Tag Archives: ag issues summit

Georgia Ag Issues Summit: Lawmakers Tackle Rural Challenges Ahead of 2026 Session

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Perry, GA |

As Georgia lawmakers gear up for the 2026 legislative session, agriculture leaders and industry professionals recently gathered in Perry for the annual Joint Agriculture Committee Chairmen Ag Issues Summit. Hosted by Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Russ Goodman and House Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert Dickey, the event served as a platform to discuss both ongoing concerns and opportunities within Georgia’s largest industry.

“It’s a joint summit between the House and the Senate,” said Senator Goodman. “Chairman Dickey and I are the co-hosts of it and really just bring in people from across the state that are involved in the agricultural industry or extension, or people that have an interest in the industry, and come together and talk about issues, have guest speakers, and find out what our challenges are, what our opportunities are, things that we’re doing well.”

Goodman emphasized the importance of learning from university and extension professionals, noting the summit is essentially “about all things ag.”

For Representative Dickey, the event also plays a critical role in educating colleagues who may not have direct ties to farming or rural life. He says the summit helps bridge that knowledge gap between ag leaders and state lawmakers.

“Chairman Goodman and I are certainly up to speed on a lot of these issues, but so many colleagues are not,” Dickey explained. “That is the kind of information we need to get out to the rest of our colleagues in the House and Senate and the Governor’s office—what the problems are with agriculture in Georgia, what the challenges are that we need to be working on. And there’s lots of them. Rural Georgia and agriculture are facing a lot of headwinds right now.”

Among those headwinds is economic uncertainty—something Senator Goodman says threatens the future of many family farms. He believes public policy needs to be shaped with generational survival in mind.

“Right now, ag is struggling in a lot of ways with commodity prices,” Goodman said. “We’ve seen cost of input come down, but as you heard Dr. Dorfman say, they quadrupled, and now they’re just double what they were pre-COVID. Moving forward, it’s just going to continue to be about making sure we’re implementing public policy that hopefully enables the next generation to continue to farm.”

That message was echoed by Dickey, who says when agriculture suffers, the entire rural community feels the impact.

“Our rural communities are really suffering,” he said. “High cost inputs for farmers, low crop prices—a lot we can’t do on a state level. But we’ve got to support those communities, those rural ag communities, to have the infrastructure, to have the diversity that those communities really need. Agriculture is the largest industry in those counties. When ag constricts, it really puts a burden on our school systems, our roads, and those types of things.”

By: John Holcomb

Ag Leaders Join Lawmakers to Discuss 2025 Session

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Perry, GA |

In just over four months, state legislators will be returning under the Gold Dome and kicking off the 2025 session. Just like with every year, there are a number of ag issues they’re hoping to address this upcoming session, which is why the annual Joint Agriculture Committee Chairmen Ag Issues Summit is so important, as they discuss issues within agriculture with ag industry leaders and professionals.

“We had a great Ag Summit, Chairman Goodman and I had a lot of great speakers talking about ag economy and what’s going on all over our state referring to ag and trying to get it on our agenda as we go to the legislative session later this year. My goal is to bring AG to the forefront. As a real priority economic driver of our state and how important it is for the economy of our state that agriculture is successful and profitable. We’re trying to highlight some real headwinds that Georgia agriculture has right now,” says Rep. Robert Dickey, Chairman of the House Ag Committee.

Of course, one of the biggest, if not the biggest headwind Chairman Dickey mentioned is the economic uncertainty many of our state’s farmers are facing. Something Tyler Harper, Commissioner of agriculture says is a real threat he sees everyday and is something that needs addressing sooner rather than later.

“The state of the ag economy in our state, there’s a lot happening. As I mentioned a minute ago the low commodity prices that we have, in some cases, historically low commodity prices; you combine that with high input costs, you combine that with a rail strike in Canada that disrupts supply chains. You combine that with uncertainty in farm policy and ag policy because we don’t have a farm bill right now. There’s a lot of farmers and a lot of producers around our state, and I know I even see it in my own operation at home, we’ve seen the increased cost in seed, fertilizer, and chemicals, the increased cost in feed and those low commodity prices are significantly hurting bottom lines. It’s going to make it a lot more difficult for our farmers and producers to come through this. High interest rates, you combine that with everything else that’s going on and you throw in a natural disaster here and there; it definitely it has a snowball effect this year on the ag economy and I’m hearing that from producers all over the state,” says Tyler Harper, Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture.

In the end, Chairman Dickey and his Senate counterpart, Chairman Russ Goodman are aiming to learn about and prioritize the issues Georgia agriculture is facing as legislators prepare to head back to Atlanta at the beginning of the year.

“I want to make sure our voters and our representatives all across the state know the importance of ag and support it when we get to Atlanta and have policy that moves ag forward, and I think we’ve got to have it on both sides of the aisle, whether you’re urban or rural or in AG or wherever. Agriculture is so important for our state and for the long-term viability. This really elevates it and gets it on people’s priority list,” says Dickey.

By: John Holcomb

Ag Leaders Address Challenges, Opportunities at Annual Ag Issues Summit

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Perry, GA

In just over four months, state legislators will be returning under the Gold Dome and kicking off the 2024 session. Just like with every year, there are a number of ag issues they’re hoping to address, which is why the annual Joint Agriculture Committee Chairmen Ag Issues Summit is so important, as they discuss issues within agriculture with fellow ag industry leaders and professionals.

“Representative Robert Dickey and myself we co-hosted it and we worked together with our friends across the industry to come up with speakers and with subjects that are near and dear to the ag industry with challenges and opportunities that we need to look at going forward,” says Russ Goodman, Senate Ag Committee Chairman. “We heard some great speakers. We talked about foreign ownership of land. We talked about fertilizer. We talked about a future economic forecast and production agriculture. We just looked at a lot of different subjects and looking at what opportunities lay ahead for us as policymakers, the things we can do to help our state’s farm families and to help our number one industry.”

One of those speakers was Iowa State Extension Economist, Chad Hart, who spoke on the farming economy and the challenges impacting it; everything from the weather to geopolitical factors around the world that Hart says is causing problems for our producers here in Georgia and across the US.

“Just here within the U.S., we’ve had a drought. You know, it’s covered the southern and central part of the U.S. here for the last three years. That definitely has an impact. We’ve seen drought also in South America, but probably one of the biggest things I think farmers throughout the country felt were this, let’s call it the seesaw of import prices that we’ve seen over the past couple of years. Fertilizer was a big one for a lot of folks, especially last year. Compared to this year. We saw prices rocket to record levels. Well, some of that is linked to COVID going back to supply chain problems back then. Some of that is related to the Ukrainian war. A lot of the fertilizers that we bring in here to the U.S. gets its start in Eastern Europe. So, you’re seeing these international incidents combined with natural disasters that have led to increasing expenses here to conduct agriculture,” says Hart.

As mentioned, that wasn’t the only topic discussed, but according to Robert Dickey, House Ag Committee Chairman and farmer himself, it’s that issue he says needs some major attention this upcoming session, as he believes that when ag succeeds, the entire state does.

“We’re facing it all. Agriculture is one of those industries that just gets it all. So we need some levers. We’re looking for what would be good for our citizens and our farmers. I think when farming, the state’s largest industry succeeds, our state will succeed and have trickled down to our community. So that’s one of the challenges, where we look to make sure AG is long term profitable in our state and other states are doing more than Georgia, and that’s where we’re going to look further,” says Dickey.

By: John Holcomb