By Clint Thompson
Georgia’s net farm income is likely to decrease 42% compared to 2023. That was the underlying message shared by Gopinath (Gopi) Munisamy, Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Marketing at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, during UGA’s recent Ag Forecast event.
Hurricane Helene’s lingering impact on the state remains significant with the spring planting season just around the corner. The storm last September wreaked havoc on crops in Southeast Georgia; namely cotton, pecans, vegetables, citrus and peanuts. It wiped away a substantial portion of farmers’ working capital.
“We were expecting lower prices for crops in particular, though livestock was doing great. But then we got hit with the hurricane event. We were already on a downward trend for prices from 2022 to 2023,” Munisamy said. “Further decline on prices combined with natural disasters, we are looking at record lows in net cash income for Georgia.
“Fortunately, the federal government has approved aid for us, disaster assistance. I don’t know how much is going to come into Georgia, but we’re really thirsting for working capital. Nationally, the working capital is down 7% approximately. Here with the 38% of our crop revenues wiped out by Hurricane Helene we are going to be in serious trouble for working capital. The sooner the aid is delivered the better it is for us to get started all over again.”
UGA economists estimated that damages from Helene were placed at $5.6 billion, including almost $0.9 billion in production infrastructure losses.