ATLANTA — What is the most valuable fruit crop produced in the Peach State?
You may want to pause a second before answering. Ready? It’s the blueberry.
Georgia is famous as a major producer of the peach, the fuzzy, succulent fruit whose image appears on state license plates, “welcome to Georgia” billboards and on road signs.
In a little-noticed development, the value of blueberry production in Georgia beat the peach crop in 2005 — and the gap has grown even bigger since then, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture surveys.
Blueberries generated an estimated $94 million for Georgia growers in 2012, meaning the blueberry crop was more than three times as valuable as the nearly $30 million peach crop.
“It’s surprising around the country how many people don’t realize Georgia grows blueberries,” said Joe Cornelius, chairman of the Georgia Blueberry Commission and a farmer who grows about 170 acres of the crop.
Georgia is not the biggest U.S. peach producer, and is regularly beaten by California and neighboring South Carolina. Its reputation for peaches was always part reality and part marketing. The Associated Press
