At 55 years old, Willie Scott has been farming ever since he could walk.
“The first thing I learned to drive was a tractor at seven,” said the Collins, Georgia native.
His 800-acre, third-generation family farm in Tatnall County was passed down from his grandfather to his father and eventually to Scott. The farm has been in the family since his grandfather purchased it in the 1940s.
In the more than 30 years that he has run his commercial farm, Scott has seen some high moments, like the surge in cotton prices around 2021, a past partnership with Target, and simply doing something he loves for a living, he said. However, being in this business also has its low moments. Just this past month, he has been hit with a challenge that neither he nor researchers fully understand.
It’s tiny—smaller than a gnat at about one-tenth of an inch. It flies from leaf to leaf, pale green with a brown spot on each of its itty-bitty wings. The green leaf hopper, Amrasca bigtulla, better known as cotton jassid, is rapidly spreading across Georgia’s cotton belt, according to the Georgia Department of Agriculture (USDA), impacting more than 40 counties and farms across the state, including Scott’s.
Georgia’s Cotton at Risk
With cotton prices already low and demand dropping for U.S.-grown cotton, this little pest is just another setback for farmers. Georgia is one of the top cotton-producing states in the country, according to the USDA. Cotton stretches over more than a million acres here. That means when something like the jassid shows up, it puts Georgia’s cotton industry at risk, but could also impact others across the nation.
For the past six years, cotton has been Scott’s main revenue driver. Currently occupying over 400 acres of his land, he says the jassid has already touched most of it, leaving him searching for a way to stop the attack.
How did they get here?
The cotton jassid is native to the Indian subcontinent, according to Dr. Phillip Roberts, a cotton Extension entomologist and professor at the University of Georgia who has been researching the pest even before it reached Georgia. The insect first appeared in Puerto Rico in 2023, then in Florida in 2024, and was spotted in Georgia’s Seminole County on July 9, 2025.
How it traveled to Georgia remains uncertain. “Who knows,” said Dr. Roberts. “Potentially, they could have moved up with the storm. We had a lot of hurricanes last year and could have pulled insects like them here to Georgia.”
How does it spread?
The pest feeds on the underside of cotton leaves, releasing a yellow toxin that weakens the plant’s ability to photosynthesize, according to a recent University of Georgia report. Though largely found on cotton, it also feeds on okra, eggplant, and sunflowers.
“We can find this insect on nearly all of the cotton in the Coastal Plain, which is about 98% of Georgia’s crop,” said Dr. Roberts. Since July, it has been traced in more than 40 counties.
Scott first heard about the jassid at a Georgia Cotton Committee meeting last month, where he serves on the board. Soon after, he spotted it in neighboring counties. “That’s when I got nervous,” he said. Within weeks, it was on his land.
Walking through his fields, Scott points out the tiny, gnat-sized insects, their color blending into the leaves. “If you look really closely, you can see one right there,” he said, turning over a cotton leaf as a few of the pests crawled on the back. Their short lifespan means they can reproduce quickly, with females laying 18 to 30 eggs at a time and regenerating every two weeks, sometimes less.
Even though the insects may be hard to see, the damage is not. “I lost all that cotton with the red at the top,” Scott said. Dr. Roberts’ research has shown that when the pest sucks the juice from the cotton plant, the leaves begin to shrivel, eventually turning red, and at that stage, there’s not much that can be done.
Can it be stopped?
Researchers at UGA Cooperative Extension and the Georgia Cotton Commission are testing insecticides, including Bidrin, Argyle, Assailas, Carbine, Centric, Transform, Sefina, Sivanto, and Bifenthrin. So far, Bidrin has been the most consistent among commercial farmers.
Scott is currently spraying Bidrin. He says it appears to be working, but he’s waiting to see how effective it really is.
At such an inconvenient time
The jassid arrived at a financially crushing time for many cotton farmers. “The cotton market right now is really bad,” said Dr. Camp Hand, a Georgia cotton agronomist and professor at UGA. “If you were to book some [cotton] right now for December, it would sell for about 67 cents a pound, which is way below the price it takes to produce the crop.” Prices have been consistently that low since the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
An acre of cotton yields about 880 pounds, or roughly $589 in sales. For Scott, production costs run about $700 per acre, leaving him at a loss similar to many other cotton farmers. The pesticides alone add another $20 per acre. If the insecticide doesn’t work, Scott estimates he could lose around $8,000. “The only thing we can do is just hope and pray that what we’re doing works,” he said.
Although consumers may not bear the added costs, farmers like Scott are the ones paying for it. The price of cotton is set on the global market, leaving farmers with little control over how much their crop is worth. As cotton prices have decreased over the past few years, demand for U.S. cotton has declined, as more people turn to synthetic fabrics like polyester, both Scott and Dr. Hand explained.
To make matters worse, the jassid arrived just before harvest season, which is typically October through November. Scott said harvesting the cotton early is not a good option, as cotton bolls have not yet matured.
What’s next?
When asked about the potential long-term impact of this pest and solutions, Dr. Hand said, “That’s the million-dollar question. Right now, we’re just trying to survive 2025.”
Despite the unexpected challenge, Scott refuses to be discouraged. “It’s kind of like football—you’re trying to score that touchdown, and different things are out there trying to stop you. But you’ve got to have in your mind to say, ‘I’m getting to the end zone.’”