Our Impact
Making A Difference in Our County
University of Georgia Cooperative Extension is working hard for its constituents. The following are examples of Extension’s impact in the county over the past year.
4-H’ers Participate in Project Achievement
Project Achievement is designed to teach 4-H’ers important life skills such as public speaking, organization, time management, sportsmanship and self-confidence. 4-H’ers develop both oral and written communications skills while becoming knowledgeable in their topic of interest. Beginning in 5th grade club meetings, Baker County 4-H’ers are encouraged to participate in Project Achievement through their senior year of high school. Some researchers say the biggest problem students must overcome is a lack of motivation and self-confidence. Being involved in 4-H and participating in project achievement is a big accomplishment for many of these 4-H’ers and will take them a long way in life situations.
Family and Consumer Sciences
Obesity, poor nutrition, food safety and limited physical activity are significant concerns for the residents in Baker County. The Family and Consumer Science program offered educational programs for youth focusing mainly on nutrition and hand washing. Pre-K students with the Baker County school system participated in nutrition lessons which helped them learn about proper nutrition and eating healthy snacks. Along with this lesson was a section on hand washing using the Wash Your Paws Curriculum. This taught them how to prevent the spreading of germs and prevent getting sick.
ANR
Baker County has become an established county for commercial blueberry production with programming support from UGA Extension. Currently, Baker County has 400 acres committed to commercial blueberry production and a processing facility to sell the blueberry crop. The University of Georgia Extension has become an invaluable resource for blueberry educational programming providing support for the development of commercial blueberry production and market responsive processing/packing facility. In addition, to protect grower investment, UGA Extension has provided producers information pertaining to installation of adequate frost protection. In 2013 & 2014, the first fifty acres of blueberries were planted in Baker County. The cost to establish an acre of Blueberries with frost protection was approximately $30,000 per acre. Baker County Extension consulted, advised, and provided direction for establishment of commercial blueberry production in Baker County. UGA Baker County Extension emphasized the importance of incorporating frost/freeze protection when preparing acreage for blueberry production and including this investment cost in economic analysis. As of 2022, Baker County has 5 producers with over 400 acres of frost protected blueberry acreage in production. In addition, a Baker County blueberry producer-built blueberry processing facility to deliver blueberry production locally instead of driving 300 miles round trip to Alma, GA. In 2022, a freeze event allowed Baker County blueberry producers to utilize frost/freeze protection system in place and sell 95 percent of the blueberry production, as compared to average for Georgia producers, who sold only 25 percent of the blueberry production. Baker County and S.W. Georgia has established Blueberry production as a new industry, to improve the lives of the people, in Baker County and S.W. Georgia.