Southern food is built on a remarkably broad agricultural base. The USDA/NASS state agriculture overviews and specialty summaries represented here show millions of acres in production, billions of pounds of crops and livestock products, and major regional concentrations in peanuts, rice, citrus, poultry, sweet potatoes, peaches, and more. The measurement periods vary: most figures are from 2024, while some are from 2023, 2022–2023, 2025, or specific inventory dates.
Contents
- Southern agriculture at a glance
- Poultry, cattle, and dairy
- Peanuts, grains, rice, and cotton
- Sweet potatoes, fruit, and vegetables
- Regional specialties and seafood
- State-by-state production highlights
Southern agriculture at a glance
The size of Southern agriculture is easiest to see through farm counts and acreage. Alabama reported 37,100 farm operations in 2024, operating 8.6 million acres. Georgia reported 38,300 farm operations and 9.9 million acres in the same year. North Carolina had 42,100 farm operations on 8.1 million acres, while Arkansas had 37,200 farm operations on 13.6 million acres. These figures come from the USDA/NASS Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arkansas state agriculture overviews.
Texas is the largest operation by the measures provided. The USDA/NASS Texas state agriculture overview reported 231,000 farm operations in 2024 and 125 million acres in farms. Florida’s 2023 agricultural overview reported 44,400 farms and ranches using 9.70 million acres in agriculture. Florida’s acreage and farm count are from 2023, so they should not be read as a same-year comparison with the 2024 figures above.
| State | Measurement period | Farm operations or farms | Agricultural acreage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 2024 | 37,100 | 8.6 million acres |
| Georgia | 2024 | 38,300 | 9.9 million acres |
| North Carolina | 2024 | 42,100 | 8.1 million acres |
| Arkansas | 2024 | 37,200 | 13.6 million acres |
| Texas | 2024 | 231,000 | 125 million acres |
| Florida | 2023 | 44,400 farms and ranches | 9.70 million acres |
Together, these numbers place food production alongside ranching, field crops, orchards, vegetable farms, and specialty operations. They also explain why Southern food traditions differ so much from one state to the next: the agricultural geography is not uniform.
Poultry, cattle, and dairy
Poultry is one of the clearest shared threads in the supplied state profiles. Georgia produced 1,364,900,000 broiler chickens in 2024, the highest broiler figure listed. Alabama produced 1,168,400,000 broilers, Arkansas produced 1,035,800,000, Texas produced 727,500,000, and South Carolina produced 237,500,000. Florida’s 2023 agricultural overview reported 62,900,000 broilers. Because Florida’s figure covers 2023 and the others primarily cover 2024, the years are explicit here.
Arkansas also produced 25,000,000 turkeys in 2024, adding another major poultry statistic to the state’s agricultural profile.
Cattle inventories show a different regional pattern. On January 1, 2025, Alabama had 648,000 beef cows and 1.18 million cattle including calves. Georgia had 455,000 beef cows and 980,000 cattle including calves on the same date. Texas had 12,100,000 cattle including calves on January 1, 2025. Florida’s 2023 overview reported 1.56 million head of cattle on farms and ranches on January 1, 2024. Louisiana reported 680,000 cattle including calves on January 1, 2026. These are inventory measurements taken on stated dates, not annual production totals.
Texas also reported 17,037,000,000 pounds of milk production in 2024. That figure illustrates the state’s role in dairy as well as beef and field crops. Texas hay and haylage production reached 13,459,000 tons on a dry basis in 2024, supporting livestock operations with a large forage output.
Peanuts, grains, rice, and cotton
Peanuts are a major Southern crop, with especially large reported production in Georgia. Georgia produced 3,249,400,000 pounds of peanuts in 2024, valued at $815,599,000. Alabama produced 575,280,000 pounds valued at $140,368,000. North Carolina produced 567,600,000 pounds valued at $157,225,000, while Texas produced 549,400,000 pounds. Florida’s 2023 agricultural overview said the state accounted for 9 percent of U.S. peanut value in 2023.
The crop mix broadens beyond peanuts. Alabama produced 30,240,000 bushels of corn grain and 10,850,000 bushels of soybeans in 2024. North Carolina produced 70,470,000 bushels of corn grain and 62,400,000 bushels of soybeans in 2024. Texas produced 211,680,000 bushels of corn grain in 2024. Arkansas produced 166,100,000 bushels of soybeans in 2024.
The rice figures point strongly toward Arkansas and Louisiana. Arkansas produced 109,262,000 hundredweight of rice in 2024, with a value of production of $1,485,963,000. Louisiana produced 30,963,000 hundredweight of rice in 2025. Louisiana also produced 152,470,000 bushels of corn grain, 41,195,000 bushels of soybeans, and 16,872,000 tons of sugarcane in 2025. The Louisiana figures are from the USDA/NASS Louisiana state agriculture overview and use a later measurement year than the Arkansas figures.
Cotton remains another important part of the regional field-crop picture. Georgia produced 1,930,000 480-pound bales of upland cotton in 2024 and reported cottonseed production value of $88,888,000. Texas produced 4,030,000 480-pound bales of upland cotton in 2024. The bale weight is part of the reported unit and should not be confused with a count of unstandardized bales.
Sweet potatoes, fruit, and vegetables
North Carolina’s 2024 profile includes 12,975,000 hundredweight of sweet potatoes, with a total production value of $254,520,000. Fresh-market sweet potatoes accounted for $186,746,000 of that reported value. Mississippi produced 3.78 million hundredweight of sweet potatoes in 2024, valued at $81.8 million. The two states’ figures use the same crop year but are presented in different levels of rounding.
Florida’s agricultural profile is especially concentrated in fruit and vegetables. In 2023, Florida harvested vegetables, potatoes, strawberries, and blueberries from 231,600 acres. Vegetables and melons were valued at $2.26 billion. Florida produced 3,320,000 hundredweight of strawberries in 2023.
The state’s citrus figures use the 2022–2023 season. Florida citrus growers produced 15.8 million boxes of oranges and 1.81 million boxes of grapefruit. Florida’s 2023 agricultural overview also reported that the state accounted for 20 percent of U.S. orange value and 13 percent of U.S. strawberry value in 2023. Those percentages describe shares of U.S. value, not shares of physical production.
Watermelon is another Florida specialty. The same overview reported that Florida accounted for 34 percent of U.S. watermelon value in 2023. Separately, Texas produced 4,116,000 hundredweight of watermelon in 2024. The different units and years make these complementary facts rather than a direct state-to-state production ranking.
Regional specialties and seafood
Southern food statistics include products that do not fit neatly into the largest field-crop categories. South Carolina produced 91,600 tons of peaches in 2024, with a value of production of $174,470,000. The state also produced 237,500,000 broiler chickens in 2024.
North Carolina reported 203,400,000 pounds of tobacco production in 2024. That is an agricultural production figure and does not represent food output, but it helps show the diversity of crops present in the state profile alongside corn, soybeans, sweet potatoes, and peanuts.
Mississippi’s catfish figures provide a snapshot of aquaculture inventory. On July 1, 2024, the state had 69.0 million foodsize catfish on hand and 121 million catfish stockers on hand. These measurements come from the USDA/NASS Mississippi Catfish Production summary and describe fish on hand at a specified date, not a full-year harvest total.
State-by-state production highlights
The state profiles can also be read as a set of distinct food identities. Alabama combines more than a billion broiler chickens with beef cattle, peanuts, corn, and soybeans. Georgia combines the largest listed broiler figure with 3.2494 billion pounds of peanuts, cotton, and cattle. North Carolina pairs major soybean and corn production with sweet potatoes, peanuts, and tobacco.
Arkansas stands out for poultry, rice, and soybeans, with its rice production valued at nearly $1.486 billion in 2024. Texas has the broadest scale in the supplied figures: 231,000 farm operations, 125 million acres, 12.1 million cattle including calves, 17.037 billion pounds of milk, cotton, corn, peanuts, hay, watermelon, and broilers. Florida’s 2023 profile is defined by vegetables, melons, citrus, strawberries, cattle, and a large share of U.S. value in selected crops.
Mississippi’s sweet potatoes and catfish, South Carolina’s peaches, and Louisiana’s rice, sugarcane, corn, and soybeans add further regional distinctions. Taken together, the USDA/NASS state agriculture overviews and specialty summaries describe Southern food as a network of local production systems rather than a single crop region. The measurement dates matter: inventories are tied to January 1 or July 1, citrus uses a 2022–2023 season, most state crop figures use 2024, Louisiana’s listed crop figures use 2025, and Florida’s main overview uses 2023.