policy makers how Florida agriculture is based on science.
Since becoming assistant director at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center—Suwannee Valley, Bob has rebuilt it into a research and Extension powerhouse with millions of dollars of grant-funded research and a prolific Extension programming. In fact, he only took the job on the condition that UF/IFAS invest in NFREC-SV to expand its impact.
To Bob, the center isn’t just a laboratory. It’s a community asset. That’s why he led a fund-raising campaign to build a pavilion – the place where today he holds CARES and other events that bring together people from across the state.
The response to Bob’s call was remarkable. Donations from Farm Bureau members and others poured in. It demonstrated how much Bob himself is a trusted community asset.
Because Bob values your trust and respect so much, I hope you’ll join me in congratulating him on his national recognition.
J. Scott Angle is the University of Florida’s Senior Vice President for Agriculture and Natural Resources and leader of the UF Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS).
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