When you think of carrots, the word “sweet” may not immediately
come to mind.
Unless you’re crunching on a Georgia carrot.
“Carrots are a fairly new crop to Georgia,” said Terry Kelley, a
horticulturist with the
University of Georgia Extension Service.
“We’ve been growing carrots in Georgia for probably five or six
years,” he said. “But
it’s an industry that continues to grow. It has attracted a lot
of attention because of the
unique taste of the carrots grown in Georgia.”
One group of farmers in Coffee, Wayne, Jeff Davis and Bacon
counties has gotten
together to provide more of those sweet carrots for shoppers in
Georgia and across the
nation. They’re finding a new way to market their carrots by
making sure they’re
sweeter than others in the grocery store.
“No one in the nation that we’re aware of is using a
refractometer on carrots,” said
Steve Mullis, a carrot processor for the south Georgia
cooperative. Refractometers
measure sugar content and show that Georgia carrots contain more
sugar than those
grown elsewhere in the nation.
Particularly fine-textured soils and moderate temperatures in
south Georgia have proven
ideal to grow carrots consumers like.
Kelley said it’s warm days and cool nights that allow sugars to
accumulate in the carrot
root. The south Georgia climate is just right for a high sugar
accumulation.
Sandy and loam soils allow carrots to grow without odd bumps or
curves, too.
“Consumers generally want a good, straight, long carrot, and
that’s what we can give
them,” he said.
James Tate, a Jeff Davis County farmer, has about 40 acres of
carrots.
“I’m in a co-op with nine different farmers,” Tate said. “We’re
responsible for our
own carrots, but we’re selling them together through a co-op
we’ve established in Alma
at a packing shed down there.”
This first carrot co-op markets its crop to national grocery
store chains and even
Canadian stores.
Mullis said co-op members are hoping to gain market superiority
with their product.
“We’re hoping to do the same thing the Vidalia onion has done,”
he said.
Mullis thinks they can do it with their carrots. He said taste
tests have had samplers and
buyers coming back with orders.
The carrot co-op is packing out roughly 40 tons every day.
Kelley said the co-op is
stabilizing the flow of carrots out of Georgia.
“I think we’re approaching close to a million-dollar value on
the crop,” he said. “And
that’s going to continue to grow in the next few years.”
