By Clint Thompson
Georgia’s cotton industry experienced its lowest planted acres in more than 30 years with last year’s crop. Industry experts, like Camp Hand, University of Georgia (UGA) Extension cotton agronomist, are adamant that needs to change this year.
Hand spoke at the Georgia Cotton Commission (GCC) annual meeting on Wednesday, Jan. 28.
“I don’t want to hear how it doesn’t make sense to plant cotton. It doesn’t make much sense to plant anything to be honest with you,” Hand said. “We’ve got to pick something that we’ve got the equipment to handle, the infrastructure to deal with. We do not have the infrastructure to handle the amount of corn we planted last year. We’ve got a surplus on peanuts. Peanut prices are not expected to be extremely high, like they have been the last couple of years.
“People have cotton equipment. We have gins. We have got to plant it whether people like it or not.”
2025 Acres
There were approximately 825,000 harvested acres in 2025 amid low prices. Hand said it was about a 20% to 30% drop from normal planted acres.
“It’s the lowest it’s been since 1993. You start thinking about what was going on in 1993; that was pre-transgenics. We were still working on boll weevil eradication. There’s a lot of things that happened and that kind of swung the pendulum to where cotton was king again in Georgia,” Hand said. “Those two things happened. We started planting cotton and we hadn’t dipped below a million planted acres since 1993 until 2025.”
One positive from last year’s crop was how well production went for those growers who followed through with planting. Hand said they made the second-best crop ever which balanced out the low acreage.
“A lot of gins we talked to, they talked about acres were down, but we ginned more. It all kind of worked out,” Hand said. “The quality’s been good. Yields have been really good. We need to swing the acres back in the right direction. Last year was the first time since 1993 that peanut acres surpassed cotton. It’s time to start getting some of that stuff back in order.
“I think acreage will go up because I don’t think we can keep planting that amount of peanuts and you’ve got to rotate to something. Cotton is just the best option.”