By Jill Nolin | Editor
You’ve probably heard that agriculture is Georgia’s top industry. If so, you may be surprised to hear that this claim is nowhere close to being true. The Current’s data reporter, Maggie Lee, dug into it and found that cultivation and harvesting make up less than 1% of the state’s total economic output.
Linda Smith, owner of Heritage Hill Farm, inspects and picks blueberries during the summer harvest in Ludowici on June 24, 2026. Blueberries outpace peaches in Georgia. Credit: Justin Taylor/The Current GA/CatchLight/Report for America
AGRICULTURE
By Maggie Lee, The Current
Gov. Brian Kemp says it. Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper says it. Congressman Sanford Bishop has said it, as did his late colleague U.S. Rep. David Scott.
The phrase “Agriculture is Georgia’s No. 1 industry” infiltrates Georgia politics like pollen in the spring air.
Folks wearing business casual evoke sweat-stained hats and dirty boots, putting romanticized rural life at the heart of the state and high on its policy priority list. Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson, an Atlanta native, posted on social media that not only is agriculture the state’s No. 1 industry, it’s “part of who we are.”
An Augusta residence avoided any serious damage from a large tree that was knocked over after Hurricane Helene made landfall in 2024. Stanley Dunlap/Georgia Recorder
CLIMATE
By Ross Williams
It’s been a quiet Atlantic hurricane season so far – the season is nearly halfway through, and there hasn’t been a single hurricane. But a slow start doesn’t guarantee a slow finish, and peak storm season still lies ahead.
2026 has had the slowest start to the hurricane season of any year since 2022, said AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex DaSilva, when the Atlantic basin finished August without a single hurricane.
Absentee ballots are prepared to be mailed at the Wake County Board of Elections on September 17, 2024 in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Allison Joyce/Getty Images)
VOTING
By Ashely Murray
With just over two months until the November midterms, the U.S. Supreme Court gave way Monday for President Donald Trump to have a hand in regulating mail-in ballots nationwide, a voting method he has falsely claimed is rife with corruption since he lost the 2020 presidential election.
In an unsigned emergency docket opinion, the court’s conservative majority wrote the Trump administration is likely to prevail on its argument that 23 Democratic-led states do not have standing to stop his executive order to change how the U.S. Postal Service processes mail-in ballots.
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