GREENVILLE, N.C. (AP) — When Elijah Anthony planted his seeds of hope in 2009 , carefully cultivating them into a fine soybean crop, he understood that he, too, was being cultivated under the watchful care of others.

At 34, he is one of the youngest farmers in Pitt County and entering a field where young men are growing more scarce. The average age of farmers here is 55. Check out "Farming has future if youth will seize it."

"I just always wanted to be a farmer long as I remember," Anthony said. "I got some kind of tricycle when I was a little boy, and I remember I tied a rake to the back of it and started 'plowing' the dirt."

While taking on the challenges of farming with the hard-found work ethic required to succeed at it, he is elevated above the dirt by a community of farmers who have helped transform him into a useful and sustainable community member.

The names are all familiar to Anthony in the farm country between U.S. 264 and N.C. 903: Simmons, Briley, Moore, Davenport and others. They might all as well be his middle names for the importance they have in his life.

Called "Shon" by his friends, Anthony grew up in deep poverty in the farm country north of Greenville.

Local farming icon Lawrence Davenport has known him and his family since Shon was a boy.

"He never talks about it, but he had absolutely nothing," Davenport said. "I mean nothing. It was awful. I could tell right off he's bright, but he didn't have a chance."

Anthony's father showed promise as a high school athlete, Davenport said, but got distracted by other things and found himself a young father.

"They lived in an old shack," he said. "Shon barely had clothes to wear or shoes on his feet. When he got old enough to work some hours, he started farm work. "

When he reached his teen years, Shon would tell Davenport all he wanted to do was farm.

"He would go and work on neighbors' farms around the area, soaking up everything he could about how to run tractors and other equipment," Davenport said.

Then, when he got to be about 16, got a car and got out on his own more, I lost him there for a few years," Davenport said.

Anthony shared his "lost" years story last week with a group of at-risk young men at a youth summit sponsored by the Pitt County Health Department.

"I sold drugs for a while when I got to be about 16 or 17 years old, then I got in trouble for a breaking and entering," Anthony told them.

He spent a year in prison and when his daughter was born a year later, he went back for an 8-month sentence on a different charge.

"The hardest thing was leaving when she was born. I told myself I would never do anything again to separate me from my kids," he said.

Davenport noticed the change that overtook Anthony and wanted to keep him moving in the right direction. In 2009, he approached his friend, land developer Collice Moore, who had about 80 acres of property off Old Creek Road that wasn't being developed. The two men combined their resources to get Anthony started in his own enterprise.

"I told Collice, 'It's risky, but Shon wants to be a farmer so bad I figured I'd help him out. Why don't you rent me that land so he can work it?'" Davenport said.

Moore decided to share the risk with Davenport, and Anthony had his chance.

He turned out a fine crop of soybeans his first year, using borrowed equipment and working the land in his free time while he worked as a hand at another farm.

"From that point on I never looked back," Anthony said, "except to see what's happening behind my tractor."

Anthony continued to work as a hand for several farmers and also worked in local factories to earn enough to take care of his family.

In 2010, Anthony was given an opportunity to add land to his farming enterprise when the nonprofit economic development organization, The Pitt County Committee of 100, staked him to another 84 acres of fallow land in the Indigreen Industrial Park.

Using Davenport's equipment, Anthony planted cotton last year on all his acreage, and harvested it with equipment loaned by another cotton farmer, Tim Simmons, and the help of his friend Demetrius Battle.

"I knew how to maintain the machine and he didn't, so he told me if I work on the harvester I could use it to pick my cotton," Anthony said.

He turned out about one and a half bales of cotton to the acre, "real good for using borrowed equipment and having to plan around other people's schedules," he said.

Real good for an ex-con who offered not much more than financial risks to the men who backed his efforts.

Again with the help of Davenport and other farmers, Shon received a $100,000 loan and purchased a tractor and sprayer and other equipment of his own. He is using them to maintain his crop until harvest time.

He figures with all this help, he can increase his crop from the one and a half bales per acre he turned over last year to two and a half this year. And if he makes some profit from his crops, he hopes to buy the 120 acres of land his late uncle farmed until his death in 2009, he said.

During a recent visit to the land he leases on Old Creek Road, Anthony was spraying his cotton crop with weed killer. He jumped down from his tractor, grabbed a fistful of cotton stalks and explained what it would take to separate the weeds so they could stand tall and healthy and produce a good crop.

He was nearly indistinguishable amid his plants.

"God sent special people to me. I know that at the end of the day, I've done what I'm supposed to do to provide for my family," Anthony said.

"It's a lot of pressure on me because there's a lot of people stuck their necks out for me, and I can't let them down. I refuse to let them down."