Vaughn: Agriculture is really big business in Georgia
In the Agriculture and Natural Resource portion of Extension, what I do as the Richmond agent isn’t as much traditional agriculture as a lot of my buddies throughout the state.
My agent friends in Burke County deal with lots of row crops and dairy cows. In Rabun, they produce a bunch of tomatoes. In Bacon County it is blueberries and most anywhere in southwest Georgia is going to be a mecca for pecans, soybeans, peanuts and cotton.
These Ag agents spend a lot of time helping farmers battle pathogens, insect invasions, plant variety trials, planting and harvest timing and all kinds of animal science matters. That is just to name some of what they have to tackle on a daily basis. I have a bunch of respect for them and really enjoy picking their brains when I get a chance to visit with them at statewide meetings.
Agriculture is big in Georgia. Not just big, it is the biggest economic factor in the state for the last three centuries by far. We work a lot with the outreach portion of Farm Bureau because they are huge supporters of farming. They published some statistics about Georgia’s agriculture on their website that really tells a story of what this industry means from an economic standpoint to our state.
Georgia’s agriculture accounts for $69.4 billion. Farms and agricultural tourism accounts for $12.2 billion in value for the state (according to Farm Gate Survey). We are the largest producer in the world of broilers (chicken) and pecans. We are at or near the top state for blueberries, spring onions (including Vidalias), cotton, peanuts, watermelons, eggs, cucumbers, sweet corn bell peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupes, rye and cabbage. Not only is the poultry business huge in Georgia, producers from all over the state raise cattle, horses, sheep, goats, hogs and even alligators.
More:Vaughn: How to tell if your plants survived the freeze
Georgia has more than 42,000 farms and almost 10 million acres in production. To put that into perspective, Georgia has about half the total size of South Carolina in some type of farm production. Beef and dairy cattle production represent 17,000 of these farms although dairy farms are dwindling. Cotton producers have a staggering number of 13,000 farms growing Georgia’s No. 1 fiber. Peanut production had 810,000 acres of farm land resulting in 3.3 billion pounds of peanuts. That is a bunch of Jiffy.
We didn’t mess around with our corn production either. Farmers statewide planted 420,000 acres of that yellow kernel producing grass resulting in 70.2 million bushels of harvest.
Don’t forget about all the trees we grow here. Our largest segment of agriculture in the Peach State is forestry with a contribution to the economy of $12.7 billion a year while supporting 70,200 jobs. Those numbers consistently put Georgia as the top forestry state in the United States.
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Agriculture in Georgia is huge and don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t. One out of every seven people work in a field that is agriculture or forestry based. A great bumper sticker I have seen many times declares, “No Farms, No Food.” They might be able to follow that one up with “No Trees, No Houses.” I love Georgia.
On a side note, most of the talk in the office has been about what is going to happen with all the cold damage in plants. I wrote about the mega freeze last week and we are really in a wait and see mode right now about any long-term plant damage. It is fine to go on and take off the damaged branches on Sago palms if you are looking for something to do in the landscape. Just be extra careful because those things hurt when you grab them aggressively.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Campbell Vaughn: Agriculture is the top industry in Georgia
