Georgia farmers report lower crop yields this harvest season

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) — Farmers in Georgia are seeing lower yields at harvest time this year because of drought, weather, and disease.Tyron Spearman with the National Peanut Buying Points Association said the growing season has been difficult.“Well, this has been a tough growing year. The weather has not cooperated all the time. We get a good rain in some areas and we get a drought in some areas. So the crop is kind of mixed up into good, bad, and ugly,” Spearman said.Peanut acreage down from last yearThe University of Georgia College of Agricultural Environmental Sciences found that Georgia planted approximately 670,000 acres of peanuts this year. That’s down from about 930,000 acres planted last year.[2026 Profitability Forecasts of Georgia’s Row Crop Sector]Dr. Scott Monfort, a peanut agronomist at UGA Extension, said weather is one of the main contributors to underproduction.“All of these weather events cause the peanut crop not to perform at the level that it normally does in the S