Tag: agriculture
Georgia’s largest industry faces a mental health crisis
Agriculture is the state’s largest industry, contributing more than 350,000 jobs and more than $74 billion to Georgia’s economy. With high risks and, often, thin profit margins for family-owned farms, social isolation, the vagaries of weather, and the burden of a multigenerational family legacy, the work can wreak havoc on mental health.
Georgia’s 2022 midterm election ballot questions, explained
Curious about those ballot questions this midterm? Here’s what they mean, from constitutional amendments to the City of Atlanta special referendum.
Georgia pecan farmers have thrived for a century. After Hurricane Michael, they’re unsure if they’ll survive another generation.
After Hurricane Matthew in 2016, Hurricane Irma in 2017, and Hurricane Michael in 2018, Georgia's pecan farming industry is suffering. Georgia lost a sixth of its total pecan trees from Hurricane Michael and generations of farmers lost their crops—giving them a long road to recovery. Combined with increasing tariffs, many farmers are uncertain about their future.
Atlanta Harvest hopes to create farms inside the perimeter
Created by Georgia Tech alumnus Corbin Klett and Emory University alumnus Bethaney Herrington, Atlanta Harvest is an organization focused on increasing consumer access to local, organic produce in the metro Atlanta area. To support local agriculture and economy, they are raising money to build farms in impoverished neighborhoods inside the perimeter.
Fruit of Labor
The Mexicans—thirty-two of them—wait for the pickup truck. They are dressed, almost to a man, in dirty jeans, boots, long sleeves, and baseball caps. Some wear bandannas to shield their necks and ears from legions of gnats. The rising late-summer sun is starting to cut through the morning mist that clings to the orchards and fallow pastures of Peach County like a thin coat of fuzz.
Agriculture meets tourism in Southwest Georgia
Brooke Hatfield’s route took her past Sweet Grass Dairy and White Oak Pastures, but the southwest region is home to some of Georgia’s top-producing counties.
Atlanta loves CSAs
Community Supported
Agriculture (CSA) is the gawky term for a feel-good undertaking: Members purchase a subscription “share” in a farm, and then at weekly pickup locations they receive boxes—or bags, or baskets—of just-harvested produce and sometimes other staples, including eggs, cheese, or meat.