![]() By 1860 there were 68,000 farms in the state, and they produced 700,000 bales of cotton. Combined with the accelerating British industrial revolution, the cotton gin enabled the expansion of cotton across the state. Short-staple cotton that could grow across Georgia but was limited by the difficulty of removing its green seeds now became profitable through the ginning process. Initially, cotton was limited to Georgia’s sea islands, but the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793 near Savannah revolutionized the cotton industry. “King Cotton”Ĭotton and tobacco became the major crops in Georgia after American independence because the loss of British markets and subsidies undercut other lucrative crops like indigo. While small farms dominated Georgia on the eve of the American Revolution (1775–83), much of the colony’s most profitable crops were produced by enslaved African laborers on expanding plantations. The colony’s agriculture soon gravitated toward a plantation system resembling neighboring South Carolina, producing cash crops like rice, indigo, and sometimes cotton. After tremendous pressure, the Trustees ended the ban on slavery in 1750, and royal authorities eased limits on land ownership when taking over Georgia the following year. Yet rice required a lot of land and labor, both of which were in short supply given Trustee policies that prohibited slavery and required small landholdings. More lucrative was rice cultivation, which was first pioneered in the neighboring South Carolina Lowcountry. While silk production increased to nearly a ton by 1767, it required huge subsidies by the British government and was frequently unprofitable. Mulberry trees, to feed silkworms, fared better, and Georgia’s small silk industry produced enough for Queen Caroline of England to wear a dress made of Georgia silk for her fifty-second birthday in 1735. Attempts to produce wine and olives largely failed, and the orange trees that bordered the crosswalks of the garden suffered from springtime frosts. These early experiments yielded mixed results. Employing botanist Hugh Anderson to collect seeds, drugs, and dyestuff from other countries with similar latitudes, the Trustee Garden served as an early agricultural experiment station to research what could be grown in Georgia. With the colonists learning successful food cultivation from the Yamacraw, the Trustees of the colony also established an experimental garden of ten acres in Savannah to find profitable agricultural exports. ![]() Oglethorpe sought the advice and counsel of Tomochichi, leader of the Yamacraw people, who were skilled in hunting, fishing, and cultivating maize (corn), beans, pumpkins, melons, and fruits of several kinds. Oglethorpe led the first settlement of English colonists at Savannah in 1733, one of their goals was to find crops that could be profitably grown and exported to England. Georgia’s agricultural statistics are reported annually by county and commodity in the Georgia Farm Gate Value Report, compiled by Georgia’s Cooperative Extension Service county agents. Miscellaneous livestock such as meat goats and sheep, catfish, trout (aquaculture), and honeybees are also produced.ĭairy Cows Photograph by Equipe Integrada Other crops produced in Georgia include apples, berries, cabbage, corn, cottonseed, cucumbers, grapes, hay, oats, onions, peaches, rye, sorghum grain, soybeans, tobacco, tomatoes, vegetables, and wheat, as well as ornamentals, turf grass, and other nursery and greenhouse commodities. Beef cattle, dairy cows, and hogs are produced on farms throughout the state. In addition to producing the most broilers (chickens intended for consumption), Georgia produces the majority of the nation’s peanuts and is one of the highest producing states for cotton, pecans, and watermelons. Georgia’s top products include the poultry and egg industry, which accounted for a third of Georgia’s farm commodities, with three out of four counties involved in poultry and egg production. In 2019 Georgia had more than 42,000 individual farms, and the state’s farmers sold more than $9.5 billion worth of agricultural products. Georgia has 9.9 million acres of land devoted to farms, with an average farm size of 235 acres. The food and fiber sector is very diversified and includes the production and processing of a wide range of commodities.
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