In Georgia, beef is up, cotton is down and poultry is still on top

ATHENS — Folks in Miller County are happy to be working for peanuts, while Dooly County residents are in high cotton, according to an annual report released by the University of Georgia.

Miller County was the leading county in the farm gate value of its peanut production, $33.4 million. Dooly County was the top producer of cotton at $48.2 million. Neither, however, came close to the $155 in vegetable production that Colquitt County has.

Those were some of the numbers found in UGA’s Farm Gate Value Report for 2014, which showed that agriculture again is the state’s biggest industry at a value of $14.1 billion — an increase of $484 million from 2013.

The report is one of the most comprehensive annual studies of its kind. Eighty-six Georgia commodities are evaluated and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension agents, who work closely with farmers in every county, collect data that other surveys can’t, said Kent Wolfe, director of the UGA Center for Agribusiness & Economic Development and an ag economist with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

“It’s an on the ground survey of what Georgia farmers are growing,” he said. “It’s really the only study of its depth in the nation. We collect more data than the federal agencies and on more commodities than they are able to survey.”

The survey looks at both large and small segments of the state’s ag economy. It notes, for instance, that beef cattle production was worth $1.089 billion in 2014, while black-eyed peas were valued at $5 million.

“We can look at the economic impact of those commodities on the state and county level,” Wolfe said. “Besides providing agriculture’s economic contribution, it provides a picture of how many people are involved in agriculture across the state and in the county the impact that their businesses have.”

The information available on emerging and niche commodities separates the Farm Value Report from others, UGA officials say.

“It gives Georgia a unique tool that other states don’t have,” Wolfe said.

The report found that all commodity groups except row and forage crops increased in value from 2013 to 2014, as did “Other Income.”

Livestock and Aquaculture value increased by $600.8 million, up 35.77 percent; Poultry and Eggs by $85.75 million, 1.58 percent; Forestry by $110.6 million, 18.24 percent; Ornamental Horticulture by $45.6 million, 8.11 percent; Fruits and Nuts by $43.26 million, 5.93 percent; Vegetables by $20.1 million, 2.02 percent, and Agriculture and Nature based tourism by $13.8 million, 9.7 percent. The Other Income group was up by $13.8 million, or 0.81 percent.

The Row and Forage crops group, which generated $2.45 billion in 2014, experienced a decrease of $426.3 million from 2013, or 14.82 percent. Cotton was still the top row crop, but it continued its downward trend, decreasing by $245.1 million, or 20.26 percent.

Broilers continued as the the commodity with the largest farm gate value at $5.52 billion, up 1.58 percent from 2013. As a portion of Georgia’s entire farm gate value, however, broilers were down some at 32.28 percent, below 2013’s share of 32.59 percent.

Georgia’s still known across the nation as the Peach State, and in 2014, the report found, the farm gate value of the crop was $53.5 million. Appropriately, Peach County was the top producer with a value of $12.375 million on 2,500 acres.

Closer to home, pecans generated $313.3 million, just over 40 percent of all Fruits & Nuts farm gate value. Despite having almost 2,000 fewer acres than Dougherty County, Mitchell County was the No. 1 pecan county at $38.3 million produced on 14,651 acres. Dougherty County was No. 2 at $36.99 million on 16,439 acres. Lee County came in fourth with $18 million from 10, 500 acres.

Miller County produced its leading $33.4 million in peanuts on 26,700 acres, but Mitchell County, which ranked No. 3 at $30.7 million, had the most planted acreage at 29,251 acres. The top producing counties in term of farm gate value were, in order, Miller, Decatur, Mitchell, Early, Worth, Seminole, Bulloch, Baker, Calhoun and Colquitt. Peanuts comprised 22.99 percent of all Row & Forage value.

Cotton, at $964.68 million, was responsible for 39.33 percent of Row and Forage farm gate value. Worth County, at $48.1 million was a close second to state-leader Dooly. Other Southwest Georgia counties in the top 10 were No. 3 Mitchell, No. 4 Colquitt, No. 8 Miller, No. 9 Decatur and No. 10 Crisp.

The report can be viewed or printed at the center’s website.