Candidate Questionnaires

Issues at Stake

Key Dates

Ballot Questions

Candidates

Governor

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Keisha Lance Bottoms: Agribusiness is Georgia's number one industry, with more than $74 billion in economic impact on our state. Right now, Georgia farmers are being squeezed from both ends. Input costs keep climbing while prices at the farm gate stay flat or fall. That is not a market cycle producers can simply manage their way out of, and it is not their fault.

Trade policy is the single largest driver we can address immediately. Tariffs and trade disruption have raised the cost of the equipment, fertilizer, and inputs Georgia producers buy, while closing off export markets for the commodities they sell. Georgia's soybean growers know exactly what that costs. They brought in a record crop of more than 8 million bushels and then watched China, their largest customer, stop buying.

Beans that should have moved sat in storage or sold for less than they cost to grow. Purchases have resumed under a negotiated truce, but volumes are still well short of where they were, prices are still not covering the cost of putting a crop in the ground, and an agreement struck at a summit can be undone the same way. Now our pecan growers are facing another threat, with China imposing a preliminary 54.3%

anti-dumping deposit on U.S. pecan imports. Georgia farmers should not have to plan a season around that kind of uncertainty. On top of that, this administration canceled more than $300 million in funding that had already been awarded to help farmers access land and capital, including projects serving small farmers, veterans, and women in Southwest Georgia. For farmers already living on thin margins, canceling funds that have already been awarded is not politics as usual. It can mean the difference between holding onto a farm and being forced off the land. As Governor I will fight back when Washington threatens Georgia's economy or the livelihoods of our people.

Georgia is also in the middle of a significant data center buildout that is straining both our power grid and our water resources. Farm families and rural ratepayers should not subsidize that growth through higher utility bills. I will insist on protections ensuring that agricultural operations running on thin margins are not the ones paying more so that large commercial users can pay less.

For most farm families, health insurance is one of the largest fixed costs of doing business, and it is the cost that most often forces a hard decision. Many of the Georgians working on our farms also lack health coverage, making access to affordable care an issue for both farm owners and the workers they depend on. Expanding

 

Medicaid would cover roughly 300,000 Georgians, stabilize the rural hospitals farm communities depend on, and take a significant monthly expense off the ledger for thousands of farm households and workers. In practical terms, it is one of the most direct cost-of-business reforms available to us.

On fuel, I called on Governor Kemp to pause the gas tax in March, I called for the suspension to continue in June, and I have said that extending it will be a priority if fuel prices continue to rise. Georgians are paying nearly $1 more per gallon for regular gas than they were a year ago, and the burden is even greater for farmers who depend on diesel to run trucks, tractors, and equipment. Diesel is now about $1.74 more per gallon than it was a year ago. Georgia's leaders should extend the gas tax suspension to give Georgia families and farmers some relief. My Republican opponents have refused to stand up for Georgians who need relief right now.

Keisha Lance Bottoms: My agenda for farmers starts from a simple premise: keep land in family hands, expand opportunity, and protect producers from economic shocks beyond their control.

On markets and competition, I will encourage cooperative models that allow farmers to pool resources, share equipment and processing capacity, and reach larger markets than any single operation could reach alone. Consolidation in processing and distribution has left many Georgia producers with fewer places to sell and less leverage when they get there. Cooperatives are a proven, producer-controlled answer to that problem. My plan specifically calls for encouraging these cooperative models so farmers can strengthen their purchasing power, reduce costs, and compete for larger contracts and markets.

I will also support efforts to help families keep and grow their land, and work to make federal farm programs fairer and more accessible, particularly for the small, mid-sized, and historically underserved producers who too often find the paperwork harder than the farming. Georgia leaves money and opportunity on the table when producers cannot navigate programs designed for much larger operations, and it is worse when funding producers had already been awarded gets canceled outright, as happened this spring.

Georgia's farms are small businesses, and too many of our rural communities and locally owned businesses have been left out of the state's economic growth. As

 

governor, I will restructure and realign the Department of Economic Development to strengthen its focus on both Small Business and Rural Economic Development, with dedicated leadership and resources for each. I will expand access to loans and grants, help more entrepreneurs and family farms grow, and make sure a fairer share of the state's economic development investment reaches small businesses and rural communities across Georgia.

We also have to invest in the next generation of Georgia agriculture. I will strengthen agricultural education in our schools and support programs like Young Farmers of America and 4-H that introduce young people to agriculture, leadership, and careers in the industry. We should be building a pipeline of future farmers, producers, agribusiness leaders, and agricultural professionals in every part of the state.

A strong agricultural economy also depends on strong rural communities. My healthcare plan will stabilize rural hospitals and launch a Rural Care First Initiative to expand EMS, mobile health, telehealth, and labor and delivery access. It also calls for stronger maternal health support so women in rural communities can get prenatal, delivery, and postpartum care closer to home instead of traveling long distances for basic services.

Expanding Medicaid will help more farmers, farm workers, and rural families get coverage while strengthening the hospitals and providers these communities depend on.

We can also connect agriculture to better health. I want Georgia schools serving more healthy, Georgia-grown food and a stronger farm-to-school effort that connects local producers with school systems. That means healthier meals for our children, new and more reliable markets for Georgia farmers, and more students understanding where their food comes from.

Longer term, the agricultural economy needs both a workforce and the infrastructure to move product. I will expand training in sustainable agriculture and forestry so the next generation has a real pathway into the industry, create a path to free technical and community college so workers looking to learn a new skill have somewhere to go, and make sure Georgia’s water infrastructure is reliable and able to keep up with growth. No amount of market access matters if the water is not there.

Keisha Lance Bottoms: I have balanced a large and complicated budget under real pressure. As Mayor of Atlanta I balanced the city budget four consecutive years, including through a pandemic, and left office with a $180 million surplus. I put the city’s spending online through Open Checkbook so any resident could see where their money went, and I created the city’s first Office of the Inspector General. That is the standard of transparency and discipline I intend to bring to the state budget.

Protecting agriculture in the appropriations process means treating it as infrastructure rather than as a line item to be trimmed when revenues tighten. Agricultural research and extension, rural health, water systems, and farm programs are what allow Georgia’s largest industry to function. I will defend them.

On the tax side, the most important tool Georgia has for keeping working land in working hands is the Conservation Use Valuation Assessment. My agenda for farmers begins with helping families keep and grow their land, and CUVA is the mechanism that makes that possible. It allows a farm to be taxed on what it actually produces rather than on what a developer might one day pay for it. Without it, rising land values around Georgia’s growing metros would tax working farms out of existence.

This November, Georgians will also vote on a constitutional amendment raising the CUVA acreage cap from 2,000 to 4,000 acres. It passed the House 168 to 5 and the Senate 50 to 1.

I would also want to look closely at how CUVA covenants function for families in transition, particularly at generational handoff, where a breach penalty can land at exactly the moment a farm family is most vulnerable. Keeping land in the family should not be made harder by the very program designed to protect it.

Georgia has been ahead of most states on a related piece of this. In 2012, with bipartisan support, the General Assembly enacted the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act, making Georgia one of the first states in the country to act. It gives family co-owners the right to buy out a relative's share before land can be forced into a sale, requires courts to weigh how long families have held the property and what it means to them, and requires an open-market sale at appraised value rather than an auction on the courthouse steps if a sale happens anyway. That law has kept Georgia families on land they would otherwise have lost.

But it does not finish the job. A family can do everything right, clear the title, and then get hit with a reassessment that spikes the tax bill at the exact moment they finally have clear ownership. As Governor I would support heirs' property tax relief, so that transfers made to qualified family members for the purpose of clearing heirs' property title do not trigger a reassessment. Doing the paperwork right should not cost a family the farm.

Finally, the most consequential fiscal decision available to Georgia right now is expanding Medicaid. It draws down federal dollars Georgia taxpayers are already paying, reduces the uncompensated care costs that are closing rural hospitals, and does more for rural community stability than almost any other appropriation we could make. Nine rural hospitals have closed, and half our counties do not have an

OB-GYN or a pediatrician. I would end the failed Georgia Pathways program, which a federal watchdog found spent more on administrative costs than on actual health care, and replace it with coverage that works – including a Rural Care First Initiative to expand EMS, mobile health, telehealth, and labor and delivery access. Declining expansion has not saved Georgia money. It has moved the cost onto rural communities and the people who live in them.

 

Lt. Governor

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Greg Dolezal: Every generation of farmers has learned to manage uncertainty. When I spent time on my grandfather’s farm as a boy, I remember watching them navigate various challenges from disease to drought, to ever changing commodity prices with grit and determination.

What makes this moment different is that many of today's biggest costs aren't driven by the weather or commodity cycle; they're driven by policy. When energy becomes more expensive, every acre costs more to plant, harvest, dry, package, and transport. When inflation raises the cost of borrowing, replacing a tractor or financing next season's crop becomes a much tougher calculation.

Government cannot dictate commodity prices, but it can stop making the equation worse. My philosophy is simple: if a policy raises the cost of producing food without making farms more productive, we should rethink it. That means maintaining affordable energy, investing in freight infrastructure that reduces transportation costs, and removing unnecessary regulatory burdens that consume time without creating value.

I also believe Georgia should become the country's proving ground for agricultural innovation. Precision agriculture, autonomous equipment, technology assisted crop management, and water conservation technologies aren't futuristic concepts; they're becoming competitive necessities. State government should help create an environment where those technologies are developed, tested, and deployed. Here. In Georgia.

 

Josh McLaurin: There are several ways to address costs for family farms. First, state leaders need to do everything in our power to advocate against arbitrary and harmful tariffs that increase the cost of inputs without making our farm outputs more competitive. There is a place for tariffs that are smart, targeted, and increase the competitiveness of family farms, but the current tariff landscape does not reflect that strategy. Second, I would consider advocating for a state income tax exemption for federal farm service agency payments to family farms. Third, I would advocate for stronger antitrust protections to ensure smaller farms can compete.

Greg Dolezal: Agriculture succeeds when the entire ecosystem around it succeeds. A healthy farm economy depends not only on strong commodity prices, but on manufacturers, processors, exporters, truck drivers, railroads, ports, financial markets, and entrepreneurs. The more value Georgia creates before a product leaves our borders, the stronger rural communities become.

That begins with connectivity. Georgia's ports are among the state's greatest competitive advantages, but they only matter if crops and livestock can reach them efficiently. Continued investment in rural transportation networks and freight mobility isn't simply infrastructure spending—it's economic development.

We should also think beyond production. Georgia has an opportunity to lead in food processing, forestry products, agricultural technology, and precision manufacturing tied to agriculture. Those industries create higher-paying jobs while giving producers more local markets for what they grow.

Perhaps most importantly, we should encourage the next generation to see agriculture as a field of innovation rather than nostalgia. Modern farming increasingly relies on engineering, software, robotics, genetics, and data science. Our technical colleges and universities should reflect that reality by preparing students for the future of agriculture.

 

Josh McLaurin: Part of the answer is ensuring robust investment in freight and logistics networks in Georgia, which I have helped address as a member of the Senate Transportation Committee. Any policies that encourage revitalization of rural towns and communities are also helpful, so that economic demand stays high throughout the state: ensuring access to healthcare (via Medicaid expansion and stabilization of rural hospitals), transit options for people to move between parts of the state without overreliance on cars, and direct state investment in local economic development.

Greg Dolezal: Taxpayer dollars should always be invested with the same discipline families and farmers apply to their own budgets. Every appropriation should answer two questions: Does this serve a core public purpose that fits the proper role of government? And is it producing measurable results?

Under Republican leadership, Georgia has demonstrated that fiscal responsibility and economic growth are complementary, not competing, goals. We should continue reducing the tax burden on working families and job creators while maintaining the balanced budgets and healthy reserves that have made Georgia one of the nation's best-managed states.

We should prioritize investments with lasting returns: agricultural research, animal health, extension services, rural broadband, workforce development, water infrastructure, and transportation systems that connect producers to domestic and international markets.

At the same time, every tax credit, incentive, and state program should be evaluated on performance. If a program no longer delivers measurable value for taxpayers or rural communities, it should be reformed or ended so resources can be directed where they have greater impact.

The goal is straightforward: a government that lives within its means, asks less of taxpayers, and invests strategically in the infrastructure and institutions that allow Georgia agriculture to remain the strongest economic engine in our great state.

 

Josh McLaurin: For the last 20 years, the politics around Georgia state government’s spending have been confused. Political leaders have made ideological appeals to reducing the size of government that are inconsistent with the billions of dollars in necessary spending that our state does to keep agriculture and other important sectors thriving. One benefit to electing me is improved honesty and transparency about the importance of using state dollars to enhance the economy. Instead of saying one thing and doing another, I will be forthright and enthusiastic about the ways state dollars improve quality of life for all Georgians.

 

United States Senate

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Mike Collins: Overregulation out of Washington. Farmers are already operating on razor-thin margins, and every time an agency like the EPA expands its reach, whether it’s emissions mandates on farm equipment and diesel trucks or an overly broad interpretation of “Waters of the United States” that puts federal bureaucrats in charge of private farmland, these regulations add costs that family farms can’t absorb. Add in the threat of foreign adversaries like China acquiring American farmland, and you’ve got a real risk to both farm profitability and long-term food security. That’s why I introduced the Diesel Truck Liberation Act and have led opposition to expansive regulations, because Washington needs to get out of the way, not add another mandate.

 

Jon Ossoff: The family farm is in crisis, and between high input costs, high diesel and fertilizer costs, low commodity prices, natural disasters, and tariff chaos, farmers are hurting right now. I have sought to be an ultra-responsive and effective federal representative of Georgia agriculture and to tackle these issues in the Senate on behalf of my constituents.

In 2022, I learned that India had put a 100% tariff on American pecans. Given that Georgia grows the most pecans of any state, I met seven times with India's ambassador to the US, led a trade delegation to India, and got them to agree to reduce that tariff by 70%.

Now, working alongside Georgia farmers and growers, I’m pushing to expand more access to global markets, including working to help pecan growers sell in-shell pecans to India and help timber producers and peanut farmers sell their products to the EU by reducing trade barriers. These are just some examples of how I take action and I will continue working alongside Georgia farmers to reduce costs and support family farms.

In 2024, after the devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene, I worked quickly to assist Georgia farmers, helping pass bipartisan disaster assistance fewer than 90 days after the storm.

In 2025, I cosponsored the Securing American Agriculture Act and the United States Citrus Protection Act, which, if passed, would help protect hardworking American farmers, decrease agricultural dependence on Chinese imports, and fortify our country’s food security.

This year, I introduced legislation to cut taxes for Georgia farmers by excluding crop insurance indemnity payments from farmers’ taxable income after natural disasters, revenue losses, or pest outbreaks.

Mike Collins: The biggest opportunity is opening up new markets in Asia and Latin America for Georgia poultry, cotton, peanuts, and pecans, markets that are still hard to access because other countries protect their own producers while flooding ours with subsidized imports. Our trade negotiators need real leverage to fix that imbalance, and every tool, tariffs included, ought to be on the table depending on the situation. What matters most is that whatever approach we take actually opens doors for Georgia agriculture specifically, not just broad industrial goods, and doesn’t leave our farmers absorbing the cost of somebody else’s unfair trade practices.

 

Jon Ossoff: Georgia growers are losing access to international markets because of retaliation against the United States amidst ongoing tariff wars. Well-targeted tariffs can be effective. Current across the board chaos is hurting Georgia agriculture.

Expanding global market access has been a key priority for me.

One of the first things I learned when I took office was from Georgia’s pecan growers. In 2022, they explained to me that India, a country with more than 1 billion consumers and a huge market opportunity for Georgia’s pecan industry, had put a huge tariff on our pecans. That meant Georgia, the number one grower of pecans in the United States, couldn't sell Georgia grown pecans into the Indian market. This was a huge opportunity not available to the state’s growers.

So I led a trade mission to India. I met seven times with India's ambassador to the United States and India's foreign minister, and India agreed to cut that tariff on U.S. pecans by 70%. So now, Georgia pecan growers can sell into this market. That's a big deal for Georgia agriculture.

Georgia’s produce industries, specifically fruits and vegetables, face additional obstacles in the form of recklessly and abusively produced Mexican and South American products. Mexican agriculture’s abysmal working conditions and environmental practices harm the environment, compromise food safety, and threaten American crop growers’ ability to compete economically. In June, and in light of these factors, I urged United States Trade Representative (USTR) Ambassador Jamieson Greer to address unfair market practices during USMCA’s review to help Georgia growers compete fairly in the global market.

I am engaged with Amb. Greer and the EU’s representative to the U.S. to fight the EU’s non-tariff barriers targeting Georgia peanuts.

My Protecting Our Produce Act would provide support to Georgia’s specialty crop growers in the face of unfairly priced imports.

I cosponsored the bipartisan Buying American Cotton Act of 2025 to encourage vendors to use domestically produced cotton, which would increase American and Georgian cotton demand.

From our watermelon growers in Cordele, to our cattle farmers in Morgan County, and cotton growers in Berrien County, I am laser focused on fighting like hell for Georgia’s farmers.

Mike Collins: Cut the regulatory compliance costs baked into every input a farmer buys and every piece of equipment they run. Between EPA emissions rules driving up the cost of diesel trucks and equipment, and permitting delays slowing down the infrastructure and water projects farms depend on, Washington is adding real dollars to overhead before a single crop goes in the ground. That’s exactly why I introduced the Diesel Truck Liberation Act and the PERMIT Act, immediate, concrete relief that puts money back into a farm’s operating budget instead of into compliance paperwork.

 

Jon Ossoff: Crack down on abysmal labor and environmental practices in Mexican agriculture.

Mike Collins: The Farm Bill keeps getting held hostage by fights that have nothing to do with farming. The nutrition title makes up the overwhelming majority of the bill’s cost, and every cycle it turns what should be a straightforward conversation about crop insurance, reference prices, and disaster assistance into a partisan standoff over SNAP spending. Farmers end up waiting years for updated reference prices and risk management tools while Washington argues about an entirely different program. Congress needs to sit down with the people who actually grow our food, and get a bill done on time that reflects high input costs, tight margins, and real weather risk, not what plays well in a press release.

 

Jon Ossoff: To be blunt, I fear the growing separation of the commodity and nutrition titles, which have historically traveled together, risks unraveling the bipartisan, bicameral consensus that has historically propelled the farm bill.

 

Attorney General

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Tanya Miller: Agriculture is Georgia's largest industry, and it deserves an Attorney General who treats it that way. I want my office to be a resource for our farmers, not just a regulator standing over their shoulder. That starts with using the office's consumer protection authority to go after the fraud and predatory contracts that hit folks the hardest, whether it's equipment financing scams, crop insurance disputes, or bad actors who prey on farmers after a bad storm or a bad season. It also means standing up to the large national corporations that see our farmers as easy targets, whether that's unfair contract terms, price manipulation, or corporate buyers who use their size to squeeze family farms on payment terms and margins. Farmers built this state's largest industry, and they shouldn't have to accept a raw deal from a company with more lawyers than they have acres.

It also means showing up. Too often, rural Georgia gets left out of the conversation until election season. I've already spent time on the road talking with folks about water quality, land use, and the pressures they're facing, and I intend to keep doing that as Attorney General. My office will have an open door for the agricultural community, and I'll make sure their concerns do not get lost in bureaucracy.

Finally, I'll use the weight of the office to defend Georgia agriculture in court when it matters, whether that's multistate litigation over federal policy that hurts our farmers or legal challenges to practices that threaten their land, their water, or their livelihood.

 

Brian Strickland: The Attorney General should be a direct resource to our state’s number one industry when it comes to navigating regulations, assisting our Department of Agriculture with its operations, and using the platform of the office to support our agriculture families at the state level and nationally.  As someone who has witnessed the challenges facing this community first-hand, I will be able to speak with credibility regarding these issues and will listen to the concerns facing the industry.

Tanya Miller: Georgia farmers shouldn't have to compete with one hand tied behind their back, whether the pressure is coming from overseas or from a handful of large processors and input suppliers here at home. As Attorney General, I'll use the office's antitrust and consumer protection authority to push back against consolidation and unfair practices that squeeze independent farmers out of the market, including opaque or one-sided contracts with processors and buyers that leave farmers with all the risk and none of the leverage.

I'll also work alongside the Georgia Department of Agriculture and our congressional delegation to make sure Georgia has a real voice when federal trade policy is being written, so our producers aren't an afterthought in decisions made in Washington. When foreign competitors are dumping products at unfair prices or violating trade rules to Georgia's disadvantage, I want Georgia's Attorney General joining other states to fight back.

 

Brian Strickland: I will employ every tool available to stand up for our farmers, including using my ability to use our court system to defend our farmers in litigation against those that push regulations and unfair practices to harm our producers.  I will speak for our farmers at the national level and make certain that our federal government is advocating for fair trade deals that will keep our producers growing here in Georgia. 

Tanya Miller: Regulation should be grounded in real science and applied consistently, not layered on top of farmers in a way that's duplicative, outdated, or disconnected from how Georgia agriculture actually works. As Attorney General, I'll push back when rules aren't grounded in sound science, and I'll make sure Georgia's voice is heard when new regulations are being written so our farmers aren't stuck complying with a one-size-fits-all standard built for a different kind of operation in a different part of the country.

I also believe part of the Attorney General's job is defending the legal protections farmers already have, including Georgia's Right to Farm Act, from being chipped away in court. And where farmers need legal clarity to comply with a regulation rather than a lawsuit after the fact, I want my office to provide that guidance.

Good regulation should protect our land, water, and communities without treating every farmer like a suspect.

 

Brian Strickland: The Attorney General is the legal advisor for our Environmental Protection Division and should make certain that the work our EPD is doing helps conserve our farmland and doesn’t work to harm our farmers.  The Attorney General should also consider initiating and defending against litigation that seeks to place undue burdens on our farmers through lawsuits and regulations passed by other states.  Protecting our farms is essential for our state’s economic security and should be part of the larger strategy to support our national security by making sure we don’t rely upon other countries for our food. 

 

 

 

Agriculture Commissioner

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Agriculture Commissioner

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Considering the challenges farmers are facing with the increasing cost of fuel, labor, equipment, and crop inputs, how would you respond to the inflationary pressures impacting the cost of doing business?

Tyler Harper: As a seventh-generation farmer, I don't just hear about these challenges; I experience them firsthand. Rising costs on everything from fuel and fertilizer to labor and interest are top of mind for farm families in every corner of our state. As Commissioner, I’ve worked closely with state leaders and federal partners to address the farm profitability crisis. After years of arbitrary increases under the Biden Administration and our needs falling on deaf ears, I worked closely with the Trump Administration to lower Georgia’s H-2A AEWR rate, giving relief to farmers in every corner of our state. Under the Biden Administration, Georgia farmers were forced to pay an additional $250 million in labor costs due to increases in AEWR. Last year, for the first time in 5 years, Georgia’s AEWR rate decreased and I have personally heard from numerous growers who have said without that change, they would not be farming today.

I’ve worked with the General Assembly to make disaster aid and crop insurance payments exempt from state taxes so more relief goes where it belongs: to our farm families. At the same time, I have secured over half a billion in federal relief for Georgia’s Hurricane Helene Block Grant – 100% of which will go to addressing the impacts felt by producers who were impacted by this storm. That money will be out the door to producers this fall.

While we continue to press Congress to pass a Farm Bill, the OBBB was the largest investment in American Agriculture in over a decade, and I was proud to support it. The tax provisions alone will save American producers more than $10 billion over the next decade. At the same time, OBBB makes a $60 billion investment to bring crop insurance payments in line with the cost of production, strengthen the farm safety net, and increase reference prices 10-20% across the board, just to name a few.

I’m fighting against corporate consolidation in the agriculture industry and our food supply chain. Farmers today have fewer options than ever before – both where they buy from and who they sell too. Increasing competition, cracking down on anti-competitive behavior, and increasing market access for small and medium producers, will help keep more of the retail food dollar on the family farm.

Stable markets and competition create strong commodity prices for producers. How will you encourage economic activity that strengthens the agricultural economy in Georgia?

Tyler Harper: Agriculture is the backbone of our state’s economy, contributing more than $100 billion annually, employing nearly 400,000 hardworking Georgians, and sustaining hundreds of Rural communities across the state. For our state’s ag community, farming is more than just a job or a hobby – it is our way of life. I’ve fought to defend that way of life and rural communities across Georgia every single day I have served in office.

Market access is foundational to the success of Georgia Agriculture. As Commissioner, I’ve worked to expand market access for small and medium farmers, connecting them to institutional buyers through programs like the Georgia Grown Feed My School Program, the Local Food Procurement Assistance (LFPA) Program, and many others. I’m proud that we now have 25% of school districts across the state serving Georgia Grown items in their school lunches. We have room to grow that number even higher, and I am committed to doing that because a quality education starts with quality, Georgia Grown nutrition.

As Commissioner, I’ve also taken part in numerous trade missions to expand international market opportunities. In 2024, I led a great group of Georgians to India after we had successfully secured a reduction in the tariff on American agricultural goods. Last year, I was proud to join Governor and First Lady Kemp on a trade mission to Brazil and Argentina where Georgia agricultural products were an important topic of discussion. While tariff policies have caused some uncertainly, we are working overtime to secure new trade deals that will allow us to increase exports through the Port of Savannah.

At the same time we are working to expand markets for our Georgia Grown goods, we also must hold existing trade partners accountable when they do not honor the agreements we have made or attempt to move the goalposts. I have been an outspoken critic of the European Union’s Deforestation Rule (EUDR), which represents a significant threat to Georgia’s forestry industry. Functionally, EUDR would treat American forestry products, the most sustainable forestry products in the world, no different than products from developing nations. It is yet another attempt by leftists in Europe to influence American agriculture and we cannot allow it. Right now, we are advocating strongly for increased, enforceable protections for American specialty crop producers to be included in the new USMCA agreement, and we are working closely with the United States Trade Representative, Jameison Greer, to make that happen and level the playing field for American producers.

Georgia farmers do an incredible job producing a raw product, but we have room to grow when it comes to value-added opportunities and processing capabilities in our state. There is significant opportunity in that space. We are working closely with industry and state leaders to fill that gap and bring more value-added opportunities online and increase processing capacity. Whether through grant programs or courting private sector investment in our state, we are working every day to expand market access for producers.

In this role you will oversee the regulating, permitting, and licensing of farm practices and agribusinesses. How do you mitigate the regulatory burden on farmers while ensuring consumer confidence in our food supply chain?

Tyler Harper: As a small-government Conservative, I believe strongly that regulatory agencies must have a horizontal relationship with the businesses they regulate, rather than a top-down approach. Across every Division and Program at GDA, our goal is to work with licensees to address any regulatory or non-compliance issues, not to immediately take punitive action against a business. We want you to be successful and we are here to be a resource for you. It is absolutely essential that we have a strong, candid relationship with the businesses we regulate. 

A perfect example of that horizontal relationship can be found in our hemp program. Following the passage of SB420, we created strong regulatory infrastructure to ensure hemp products are safe and hemp growers are supported. We published multiple rounds of proposed rules, held several public hearings, listened to dozens of hours of testimony from stakeholders, and implemented a regulatory framework our state can be proud of. In fact, as hemp continues to be in the national conversation, Georgia is often pointed to a model for the nation when it comes to hemp regulation. While we have zero tolerance for illegal activity like underage sales of hemp products, we work hand in hand with retailers and distributors to help them address minor violations and come into compliance.

At the end of the day, the Department of Agriculture exists to serve two customers: the producer and the consumer. Done right, those interests aren't in conflict. I’ve cut unnecessary and onerous regulations across multiple programs like cottage food and egg candling to reduce the regulatory burden, while still maintaining the highest food safety standards.

At the same time, we are investing heavily in technology that will allow GDA to serve farmers and consumers better and more effectively. When I took office, we still had multiple divisions and programs doing inspection reports with pen, paper, and a clipboard. Then entering that information into an antiquated dashboard. We are bringing GDA into the 21st century while we continue to focus on providing exceptional service to all Georgians.