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Southern Hub For Crop Diversity Keeps Fresh Product On Shelves Nearly Year-Round
GEORGIA GROWN PRODUCE
Bounty of produce supplies retailers during spring, summer and fall.
BY DOUG OHLEMEIER
PHOTO COURTESY OF GROWER NETWORK
Widely known as the Peach State, Georgia marketing for the Atlanta-based Georgia Department of Agriculture
(GDA). “Other states may grow more peaches, onions or tree nuts, but no other state has our highly desirable produce such as Georgia peaches, Vidalia onions or Georgia pecans. That is why Georgia is Nature’s Favorite State.”
Following only California and Florida, Georgia is ranked third in overall fresh market and processing vegetable plantings, harvesting, production and value of production, according to the U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture.
The state’s benefit is its dirt. “It’s our diversity of soil types,” says Will McGehee, partner with Genuine Georgia Group, which grows and markets peaches, pecans and apples from Fort Valley, GA. “Everything starts with the dirt. When we go from the North Georgia mountains through the Piedmont, where we are in the middle of
produces a bounty of fruits and vegetables that far exceed the tasty peaches and Vidalia sweet onions.
Georgia grows more than 40 items that are shipped to buyers throughout the Northeast, the South and the
Midwest, to Texas and often to the West Coast.
Those items include well-known Southern vegetables such as bell
peppers, cucumbers, squash and green beans, but also pecans, water- melon, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, and tree fruit such as apples, pears, plums and now, citrus.
“Georgia provides the perfect blend of temperate weather, diverse soil types and technical knowledge to produce the highest-quality produce in the world,” says Matthew Kulinski, deputy director of
72 / JUNE 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS