New Farmers Should Consider Investing in More Than One Crop

By Samuel Rivers

Earlier this week, we published an article about Georgia’s spike in farm bankruptcies. For that article, I spoke with William Tyson, a Bulloch County agriculture and natural resources agent, to learn about some of the causes of these bankruptcies. Briefly, he and I spoke about how farmers diversifying their crops might help in the future, though with the acknowledgement that farmers cannot simply switch to a different crop with the investments that they made the instant something goes wrong.

After this exchange, it has become my opinion that farmers, especially new farmers that have not yet made any significant investments, heavily consider growing several types of crops that require less investment than those such as peanuts or cotton. Especially crops that do not require overly-specialized equipment for gathering, as this could allow you to invest in less expensive equipment that might be used for multiple tasks.

Part of the reason that farms are going bankrupt is because those who invest into one crop rely on that one crop’s price remaining stable, which is often understandable given the cost of investing into some of them. This becomes a problem when that crop’s value becomes unstable, such as the value of cotton has during the ongoing trade war with China.

I realize that this advice is meaningless for those who already intend to invest (or have already invested) in expensive crops such as cotton or peanuts; I’m sure you know what you’re doing better than I do. I also understand that growing more than one type of crop is not always an option, and that doing so can be a risky endeavor.

But for those who are still early on in deciding what crops they should focus on growing and are simply looking for some thoughts on it, I highly suggest that you try for various crops with a lower investment cost. Because as we have seen with China, during hurricanes, and periods of economic downturn, no single crop is guaranteed to maintain its current value, and that can be your downfall if it’s all you have. But if you have other crops that you can fall back on should one become unstable in value, the damage done can be mitigated, both for you and the communities that your crops may be supporting.