Survey aims to understand the financial wellbeing of Georgia farmers

(GPB) – Georgia researchers are hoping to learn more about the financial well being of the state’s farmers, who drive Georgia’s largest economic sector.

The Farm Profitability Survey from the University of Georgia’s School of Public Health, the Georgia Farm Bureau and the Georgia Farm Foundation includes questions about operating margins, cash flow, and debt, among others, because Georgia farmers have reported financial stress as a top concern, said researcher Stephanie Basey, whose done previous farmer wellbeing studies.

“We have this rare opportunity to capture their experience,” Basey said.

Questions are informed by what farmers themselves have identified as top priorities, said Whitney Sangster with the Georgia Foundation for Agriculture, the charitable arm of the Georgia Farm Bureau.

“We really want the hard data because we can sit here and say farmers are struggling, they’re suffering, but we don’t have the hard data to back that up,” Sangster said.

Nationwide, input costs for crops and commodities have risen sharply. That’s something Matt Berry, who runs a cattle farm in South Georgia’s Sumter County, has experienced firsthand.

Berry’s family-owned farm is facing higher input costs than ever before, he said. Fuel, feed and fertilizer costs are too much to make up for in product sales.

“We can make some of the highest yields you’ve ever seen,” Berry said. “And if our input costs are not in line, we still come up on the bottom end of a loss.”

And payments from the federal Farmer Bridge Assistance Program only scrape the surface of what’s needed, Berry said. He’s taken up hay harvesting to help make up for those losses.

Getting data from the Profitability survey goes further than just helping researchers, Berry said. It has the potential to better connect farmers in his community and elsewhere.

“When we hear this information, we realize that we’re not the only one feeling what we feel, we’re not only one facing what we face,” he said.

With the vast majority, over 80%, of Georgia farms run by individuals and families, one question Basey has is about the sustainability of generational farming.

“If farms are struggling right now, do farmers even want to pass their farms off to their families?” she said.

There’s no one answer to protecting family farms. But Basey said any level of understanding researchers can get on predicting profitability for Georgia’s agricultural operations can help inform policy moving forward.

Farmers and producers statewide have until July 31 to take the online, anonymous survey.