Athens, Ga. – From new varieties to new technologies and markets, the University of Georgia’s team of agricultural economists will provide valuable insights into what the new year will hold for the state’s largest industry during the 2015 Georgia Ag Forecast.
The annual seminar series will be held Jan. 14-23 in Gainesville, Cartersville, Bainbridge, Lyons, Tifton and Macon. Registration for the series is open at www.georgiaagforecast.com.
The UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences organizes and hosts the annual seminar series, and nearly 1,000 businesspeople, producers and community leaders attended their local seminars in 2014.
“The main objective of the Ag Forecast is to provide Georgia’s producers and agribusiness leaders with information on where we think the industry is headed in the upcoming year,” said Kent Wolfe, director of the UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development.
“It helps farmers plan what they’re going to plant in the next year, but it’s also good for bankers and other businesspeople who do business with farmers or who will be impacted by the farm economy.”
Economists from the center and the UGA department of agricultural and applied economics will deliver the economic outlook, which will focus on Georgia’s major commodities and how global markets, weather patterns and historical trends will affect them.
In addition to the annual economic outlook, Douglas Britton, program manager for the Agricultural Technology Research Program at Georgia Tech, will speak about research being done in conjunction with UGA and provide insights into the next wave of innovation in agricultural technology-from remote sensing systems to unmanned aerial vehicles.
Sessions will be held Jan. 14 in Gainesville, Jan. 15 in Cartersville, Jan. 16 in Bainbridge, Jan. 21 in Lyons, Jan. 22 in Tifton and Jan. 23 in Macon.
The event is made possible through the Georgia Farm Bureau Land Grand University Lecture Series Endowment and supported by the Georgia Department of Agriculture and the Georgia Agribusiness Council.
For more information on the 2015 Georgia Ag Forecast, see www.georgiaagforecast.com, follow @UGA_CollegeofAg on Twitter or search for #agforecast.