Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and raised in McMinnville, Tennessee, Smith is a fourth-generation nurseryman and horticulturalist. Inspired by a childhood spent on the farm raising and showing livestock and poultry, he has led a life of promoting good stewardship of the earth. In 2009, Smith founded the Heritage Poultry Conservancy, an organization dedicated to the preservation and support of all threatened breeds of domestic poultry. He attended Hendrix College, graduating in 1983, and received a Rotary International Scholarship to study garden design and history at the University of Manchester in England, where he also studied English gardens that had been visited by John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century.