Jason Brown was once the highest-paid NFL center in the history of the game, but he retired to become a farmer at the age of 29 back in August 2012.

He gave up the game because he was going through a midlife crisis. His faith and inner calling drove him to find solace somewhere. He was deeply motivated to move back to his home state of North Carolina and get into agriculture.

Midlife Crisis and Christian Faith: What Pushed Jason Brown Towards Farming?

At the age of 27, Jason Brown was at the peak of his football career. He was the highest-paid center in the game, with a $37.5 million deal signed with St. Louis Rams.

But, then, he got into a midlife crisis, which demotivated him to further continue his career in football. Subsequently, he decided not to pursue his NFL career anymore and thus retired.

After that, the profoundly religious ex-football player began to do some soul-searching. In that process, he said he asked God for a way to live a fulfilling life.

In his website, Brown shared how his faith helped him to acquire a life-changing suggestion from God himself.

“God revealed to me that he had something greater in store for me and that my family should move back to my home state of North Carolina and start a farm,” Brown wrote.

After that revelation, Brown struggled for a bit to find land for agriculture and learn farming skills. He eventually found a 1000-acre land in Louisburg, North Carolina, and also learned farming through YouTube.

He named his farm First Fruits Farm and began donating the first harvest of whatever he produced.

Brown has been working on the farm since 2013.

Jason Brown Chose To Help People Over NFL

After Brown chose to farm, he started to help the needy people around him.

That is why he named his farm First Fruits Farm. He wanted the people in need to receive the first harvest of the crops of his farm. However, it’s not just the first harvest that Brown donated—he gave away almost the entirety of his production.

In 2014 alone, his farm donated more than 10,000 pounds of cucumbers and 100,000 pounds of sweet potatoes for the hunger relief in eastern North Carolina. This effort was completed in collaboration with the Society of St. Andrews, the Innerfaith Food shuttle, and the Food Bank of Eastern North.

Jason Brown Concerned About the Food Crisis in the US

On July 26, 2020, the former NFL player tweeted an article by Yahoo Finance that laid out the potential reality that the US might have to face in the future because of the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic.

The article said that the current and the coming hunger crisis would be worse than what was during the Great Depression that befell America in the 1930s. The piece contained quotes and data about the potential situation of the crisis from the CEO of Feeding America, Claire Babineaux-Fontenot, and a few other experts.