Lawton Pearson's family farm has grown peaches for more than a century. But Pearson says this year's harvest is the worst in his lifetime.Georgia is known as the"Peach State" for its normally abundant crops, producing more than 130 million pounds of the fruit every year. But this year, about 90% of the state's crop has been lost, prompting those affected to hunt for solutions.
And the consequences extend beyond the farms. At Atlanta's Silver Skillet restaurant, owner Teresa Breckenridge shared how the cost of fresh peaches has tripled, forcing the business to switch to canned peaches for its popular peach cobbler. At the University of Georgia, Assistant Professor Dario Chavez and his team are working on breeding more resilient peach varieties. They carefully select slivers from the pits of different peach varieties, considering factors like size, color, and, most importantly, taste. However, breeding takes time, and Georgia's dwindling peach farming industry may not have much left.