Reviewed August 2026 against USDA NASS, USDA ERS and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification.

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Georgia’s Percentage of Workforce in Agriculture: Four Defensible Numbers

There is no single percentage of Georgia’s workforce in agriculture, and that is why every source you find gives you a different one. The University of Georgia’s Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development counts 381,200 jobs across food, fiber and forestry and their supply chains for 2023 — the figure Georgia Farm Bureau translates as “about one in seven Georgians.” The 2022 Census of Agriculture counts 67,082 producers and 44,537 hired farm workers actually on Georgia farms — under 1% of state employment. Both are correct. They measure different things, and this page shows you which one belongs in your sentence.

The short answer: four percentages, side by side

Georgia’s total employment base sits a little above five million. The exact figure moves monthly and you should pull it fresh from the Georgia Department of Labor’s current labor force data rather than trusting any number printed on a blog. Divide each count below by that denominator and you get four legitimate answers to the same question.

If a homework question, grant application or news story asks for “Georgia’s agriculture workforce percentage,” the honest answer is about 7.5% on the broad supply-chain definition and about 1% on the on-farm definition — and you should say which you used. The searches that bring people here often specify 2023; that year maps to the UGA figure of 381,200 jobs and $91.4 billion in output against a state economy of roughly $1.4 trillion, published by Georgia Farm Bureau.

Why “one in seven” and “under 1%” are both true

The gap is definitional, not a dispute over facts. UGA’s input-output model counts the poultry processing plant in Gainesville, the trucking firm hauling pecans out of Albany, the pulp mill in Savannah and the retail and food-service jobs that depend on them. USDA’s Economic Research Service applies the same logic nationally: agriculture, food and related industries contributed 5.5% of U.S. GDP in 2023 ($1.537 trillion), but farm output alone was 0.8% ($222.3 billion), per the ERS Ag and Food Sectors and the Economy series. A roughly seven-to-one ratio between the wide and narrow measures is normal.

There is a second complication specific to farming: many producers are not full-time. Of Georgia’s 67,082 producers in the 2022 Census, 26,661 worked off the farm 200 days or more — effectively a full working year in another job — while 25,197 farmed exclusively. Any percentage that treats all 67,082 as agricultural employment overstates the labor actually supplied to farms.

That off-farm share is the honest answer to “how does agriculture affect Georgia’s workforce.” For most Georgia producers, farming is one of two incomes. The workforce effect runs through wages paid to hired and seasonal workers, through the 56,945 forest-industry jobs, and through downstream processing — not primarily through full-time farm proprietors.

How agriculture affects Georgia’s workforce: the seasonal spike

Annual averages hide what makes Georgia distinctive. Vidalia onions, blueberries, peaches and Georgia’s vegetable acreage all demand large crews inside short windows, and the state fills those windows with the federal H-2A temporary agricultural visa programme. In fiscal year 2023, Georgia employers had 37,536 H-2A positions certified — third in the country behind Florida’s 51,987 and California’s 40,758, per the USDA ERS state-level H-2A series.

Set that against 44,537 hired farm workers counted by the Census: certified H-2A positions equal roughly 84% of Georgia’s entire hired farm workforce. Positions certified are not the same as workers who arrive, and one worker can fill more than one certified position across a season — but the ratio is the clearest single indicator of how seasonal Georgia’s farm labor demand is.

Nationally the programme has grown from just over 48,000 positions certified in FY2005 to around 385,000 in FY2024, with 315,500 visas issued in FY2024, according to USDA ERS Farm Labor. That growth is the mechanism by which immigration policy translates directly into Georgia harvest capacity. If you want to know whether Georgia’s seasonal labor supply is tightening in any given quarter, the H-2A certification count is the leading indicator, published quarterly by the Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification.

The wage floor that sets Georgia’s farm labor bill

Any Georgia employer using H-2A must pay at least the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), which also becomes the effective floor for domestic workers doing the same job on that farm. The DOL wage table lists Georgia at $16.08 per hour, alongside Florida at $16.23, North Carolina at $16.16, Washington at $19.82 and California at $19.97 — all carrying an effective date of December 2024, with several states including Georgia subject to a delayed effective date arising from federal litigation. Rates are reset annually, so pull the live figure from the DOL Adverse Effect Wage Rates table before budgeting.

For context on the wider market, ERS reported 2024 U.S. averages of $17.23 per hour for farm, ranch and aquacultural workers, $19.07 for agricultural equipment operators, $26.83 for supervisors and $30.70 for managers. Georgia’s AEWR therefore sits below the national field-worker average — one reason the state’s fruit, vegetable and nursery operations have leaned on the programme so heavily. Across southern states, hired labor ranks third among production expenses and reaches 42% of costs for greenhouse and nursery operations and 40% for fruit and tree nut farms, per Southern Ag Today (18 August 2025).

Seasonal labor cost calculator

Enter your own acreage, hours and wage rate to see what a season of hired labor costs your operation and how much of it is non-wage overhead.

Direction of travel: 2017 to 2022

Between the two most recent Censuses of Agriculture, Georgia lost 3,175 farms — from 42,439 in 2017 to 39,264 in 2022 — while farmland held almost flat at 9.939 million acres against 9.953 million. Average farm size rose from 235 to 253 acres. Producers slipped from 68,087 to 67,082. The pattern is consolidation, not abandonment: fewer, larger operations working the same ground, with most of the decline in farms under 180 acres.

Two figures explain why succession dominates Georgia workforce planning: the average Georgia farmer is 59 years old, and only 5,031 producers are under 35. Against that, 23,085 producers (34.4%) qualify as beginning farmers with ten or fewer years' experience — seventh highest share in the country, working 14,543 farms across 2.46 million acres. Georgia is replacing operators, but slowly, and the replacements start with less capital.

The most current annual estimate is separate from the Census. The USDA NASS Georgia State Agriculture Overview, showing 2025 survey data as of August 2026, puts Georgia at 38,000 farms on 9.9 million acres, averaging 261 acres. Peanuts led production value at $870.9 million, ahead of upland cotton at $548.6 million and corn for grain at $458.2 million.

Georgia against neighbouring states

Hired farm labor counts from the 2022 Census put Georgia's 44,537 workers third in the South behind Texas (120,468) and North Carolina (55,536), ahead of Kentucky (40,464). Every southern state recorded a decline against 2017; North Carolina fell 15.6%, Kentucky 23.2% and Florida the least at 4.9%. Georgia's comparatively strong H-2A position is what has cushioned it.

Verify it yourself: a five-step method

Every number above will age. This sequence will not, and it produces a defensible figure in any year:

1. Decide your numerator definition first. On-farm workers only, or the whole food-and-fiber chain? Write it down before you look up anything.
2. Pull the numerator. For on-farm counts, use the USDA NASS Census of Agriculture Georgia tables, Table 7 for hired labor and Table 1 for farm counts. For the wide definition, use UGA CAED's annual Ag Snapshots.
3. Pull the denominator for the same period. Georgia DOL publishes labor force and nonfarm employment monthly. Do not mix a 2022 numerator with a current-month denominator without saying so.
4. Add the seasonal layer. Check H-2A certifications for the fiscal year in the DOL Office of Foreign Labor Certification quarterly statistics, and the wage floor in the AEWR table.
5. State both figures. Publish the on-farm percentage and the supply-chain percentage together, each labelled with its source and year. That is what makes the claim survive review.

The USDA ERS State Fact Sheets, last updated 11 March 2025 with 2023 export data, is the quickest cross-check when you need Georgia's farm and nonfarm figures on one screen.

Measuring the acres behind the labor

Labor decisions in Georgia are acreage decisions. When 253-acre average farms are hiring crews against a $16.08 floor, knowing which blocks need scouting this week — and which do not — changes the hours you buy. Satellite monitoring is how growers narrow that. Farmonaut's web and mobile tools let Georgia operators track crop and soil health across fields remotely and prioritise crews by condition rather than by rotation.

For a longer view of how the state's sector reached this point, see our companion piece on Georgia agriculture in the 21st century. Operations reporting on emissions can use the Farmonaut Carbon Footprinting product page, while multi-site managers coordinating crews across counties can review Farmonaut Fleet Management Solutions and Farmonaut Large Scale Farm Management.

Developers building Georgia-specific labor or yield models can pull imagery directly through the Farmonaut satellite data API, documented in the API Developer Documentation. Buyers auditing peanut, pecan or produce supply chains can use Farmonaut's product traceability features, and equipment planners may find our roundup of agricultural equipment innovations useful when weighing mechanisation against crew size.

FAQs

What percentage of Georgia's workforce is in agriculture?

Roughly 7.5% on the broad definition — 381,200 jobs across food, fiber, forestry and their supply chains (UGA CAED, 2023 data) — and under 1% on the on-farm definition, based on 44,537 hired farm workers in the 2022 Census of Agriculture. Divide by Georgia's current employment total from Georgia DOL to refresh either figure.

Is "one in seven Georgians works in agriculture" accurate?

It is Georgia Farm Bureau's phrasing of the UGA supply-chain count, and it includes processing, distribution and forestry jobs, not just farm work. Check the ratio against Georgia's own employment base before repeating it; 381,200 against an employment total above five million is closer to one in thirteen. State which denominator you used.

What was Georgia's agriculture workforce percentage in 2023?

The 2023 reference year corresponds to UGA CAED's figures of $91.4 billion in output and 381,200 jobs against a Georgia economy of about $1.4 trillion. There is no separate on-farm count for 2023; the nearest is the 2022 Census of Agriculture, with the next full count due in the 2027 Census.

How does agriculture affect Georgia's workforce?

Through three channels. Downstream processing and forestry employ far more people than farms do. Seasonal demand is met largely through H-2A, with 37,536 positions certified in FY2023. And most producers hold second jobs — 26,661 of 67,082 worked off-farm 200 days or more in 2022 — so farm income supplements rather than replaces other employment across rural counties.

How many farms and producers does Georgia have?

39,264 farms and 67,082 producers in the 2022 Census, on 9.939 million acres averaging 253 acres. The NASS annual survey showing 2025 data lists 38,000 farms on 9.9 million acres averaging 261 acres.

Georgia's agricultural workforce is smaller on the farm and larger off it than either headline suggests. Carry both numbers, label each with its source and vintage, and refresh them on the cycles above — annually for UGA and DOL wage data, quarterly for H-2A, and every five years for the Census. That discipline is what keeps the claim standing after the figures move.