Press Releases
Helene relief, economy and EU forestry reg focus of Ag Issues Summit
Posted on Sep 10, 2025 at 12:19 PM
Georgia farmers and agriculture leaders heard updates on current and emerging issues facing Georgia’s top economic sector during the 2025 Joint Agriculture Committee Chairmen’s Ag Issues Summit held Aug. 21 at the Georgia National Fairgrounds & Agricenter in Perry.
Rep. Robert Dickey and Sen. Russ Goodman, who chair the Georgia House and Senate Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Committees, respectively, hosted this annual event that gives Georgia’s ag community a chance to learn about topics the industry is experiencing.
From left, Chairman of the Georgia House Ag & Consumer Affairs Committee Rep. Robert Dickey & Chairman of the Georgia Senate Ag & Consumer Affairs Committee Sen. Russ Goodman, right, welcome Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns, center, to the 2025 Ag Issues Summit held Aug. 21 in Perry. / Photo by Jennifer Whittaker
Georgia Farm Bureau was one of the event sponsors along with the Georgia Cattlemen’s Association, Georgia Milk Producers, Inc., Georgia Forestry Association, Georgia Poultry Federation, Georgia Urban Ag Council, Georgia Green Industry Association, Georgia Fruit & Vegetable Growers Association, National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB), and Georgia Agribusiness Council.
“I want to thank Representative Dickey and Senator Goodman for holding this event and shining a light on all of these issues that our farmers are facing,” GFB President Tom McCall said. “I’d also like to thank each member of the House and Senate Ag Committees for the work you do during the General Assembly Session every year in Atlanta. Please know that Farm Bureau’s Public Policy staff is here to work with you whenever you need us.”
Hurricane Helene relief efforts
Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper provided an account of what has been done on the state and federal level to help Georgia farmers and rural communities hit by Hurricane Helene Sept. 27, 2024.
“I think there is no doubt that top of mind, really, for everybody still is Hurricane Helene,” Harper said. “Since the storm last year, we’ve been working to help our farm families get back on their feet as quickly as possible.”
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Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper
Harper said a little over $300 million in state funds was allocated to the Safety 24 Grant Program that disbursed low interest disaster relief loans to farmers affected by the storm and to help timber owners clean up timber debris Helene left behind. The Georgia General Assembly appropriated $285 million and the Georgia Development Authority allocated about $20 million, Harper said.
He thanked the Georgia Farm Bureau’s Georgia Foundation for Agriculture for coordinating the Weathered But Strong Campaign, with the help of the Georgia Department of Agriculture and 40 other Georgia ag organizations, to raise more than $1.78 million in three months. Farmers affected by the storm had a little over a month to apply for funds. One hundred percent of the funds raised were distributed to 920 farm families, and in most cases was the first help they received.
“Farm Bureau took on the administrative burden of that [campaign] and we appreciate that partnership,” Harper said.
Harper discussed federal disaster relief funds appropriated in the American Relief Act (ARA) of 2025, which Congress passed last December, and then-President Biden signed into law Dec. 21, 2024. This federal legislation included $21 billion in disaster aid to be distributed nationwide by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to farmers to cover necessary expenses related to the losses of revenue, quality or production for crops (milk, on-farm stored commodities, crops prevented from planting, and harvested adulterated wine grapes), trees, bushes and vines, and livestock losses from natural disasters that happened in 2023 and 2024.
After U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins was confirmed Feb. 13, Harper and other state leaders met with her March 12 when she visited Georgia and discussed the impact Helene had on Georgia farmers and the pressing need for the ARA funds to be distributed to farmers as soon as possible.
“She understood the critical need to get disaster relief moved as quickly as possible,” Harper said. “She took that to heart and went back and ensured that we were moving as fast as we could, and that the staff she was bringing on board heeded it.”
Harper said GDA submitted its plan to the USDA for ARA state block grant money by the end of April and had its first call with USDA about the block grant proposal on May 19.
“On August 4, the GDA and USDA reached an agreement on the block grant, and it is now in review by our legal teams,” Harper said. “We do have the work plan that we're in the process of doing right now. We have brought on some additional help and some folks that are former USDA employees who will help us design these block grants and applications for our producers, and we hope they'll be able to open that window up very soon. We could not use the process that was used during Hurricane Michael, because this process was completely different. We were building programs from scratch for the block grant, that didn't exist before to cover things that USDA does not cover. The block grant agreement for the state of Georgia that we are working to finalize right now, that is in legal review, covers commodities and covers areas that the Farm Service Agency programs will not cover. It covers producers. It covers commodities from timber to pecans to poultry and everything in between, to ensure that we maximize the amount of money that we get for the state, that we cover as many commodities as possible, and that we send no money back to USDA, that every dime gets distributed to Georgia farmers and timberland owners in this state.”
Harper said the GDA team has invested hundreds of hours into the process and is committed to getting the block grant funds to farmers in record time.
Since July 9, the USDA has been distributing $16 billion nationwide through the Supplemental Disaster Relief Program (SDRP) that was part of the disaster aid allocated in the ARA last December. As of Sept. 7, Georgia farmers with crop insurance had received $100,413,430 in SDRP funds. The USDA expects to begin SDRP payment signup for farmers without crop insurance the week of Sept. 15. Visit https://www.fsa.usda.gov/resources/programs/supplemental-disaster-relief-program-sdrp to learn more.
Harper mentioned that Gov. Brian Kemp signed HB 223 into law on May 8. The Georgia House of Representatives passed this legislation in a 153-0 vote and the Senate by a 50-1 vote. Its lead sponsor was Rep. James Burchett (R-Waycross). The law exempts federal crop insurance payments received in 2025 and agricultural disaster relief payments from state taxes. It establishes a reforestation tax credit to help producers who grow trees used for food or wood production recover from the storm and encourages them to replant.
The law allows local governments to temporarily suspend collection of harvest taxes on timber producers to help in post-storm cleanup in exchange for a grant to assist with lost revenue from harvest tax. The law also temporarily extends the Georgia Agricultural Tax Exemption (GATE) to building materials purchased for repairing or rebuilding of poultry houses, livestock facilities, greenhouses and other farm structures damaged by Helen until the end of the year.
Overall, the Georgia legislature approved more than $1 billion to aid in hurricane recovery.
U.S. & ag economy not great but could be worse
While giving an overview of the overall U.S. economy and the ag economy, North Carolina State University ag economist Dr. Jeffrey Dorfman discussed unemployment rates, interest rates, tariffs, farmland prices and ag production costs.
“Right now, unemployment is the level that an economics textbook tells you is full employment or even a little better,” Dorfman said. “The market has been slowing, and people are worried about that, but even if unemployment rises a little bit, we’re still going to be comfortably in the normal range for a good economy.”
Dorfman said U.S. stores have “pretty close to normal” inventory to keep their shelves stocked. “We’re a long way away from the sort of post-COVID lows where we saw a lot of empty shelves,” Dorfman said. “The supply chain right now is in good enough shape that it can handle bucks in the road, some of the dislocations from the tariffs. If something happens, we’re sort of in reasonable shape with some inventories hiding in the back.”
Interest rates, he said, are a sensitive topic.
“I do think the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates when they meet in September. They’re not going to be able to lower interest rates much, and the market isn’t going to lower interest rates much as long as the federal government continues to run such a big budget deficit.”
Dorfman said when the federal government spends $2 trillion a year more than it collects in taxes, it must borrow that $2 trillion.
“The easiest way to think about it is the federal government borrows its money first, and after it's gotten that $2 trillion, then the rest of us can go get our mortgages, our car loans, our operating loan for our farm financing, for a new combine, whatever it is we need money for. We come after the federal government authority taking whatever it wants,” Dorfman said. “When the government borrows a lot, there isn't as much money left for the rest of us to borrow, which means the price gets bid up because there's essentially less supply of loans left for everybody else. What I'd love to see is President Trump bug the Federal Reserve a little bit less about lowering interest rates, and bug Congress a little bit more, maybe a lot more, about lowering spending. If we get the federal deficit down, it'll lower the interest rates that all of us pay even more than anything the Federal Reserve could do.”
Dorfman described tariffs as being a wild card and said businesses need to know the rules of the game.
“Mostly what we need to see is what are the tariff rates going to be? As long as people are uncertain about where they're going to land, nobody is building new factories. Jobs aren't coming back. All the things that President Trump wants to create with the tariffs can't happen until people know they're permanent. I don't think we're going to know that for quite a while. Unfortunately, that means we're not going to get some of those positive effects some people are hoping for,” Dorman said. “Plus, a lot of countries have figured out that a good way to retaliate is with tariffs of their own against agricultural commodities being exported from the U.S., because they know that farmers are concentrated in the red states, so they figured out that's a political pressure point.”
Dorfman predicts that 2025 will finish with a moderate to slow economic growth rate of about 2%. He forecasts that unemployment will stay between four and five percent, which he calls historically low.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a recession unless it’s started by a geopolitical event. If something crazy happens in the Middle East or China does something,” Dorfman said.
He describes 2025 as being “fair to middling” for the agriculture economy.
“It’s not going to be bad enough for a lot of farmers to go out of business, but nobody's going to be that happy about it either,” Dorfman said. “I don't see anything particularly on the horizon that says it's going to get a lot better in terms of commodity prices. So, we need to be able to make money at roughly today's commodity prices.”
Dorfman, a veteran economist who taught ag economics at the University of Georgia before relocating to N.C. State, said he measures how well farmers are doing by looking at how well John Deere is performing.
“John Deere sales for the second quarter this year compared to last year were down 16%. Their income was down 24%, their production ag sale down 21%, their profit margin dropped 3%,” Dorfman said. “There was nothing good in their report because farmers don't have a lot of money laying around somewhere that they want to use to go shopping at John Deere.”
Good news for farmers is that diesel prices have dropped from “ridiculously expensive to normally expensive” as have fertilizer prices, Dorfman said. Although fertilizer now costs about twice what it did pre-COVID, it’s lower than recent years when it was four times as expensive.
“Our production costs have finally stopped going up. They haven't come down, but at least they've stopped going up. I think what that means is production costs in 2025 are probably going to be close to production costs in 2024. Commodity prices aren't that different, either. What you earned last year is a good guide to maybe what you earn this year, the more animals you have on your farm, the happier you probably are as livestock prices are higher than crop prices.”
European Union Deforestation Regulation
Both Ag Commissioner Harper and Sen. Goodman raised the alarm about the detrimental impact the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) stands to have on Georgia timberland owners. The new EU mandate requires all wood products sold or produced in EU countries to come only from timberland that is reforested or used for another purpose other than crop production.
Goodman and Harper became aware of the issue in mid-August when Morgan County dairy farmer Everett Williams was informed by a logger that the two lumber mills in his market area wouldn’t accept his timber because of the EUDR mandate.
“We’re sixty miles from downtown Atlanta and a lot of land that we rent has been taken up by houses, so we need to use any land that we have near the dairy to apply manure to and grow crops. We thought we’d cut our last remaining tract of about 150 acres for timber,” Williams explained. “Then the two lumber companies that are the nearest and the best market for my timber said they could not take my timber if I was going to clear the land and put it in ag crops. It’s so ridiculous that I can put solar panels on it, but I can’t put it into crops to feed my family and the rest of Georgia. It was before my time, but this land was in cotton at one time, then it was planted in pines. Now it’s ready to be harvested or the timber is going to start dying and losing value. Why would you not harvest it? Why shouldn’t I have the right to use this land I’ve paid for and pay taxes on to the best use for my farm? Some people might say sell it [timber] somewhere else. Well, it’s not that simple. Timber has consolidated just like everything. There are only one or two mills that are close by that you can afford to haul it to and get anything for your timber.”
Harper and Goodman said they are working with other state legislators, state forestry organizations and leaders, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Rollins and Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler to educate the White House and trade representatives about the issue so it can be resolved during trade talks with the European Union.
“I spoke with a few Georgia forestry leaders and learned this is not just an isolated incident but has happened several times in our state as this new rule is coming into full effect,” Goodman said. “I believe President Trump’s administration is working on a new trade deal with the EU and this issue has to be addressed before anything is signed. It’s insane that people in Brussels or Geneva are implementing rules dictating what American farmers can and cannot do with their own land. The implications for private property rights and healthy timber markets are profound as well as the need for good farmland in the future as we endeavor to try and meet the established need of increasing our food production by 70% by the year 2050 to be able to feed the world.”
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