UGA Cooperative Extension is a collaboration between UGA CAES and UGA FACS.
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Our Impact
Local leaders in Baker County gave UGA Cooperative Extension a challenge to improve the economic downturn that is common in most rural south Georgia counties. For the past four years, Baker County Extension personnel have worked with county leaders and state and federal agencies to secure development grants to help the agricultural community help itself. More than $1 million in development grants have been secured and four economic development projects are ongoing. Cooperative efforts lead to receiving the first Cooperative Development Center Grant for the state of Georgia in 2003 for about $190,000. The RC&D and the UGA Center for Agricultural Business and Economic Development have received this grant for four consecutive years. Six farmers bought a 4,000-ton peanut warehouse and received $200,000 a year from the farm program to handle and store their own peanuts. Another group of Baker and Mitchell County farmers received a $25,000 grant to build a cotton gin to gin 18,000 bales of cotton per year. A group of farmers received a $500,000 USDA grant to develop a poultry litter compost cooperative. Currently another group of farmers in Baker County received a $25,000 grant to build a sweet corn cooperative for 1,000 acres of sweet corn. This cooperation among government agencies has encouraged rural communities to develop cooperatives throughout Georgia and increase the net farm income in their local community.
