In 2001, Georgia's farm marketings totaled $5.5 billion (11th in the US). Georgia ranked first in the production of peanuts and pecans, harvesting 25% of all the pecans grown in the US in 2001 and 40% of the peanuts.
Cotton, first planted near Savannah in 1734, was the mainstay of Georgia's economy through the early 20th century, and the state's plantations also grew corn, rice, tobacco, wheat, and sweet potatoes. World War I stimulated the cultivation of peanuts along with other crops. By the 1930s, tobacco and peanuts were challenging cotton for agricultural supremacy, and Georgia had also become an important producer of peaches, a product for which the "peach state" is still widely known. In fact in 2002, Georgia produced 110 million pounds of peaches.
After 1940, farm mechanization and consolidation were rapid. The number of tractors increased from 10,000 in 1940 to 85,000 by 1955. In 1940, 6 out of 10 farms were tenant-operated; by the mid-1960s, this proportion had decreased to fewer than 1 in 6. The number of farms declined from 226,000 in 1945 to 50,000 in 2002, when the average farm size was 226 acres (91 hectares). Georgia's farmland area of 11 million acres (4.6 million hectares) represents roughly 30% of its land area.
Sales of potted flowering plants produced in Georgia amounted to nearly $9 million in 2001.