Here’s a spotlight on Georgia with some good and some not so good. A glimpse of the Georgia spring vegetable shipments is made. There’s also news on two auctions of assets of former Vidalia onion shippers
Georgia vegetable shipments are getting underway in very light volume for the summer shipping season. Warm growing conditions is resulting in one of the earliest starts in memory. For example Southern Valley at Norman Park is now loading cabbage, yellow squash and zucchini. These items will be soon be followed by vegetables in the first half of May ranging from eggplant, to cucumbers and peppers and later, sweet corn.
2 Vidalia Bankruptcies Ending in Auctions
Gerrald’s Vidalia Sweet Onions of Stateboro, GA will be for sale in May at a bank-ordered auction, which includes the land, facilities and equipment. Online bidding starts May 11, with bidding on the real estate closing May 25 and bidding on equipment closing May 26.
Included in the auction will be 323 acres of farmland, about 150 acres of which is irrigated. An 85,000-square foot packing facility, late-model John Deere equipment, row crop implements, packing equipment and more than 3,500 produce field bins will also be for sale, according to Weeks Auction Group of Moultrie, GA.
The property was last planted in 2016, though not with onions because it was a rotation year. The land is also suitable for growing carrots, watermelon, cotton, peanuts and other crops. The property also includes a 27-acre pecan orchard. The auction comes as a result of bankruptcy and subsequent foreclosure.
The auction will be the second of a Vidalia onion operation in the span of a month.
Plantation Sweets of Cobbtown, GA will be sold in a bank-ordered auction today, which includes the land, facilities and equipment. Plantation Sweets filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2016. In response to a motion to convert to Chapter 7 or dismiss the case, a judge ruled in December to dismiss. The case was terminated March 29.
Assets up for sale in that auction will include about 567 acres of farmland. Equipment and micro-bins used by the operation will be sold April 27 in a separate auction.