Lessons from the UGA Peanut Tour: An Economic Crisis for Farmers in Georgia?
Are there ramifications for Certified Organic?
A John Deere CP770 cotton picker at BCT Gin in Brooks County. A new CP770 costs approximately $1 million, and a farmer would need to grow about 2000 acres of cotton annually to justify the price of the machine, per Dr. Wesley Porter, Irrigation/Precision Ag Specialist, UGA.
Cotton and peanuts run the farm economy in South Georgia. They are the primary summer rotational crops. Both heat-loving and long-season, cotton is hungry for nutrients, while peanuts are a legume that can scavenge for most of what it needs. They’re almost perfect crops for South Georgia’s sandy soils and ferociously hot summer.
In Georgia, a cotton farmer is also a peanut farmer, and vice versa. The state ranks first in peanut production and second (or third) in cotton production in the U.S. The two crops combine for a farm gate value of over $1.8 billion. In rural South Georgia, most towns have a peanut sheller and cotton gin (or the rusted shell of what’s left of them after being purchased and closed by a competitor). Given their knowledge, their investment in high-dollar machinery tailored for these particular crops, and the infrastructure of handling and marketing surrounding them, South Georgia producers are almost forced to grow cotton and peanuts. But growing either seems to be increasingly less attractive to farmers than getting out of the business altogether.
An unsustainable financial trajectory
At the 2025 Georgia Peanut Tour, hosted by the University of Georgia, researchers and industry professionals shared the stark reality of what farmers are facing in 2025 and beyond. There are a number of recent factors affecting the price of cotton and peanuts, but, first, it should be said that the longer trend is disconcerting. According to Don Koehler, Executive Director of the Georgia Peanut Commission, peanut prices have been above breakeven in only five of the last 30 years, while cotton prices have been profitable in only four years over the same time period.
“Other than government payments, we’re not sustainable growing peanuts,” Koehler said, adding he had spoken with several farmers who had no desire to plant a cash crop in 2026.
Peanuts have some thorny issues working against them. The industry is concerned with waning global demand, partly resulting from healthier habits and less snacking, which is also partly attributed to the widening use of GLP-1 medications. But peanuts also have a cotton problem, and the price of cotton is threatening the economy across South Georgia.
At the beginning of the 2025 growing season, the University of Georgia estimated that a farmer would need to get $.86/lb. for irrigated cotton — not counting land and management costs — to breakeven. The market price for cotton in the Southeast hovered around $.64/lb. through September 2025, with no hope of breaking out.
Don Shurley, retired cotton economist with UGA, has this explanation for depressed cotton prices:
“First of all, World demand/Use has yet to fully recover from where it was prior to the major consumer downturn caused by the COVID pandemic. Second, cotton has lost considerable market share to man-made fibers. Third, the U.S. has lost a portion of its market share of exports to foreign textile mills to increased production and competition from Brazil. Typically, about 80% of US production is exported.”
How bad is the price of cotton? The answer might be so bad that it defies Georgia farmers’ attempts to cut supply. Per Shurley, “cotton acreage is down 24 percent this year — the lowest acreage since 1993.” Across the U.S., cotton farmers have planted 17 percent fewer acres.
Furthermore, yield estimates for cotton farmers have been declining in the second half of the year after the sudden arrival of an invasive pest, the cotton jassid (Amrasca biguttula), which can cause 50 percent crop loss in severe infestations. If that’s not enough, since mid-August, most of Georgia has been suffering through a flash drought, with many locations having received little or no rain in a month.
Inside of the cotton gin at BCT.
A prolonged decrease in cotton production could bring down the entire industry, as cotton processors are unable to pay their bills. BCT Gin boasts a state-of-the-art facility in Quitman. With recent upgrades to the gin machinery, Jessica Goodman, Executive Office Manager at BCT, says that the company’s goal is to handle 200,000 bales annually at its Quitman location. Two years ago, they received 135,000. Last year it was 75,000. In September 2025, they were hoping to get 60,000. Cotton farmers, handlers, and everyone in the industry worry that if cotton prices eventually rebound, there may be no place to take it.
Cotton acres Down, Peanuts acres up (too far up)
With such unattractive prospects for cotton, farmers have been looking to other summer cash crops. According to UGA data, the value of soybeans in Georgia rose from $66.8 million to $104.6 million from 2018 to 2023. Over that same period, the value of corn rose almost 180 percent to over $514 million, with farmers adding about 100,000 acres. But peanuts have felt the biggest impact from cotton’s fall. The Georgia Peanut Commission’s Koehler says that are over 300,000 more acres in peanuts since 2015. (about 910,000 acres total, managed by fewer and fewer farmers).
Of course, the increased production of peanuts depresses peanut prices by oversupplying the market. In 2025, Georgia farmers planted a record 910,000 acres. Even with the late season drought, 2025 is likely to be a record peanut crop. If farmers can fetch $.25-$.26/lb. for peanuts, then they may still be profitable but only by $100/acre or less, before land and management costs (University of Georgia). But with a bumper crop expected, buyers are not rushing to the table. Per Tyron Spearman of Southeast AgNet, farmers are worried that prices for uncontracted peanuts “may continue to go down, down, down.” After consumption and exports, University of Florida Extension Agent Kevin Athearn projects there will be 2.1 billion pounds of unused peanuts in U.S. warehouses by 2026.
The other factor hurting peanut prices is a lack of processing capacity and storage, which will force sales in unfavorable marketing conditions. Georgia farmers with dryland peanuts started digging in September, which is relatively early, trying to salvage as much of the crop they could. These early peanuts went into infrastructure that was still rebuilding from the $5.5 billion in agricultural and timber losses caused by Hurricane Helene in 2024.
The increase in peanut acreage also implies a agronomic problems. Peanuts ideally should be grown in rotation of other crops — including cotton — for three to five years: with the idea that the longer a piece of ground can go without growing the same crop, the fewer crop-specific diseases and pests it will harbor. The different crops will also help balance fertility, weed pressures, and soil health. But without cotton as viable alternative, Dr. Scott Monfort, head Extension Peanut Agronomist at UGA, says that 45 percent of peanut farmers in Georgia are moving to one year rotations and, in some cases, planting peanuts after peanuts each year. Only 38 percent are doing deep tillage per UGA recommendations.
Monfort points to the financial situation of cotton as the reason for farmers skimping on good agronomic practices and inputs. Farmers, he says, could not get the working capital they needed to grow the peanut crop with the proper management plan due to lenders’ worries about cotton prices. Those same farmers also skipped on treating the cotton jassid because they didn’t have the extra money from the bank. Remember: Anyone in Georgia who grows peanuts also grows cotton, almost always in the same year.
The Dire outlook for 2026
By early 2026, farmers can look forward to some relief through government commodity payments and crop insurance. The USDA has already rolled out the Emergency Commodity Assistance Program and the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program. The Trump Administration is now trying to craft adhoc payments to farmers who are affected by low prices due to international trade conflicts (i.e. China). It remains to be seen how crops will benefit outside of soybeans. China is the top buyer of U.S. soybeans annually, but reportedly the country has not purchased as single bushel of the U.S. 2025 crop.
Indexes of Prices Paid by U.S. Farmers, Monthly Average, January 2020 to March 2025 (Year 2011 = 100). Data source: USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Farm Input Costs Rise and Commodity Crop Prices Fall.
Government payments may also not be the answer they appear to be. Most agricultural economist agree these dollars directly pay farmers’ debts to input and machinery suppliers, which supports already elevated prices. Over the past five years, “the index of prices paid [by farmers] has been higher than the index of prices received, and that gap has widened since 2023” (Farm Input Costs Rise and Commodity Crop Prices Fall). Fertilizer prices are up more than 63 percent since 2020, although the last two years have seen some moderation. The cost of farm machinery and supplies and repairs is a topic for another day.
But what are Georgia farmers going to plant in 2026? Cotton prices don’t seem poised to jump. Either in total production or yield — peanuts, corn, and soybeans are all projected to hit records this year. Who wants to grow more of an oversupplied crop when buyers of these commodities can look to Brazil, the world’s largest soybean producer, and Argentina to fill their needs?
A Georgia without cotton
The disappearance of cotton from Georgia is such an apocalyptic idea that it seems impossible to imagine. Don Shurley writes, “We need cotton to come back. There is no replacement for cotton in the landscape of Georgia agriculture.” The former cotton economist’s sentiment is understandable, and there truly is no replacement for an industry that supports 53,000 jobs and contributes over $3 billion to the state economy. But just because something cannot be replaced does not mean it can survive.
There are two options that could sustain cotton in Georgia, at least in the near term. One, a raft of government programs could support producers until there were some fundamental changes in the cotton market. How much money would such an intervention require and for how long are unanswerable — and unappealing — questions at the moment. Two, cotton farmers could receive a boost from crop failures elsewhere in the world. In the grim zero-sum game of agriculture, where one farmer’s problems lead to another’s benefits, a monsoon season that never materializes in India or a relentless drought that grips in West Texas, for example, would be a boon for Georgia. Whatever calamity might befall some group of farmers around the world, it probably would not affect the cotton market until late 2026 or early 2027, and there would still be no incentive to plant cotton next year.
Maybe it is too early to make grave prognostications about cotton — maybe just by a year. If 2026 market and credit situations are as bad as they have been this year, then cotton’s future will soon be clear. And we will be talking about a rapidly decreasing footprint for the industry, as farmers switch to another crop or quit altogether.
The Georgia Organic Peanut Association’s participation in the Georgia Peanut Tour was supported by the USDA Southeast Transition to Organic Partnership Program.
