Touting the value of agriculture as "Georgia's number-one industry" but acknowledging a tough weather year, Georgia Agribusiness Council President Will Bentley, speaking recently in Bulloch County, cited numbers indicating that Hurricane Helene alone wiped out roughly 10% of the state's 2024 crop value.

Bentley, originally from Thomaston where his family's Bentley Farms still raises beef cattle, is now a resident of Macon and head staff member of the GAC. Founded in 1966, the council is a trade organization that lobbies for legislation on behalf of agribusiness and promotes education on agricultural topics. He spoke during the Dec. 3 Bulloch County Farm City Week Breakfast hosted by the more informal Bulloch Ag Council where, as already reported, independent farm machinery mechanic D.J. Brannen was named Ag Partner of the Year.

"Ag is still the number-one industry in the state of Georgia, an $84 billion economic impact in the state, and $18 billion of that comes directly off of y'all's farms, and that's what I think is so hard for people to grasp," Bentley said early in his remarks.

Featured speaker for the breakfast, he talked to a crowd that included a number of area farmers and other agricultural business people who turned out at 8 a.m. in the Oak Room at Ogeechee Technical College. 

The $18.3 billion figure he cited didn't refer to the output of Bulloch or neighboring counties alone, but the "farm-gate value," or value before processing, of Georgia's crops. The larger, $84 billion economic impact figure includes the added value of processing, farm supply, equipment and transportation of agricultural products, even timber.

One in seven Georgians "work in something related to agriculture. That's not just folks on the farm or directly in agribusiness," Bentley said. "It's trucking, veterinary medicine. It's everything connected to the farm."

"In Bulloch County, that's going to be closer to one in five jobs," he said. "Y'all's economic impact, $188 million in farm-gate value … which makes y'all the 18th largest ag county in the state of Georgia, which is pretty impressive with everything y'all have got going on, the growth that you have experienced, the university here."

Georgia has 159 counties.

Hurricane and then some

In an interview, Bentley acknowledged that the state was wracked by other weather events this year, including earlier Tropical Storm Debby and, in Bulloch and the surrounding area, an unnamed weather system that dumped another foot or so of rain here in a day's time in early November.

But in his remarks, he focused on Hurricane Helene, which tore across Georgia in the early hours of Sept. 27.

"So, how many in here were impacted by the hurricane?" Bentley asked, and many hands went up. "I was afraid that number would be that high, but obviously we were on the road that week after, and basically from the time we got to South Georgia and went east, we were in the impact zone all the way until Augusta."

"That storm alone cost $6.4 billion in damage to agriculture," Bentley said. "That's $1.8 billion directly to farm production."

The latter number included a $214 million reduction in Georgia's cotton crop, through what he described as the loss of 500,000 bales overnight. Pecans accounted for a $138 million loss, with 420,000 pecan trees damaged or destroyed, he reported. The estimated loss to vegetable crops was $120 million, or 40% of Georgia's fall produce, and the state's "green" industry — including horticultural plants and greenhouses — took an estimated $450 million hit, while Georgia's poultry industry suffered an estimated $520 million loss, according to the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences.

Georgia's timber industry received an estimated $1.3 billion in damage, Bentley said, counting that separate from the $1.8 billion to farm production.

He didn't describe it this way, but a $1.8 billion loss would be 10% of the total $18 billion farm-gate value Bentley had cited. The numbers were from October and November, and he noted that loss estimates may still increase.

Limited state help

"So the question we get is, what are we doing about it?" Bentley said. "The state has responded."

Gov. Brian Kemp put $100 million into a fund, which Bentley said is similar to what the state did after Hurricane Michael in 2018. It's called the SAFETY 24 loan program, making loans of up to $500,000 at 2% interest to farmers who qualify.

"I know a lot of folks are in a tough financial situation already, so loans may not be the answer for everybody, but they're just trying to do one of the only things the state can do. Because of some different constitutional clauses and things, they can't give direct money the way the federal government can," he said.

Meanwhile, Georgia Farm Bureau, the Georgia Department of Agriculture and the Georgia Foundation for Agriculture, with support from about 40 other agriculture industry organizations, put together a "Weathered But Strong" fund, which he said has raised close to $1.5 million.

Hope for federal

"But … the storm was such a huge devastation that it's really going to take a federal response," Bentley said.

The Georgia Agribusiness Council had been involved in conversations with Georgia's U.S. senators, Sen. Jon Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock, and also farming-area representatives in the U.S. House, who Bentley said "are working hard to get money down to us."

"The problem is, that storm was so big, impacted Florida, impacted North Carolina, South Carolina and across the whole Southeast, that it's going to be such a huge number that it's going to be a big fight," he said. "So I'd love to tell you that we'll see money in a couple of months, but if you remember from Hurricane Michael, it took two years to get farmers money."

The GAC has been lobbying to have the money block-granted to the states, particularly Georgia, where Commissioner Tyler Harper heads the state Department of Agriculture.

"We are pushing, trying to get the federal government to block grant that money directly to Georgia, which would give that money to Commissioner Harper for him to be able to send out to our farmers in a much quicker fashion," Bentley said.

However, not all state delegations want this. Some states "that don't have as efficient a Department of Ag as we do" are pushing back, he said.