Temperatures continue to increase as we get closer to what should be cooler weather. The rising heat may affect farmers’ crops. Record high temperatures have had Georgia in a drought for the last few months, and farmers’ crops are being impacted. University of Georgia professor in Agriculture, Joshua Berning, says farmers investments may be hurt.
“A lot of them (farmers) are having to harvest early, or sometimes it’s not even worth harvesting and sending it to market. They’re just going to leave it in the field. So it can have pretty dramatic affects on the famers.”
Although the impact may be hurtful to farmers, it shouldn’t be that big on consumers who buy their produce from grocery stores. Berning says that the drought would need to continue over a much longer period of time to affect anyone’s wallets.
“You have to have a real prolonged period of drought and poor productivity to really start to impact the consumers substantially,” he says. “You might see some impact on low-income households, but right now we’re not in too bad of an area.”
