Ag News
GFB shows strength during annual visit to state capitol
Posted on Feb 13, 2025 at 13:56 PM
Georgia Farm Bureau (GFB) members visited Atlanta on Feb. 11 for the annual GFB Day at the Capitol event. Approximately 575 people from 80 counties participated, meeting elected officials outside the Georgia House and Senate chambers. GFB hosted a lunch meeting for members and legislators at the Georgia Freight Depot.
“Your representatives and your senators, they want to see you, they want to talk to you,” GFB President Tom McCall said, underscoring the reason behind the annual event. “If it's nothing but y'all getting to know them, that makes a huge difference.”
McCall and guest speakers Rep. Robert Dickey, Sen. Russ Goodman, Gov. Brian Kemp, Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper, House Speaker Jon Burns and Lt. Gov. Burt Jones each lifted Burns’ Chief of Staff Terry England for prayer. England, who retired from the Georgia House of Representatives after his last term, suffered extensive injuries in a farm accident over the weekend. He had spinal cord surgery Saturday.
GFB members carried messages to the legislature on a variety of ag concerns, and two key topics emerged – disaster relief and tort reform.
Multiple speakers praised the Weathered but Strong: Hurricane Relief Fund, which raised more than $1.7 million over three months following Hurricane Helene; all of the proceeds are being provided to farmers whose operations were damaged by the storm. The Georgia Foundation for Agriculture and GFB are coordinating hand delivery of 920 checks from the effort.
“It was truly a generational storm,” Kemp said during the lunch meeting, praising the more than 40 organizations involved with the effort. “It was the largest, most dangerous and costliest storm in state history.”
Kemp said he has pushed the General Assembly to provide funding for block grants and low interest loans to help storm victims keep their farms going.
“Our farmers are now in the process of getting federal assistance,” Kemp said.
A key piece of state disaster relief legislation is House Bill 223, which would exempt federal disaster relief payments for agricultural loses from state income tax, provide a tax credit for eligible timber losses at $400 per acre, and exempt building materials used for repairing poultry and livestock barns from sales tax.
In remarks at the morning orientation session, Senate Ag Committee Chairman Russ Goodman noted a bill he sponsored called the Timberlands Recovery, Exemption and Earnings Stability (TREES) Act. This bill would suspend “severance” taxes in the 66 counties that were declared federal disaster areas in the wake of Hurricane Helene. The bill would also set up a grant program for municipalities in those counties to recoup lost revenue resulting from diminished timber prices.
“People that would normally be selling wood for $25 or $30 a ton are selling wood for 50 cents or a dollar return,” Goodman explained, noting that the basis for severance taxes is the sale amount in dollars. “It's going to help the landowner a little bit, but it's also going to help those counties.”
Kemp has urged the General Assembly to act on tort reform – making changes to the civil justice system limit ability of plaintiffs to sue and the amount of damages they can receive. Kemp noted that the five-year average of legal claims in the state has risen by 25%, faster than the state’s population growth, and the number of claim awards exceeding $1 million has also increased.
“I know you have often found yourselves on the front lines of the challenges that we are trying to address,” Kemp said, “whether it be an unsustainable increase to your insurance premiums or frivolous lawsuit claims.”
Proposed legislation would allow business owners – including farm business – to be held liable only for what they can control. It would also set up legal proceedings in such a way that juries decide damages for actual pain and suffering rather than have attorneys suggest damage amounts. It would also allow for separation of the liability and damage portions of trials, so juries aren’t weighing both topics at the same time.
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