Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Committee Meeting

It's

been. Alright.

Have we got volume here? Second.

It takes

Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Oh, well, that might be a little loud.

Can everybody hear me okay? Is that pretty good volume?

Well, great to see everyone this morning for our first,

agriculture and consumer affairs committee meeting of two thousand twenty six.

I know a lot of our members have some conflicts with appropriations,

hearings this morning and various other things going on.

But to start off, our meeting, I want to recognize,

David Holverson for a, prayer.

Let us pray. Heavenly father, just thank this day. Just thank all the great things you do each and every day for us. It's it's just a great blessing. And, Lord, if you will be with our families as we're away to do the work of the people. And, Lord, just lift up the industry and and all the ones that's been affected by the storms the last few days. And just, Lord, I just wanna give you praise in everything that we do, and thank you again for all things. In your name we pray. Amen.

Thank you.

Just to start with our agenda, we're not gonna hear any legislation today. We do have some legislation in the, in the hopper, and we'll talk about it before we leave here today. But we have two speakers.

So glad to have commissioner Harper and, Doug Britton from,

Georgia Tech to catch us up on some things.

But before, we get into that, I I got a couple of people I wanna,

recognize. I've got Anna Smith here, our

our,

research and budget.

What's the what's the Budget and policy analyst. Budget and policy analyst that does a great job helping me with this committee.

And, we got Paul Higbee,

over there. We got, Kimberly Romaine. And we got two wonderful new,

interns in, in our office suite,

helping Trey Rhodes and, chairman Lynn Smith and I,

Victor Avila and, who's at UGA,

and, Owen Hawkins who's at Kennesaw. What?

Kennesaw.

Yep. So, they're doing a great job, for us.

I I I wanna regress just a minute. We've got,

one member who is, no no longer with us this year, who really,

was a great advocate for this,

committee and really helped me focus

on some areas that I'd

probably was not strong at focusing on. But that was, representative Karen Bennett who

resigned,

a few a few weeks ago. And, but I just wanna recognize her for her impact she had

on this committee, on me, on food availability,

food,

sustainability,

and neighborhoods.

And, she will be very well missed,

on this committee. So I will

I'll certainly,

will,

continue to rely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Very classy lady

and, some,

unfortunate,

situation, but she handled it very, very well.

So I wanna recognize her.

But, also, we have a new member.

Have been appointed to this

committee,

representative Herring.

And I,

would like to recognize you, and I'll turn your what's what's your number. And I want want you to tell the committee a little bit about yourself.

And,

is it 18?

17.

17.

And just, just, introduce yourself to this committee.

Well, thank you, mister chairman. I'm so delighted to be a part of this committee.

A lot of people

think that I'm a city girl, but I grew up up on a farm in Everton, Georgia, which a lot of people didn't know.

My grandparents had a farm for a number of years. They're one of the few African American families that were able to sustain their farm, but we don't have that anymore after generations. So I had talked about being on the ag committee for a number of years because I've always been a champion for ag and and for food in our for foods in our communities, and I wanted to make sure that I support it as much as I possibly could.

Talked to chairman about it last year. Didn't know that this opportunity would come, but I'm very delighted to be here.

I represent District 145,

which is Monroe and Bibb County. It's a new seat, so I'm, really happy about helping to be a champion for ag and keep us the number one state for agriculture. So thank you so much for the opportunity, chairman, and I look forward to working with everyone. And thank you all for the work you've already done. I hope I can contribute.

Thank you.

Hey. Well, thank you. And,

you will enjoy, working with this, committee.

So,

we will get right into it this morning. We are so happy to have commissioner Tyler Harper with us this morning, a man who is,

the busiest

hardest working ad commissioner in the in the country. I promise y'all.

His schedule

is,

is full every day,

and, I just appreciate him and his whole department and,

what all they do. And so, commissioner, I just

let this committee, fill in a little bit what you want to hear about, from Department of Ag.

Good morning.

Good morning, mister chairman, members of the committee. Good to be with you all. Thank you for what you do, every single day and the role

that you play in helping our state's number one industry continue to be successful.

I I definitely appreciate the partnership between this committee and the the senate ag committee and other parts and and

and and

and parts and pieces, I guess you could say, or or committees and

and that are part of the Georgia General Assembly and the work that we do together,

to ensure that, our industry continues to be successful.

It truly is a partnership to allow us to do the job that we are supposed to do every single day as an agency.

So,

this morning,

just gonna kinda,

just brief you all on some what we think are kind of the the bigger topics of things that we're dealing with at the department and and what's happening. And then, obviously, be happy to answer any questions about any specific issue whether

I discuss it, or not this morning.

But, but as you mentioned, mister chairman, I do we do have a lot going on, but I couldn't do it without a phenomenal team. And and, we we've got a great team at the department that helps us accomplish the mission. Every single day, about 570

employees,

in the Department of Agriculture that that go to work every day with that mission in mind of ensuring that our farm families are successful

and that our number one industry is successful,

and the work that we do jointly together,

to help make that,

make that happen. Just

overview of of us as an agency. You know, we have over,

22,

total divisions within the department that does not include,

some subdivisions

in some of those areas. We have over,

70 different licenses that we issue as an agency. We're about eighty twenty split on our funding between state and federal.

And then we have a number of attached agencies that flow through us administratively.

Both the the the the vet labs,

the poultry labs,

our commodity commissions,

soil and water, the the fair board and the ex Georgia Exposition Authority or the the Fairgrounds in Perry,

among other things,

that, we

are

just,

utilized. Our agency is utilized as the funding mechanism to to pass that money on to those entities.

So those are just,

pass through dollars that flow through us and flow through our finance department to those,

different entities,

for the work that they do,

every single day. But, but we're proud of the team that we have and and the work that our team does to address the issues that we're facing. And there's a lot of issues that are happening,

right now. I will,

I'll start out with,

high path avian influenza. We've talked about this,

a good bit in this committee over the last,

two years or so.

And most recently,

we have had,

an additional

outbreak,

so to speak, of high path avian influenza in Walker County.

Specifically, we've had two cases in Walker County,

on two,

broiler breeder farms

up there.

Our team

immediately went to work upon confirmation of that particular

issue, obviously, and we hit the ground running.

As always, we immediately activated our,

agricultural

emergency operation center, which many of you have visited over the last couple of weeks while you've been here, during the legislative session to see how we operate,

these events,

and have a better understanding of what it looks like.

But when these things happen, once we get confirmation,

our team begins to mobilize and activate immediately.

And we

go, to the site to secure it, but then immediately begin the plans on how we're going to contain it and address it.

And and that that happens through a variety of different processes.

At the high point, in Walker County, we had including,

Department of Agriculture

employees,

private,

and,

integrator, the employees of the integrator,

and some contractors. There were upwards of 70 people

dedicated to this operation

at any one particular time.

And and that just goes to show the extent of how big these operations can be and how much it takes for us to do the job that we do every single day.

And so

getting there quickly,

addressing it quickly is is the key. The quicker you contain it, the quicker you can ensure that we don't have any further spread of the virus. As y'all know, poultry, we're the number one poultry state in the nation. 30 almost 37%

of Georgia agricultural's economy is tied to poultry alone. It is a huge,

part of who we are, as a state, a large part of our agricultural success and our ag industry.

And so,

so it's critical that we address this,

fast.

Obviously, the winter storm kinda

provided some hiccups for us.

We because of safety for staff and and

employees,

we shut down the operation right before the storm hit, and we commenced operations as soon as it was safe to do so.

So we were probably shut down for about two days,

total, but,

our team is has been braving the cold,

obviously,

among other things to help help them do this

every single day.

In

in addition, just to kinda so you know what it looks like,

last year, we asked for some additional

funding to help us purchase some additional equipment to help us be as prepared as possible,

to ensure that our agency can have the resources it needs to respond

as quickly as possible.

This is a picture of one of those, foaming rigs that we utilize on-site at these HPAI events.

This is,

an example of this is actually on-site,

at at,

at an event right now and and working,

and has been utilized.

Obviously,

these are these are important pieces of equipment that aren't necessarily cheap. But with your help and your funding last year, you were able to help us purchase,

additional units for us to have,

because,

you know,

we we want as always, we wanna prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

And it's important that we have the tools necessary on

in addition to this, there's other equipment that we utilize.

Obviously, a lot of pressure washers and and, C and D equipment that our team utilizes,

in working with our partners and others.

And so having those tools are a necessary part of what we do. Obviously, it is a biosecurity,

case, and so we take it very seriously.

This is what,

it looks like when people are getting dressed to go to work,

when they come out on-site.

Yes. I have been in every bit of that myself multiple times actually on multiple sites.

Even when it's as cold as it is, you can still sweat in that. I promise.

So you can imagine what it's like when we've had, the instances

during the summer and the fall,

how uncomfortable,

those Tyvek suits can be,

especially when it's hot outside.

But our team,

obviously dons the

the safety equipment,

and we do that at what we call a hot cold line.

And so if you're on this side of the line, you can dress be dressed like we are. But if you're on that side of the line, you have to be in that,

that that equipment. And that's for the safety of the employees, but also it's also for,

the safety and security to ensure that we don't

spread that virus any further than that farm. Because to come back across the line,

you have to completely,

derobe out of that,

that that,

protective clothing and you have to go through a basic clean a cleaning process where we use a lot of,

cleaning agents to ensure that you and yourself and your clothes are completely

sanitized

and and can't

carry the virus any further.

When it comes to those foaming rigs, as I mentioned earlier, this is what it looks like inside the house,

when that foam is being dispersed.

It's basically a firefighter foam for all practical purposes,

and that's how we what's what we utilize,

to to,

speed up the process of getting giving us the ability to control and contain the virus,

and and what we call through a process of depopulation.

And so that's, what this looks like.

And so,

so it is a,

in some cases, can be a time consuming process,

but our team works, diligently

to get that done.

So HPAI

is something that obviously is top of mind.

As we were talking the other day, the majority of the states in The United States had a HPA case in the last thirty days.

So it's something that's here. I think it's something that we have to be prepared for every single day to address.

And at our agency, we're working to do just that. So with your help,

we can continue to ensure that we have the tools and the resources we need to respond as quickly as possible because that response,

is critical and critically important,

that we do that.

The the quicker we get there and lock it down, the quicker we get there and contain the virus, the quicker we can ensure that we have no further issues. And our team, in most cases, has been able to do that in twelve to twenty four hours, which I'm really proud of,

our team and the work that they're doing working with our partners to make that happen.

Obviously, we have a lot of other threats that we're dealing with too.

In addition to HPAI,

the cotton jacid being one of them, the spotted lanternfly being one of them.

There are a lot of things happening in agriculture over the last couple of years that continue to

to impact us,

and our agency,

in addition to the yellow legged hornet.

This is a a dashboard that our team utilizes to keep up with what the progress is on our work on the yellow legged hornet. All of those little dots you see, that little I guess it kinda looks like a blob up there, really. But everyone that is a bunch of dots.

Every one of those dots represents a trap,

that our team has deployed,

to monitor and find the yellow legged hornet in that Savannah,

area, that coastal area. As y'all know, this is a threat to our honeybee population, and it's definitely something that our team has been has taken very seriously because,

the Hornet is a threat to Georgia agriculture at the end of the day. And, and so we're continuing to monitor that

and ensure that we address that,

and and work to work to eradicate,

the yellow leg cornet. This was where it was first spotted

in North America. If y'all remember, we have had that conversation before. It was first spotted in the North American continent in the Savannah area.

And so we're kinda on the front line

of addressing this and ensuring this invasive species doesn't get any further,

across,

North America. So we have a lot of work that goes into doing that.

And so,

you know, we do get some federal reimbursements for some of these programs,

and some of the work that we're doing. But a perfect example of things that we don't get federally reimbursed for is some of these locations like the HPAI sites where we've been working, there's no cell phone service. So we have went out and, been able to obtain some STARLINK units,

and deployed to those locations so that we can have communication with our team,

and also be able to utilize the technology that we have been able to bring on, thanks to your help, to help us manage those events.

That technology, some of you saw that technology when you come to the EOC the other day. It gives us an opportunity to have real time knowledge of what's happening on-site and what's going on.

So without things like that, it would be impossible for us to be in contact with our team in the field.

So even though we do get some reimbursement

on some of these responses from the federal government, it does not cover our entire cost

when it comes to these operations. Last year alone,

HPAI cost our agency a little over $300,000

to respond,

and that was just the two events,

mainly two events.

There were some small backyard events that were a little bit smaller, but the two main commercial events.

So, it's not,

it's,

but at the same time, it takes a lot of time away from our team on doing their regular day to day job as well, because we're pulling them off off of their regular day to day job to go respond to that emergency response.

So it does cost us in a multitude of different ways.

Block grant,

lot going on,

and has been here over the last couple of months. Our team has put a lot of time and effort in getting this done.

You know, we're we're committed to finishing

this.

Unfortunately,

the last two meetings that we've had scheduled with USDA, USDA has,

canceled those,

and so we have not been able to have our follow-up conversations with them about finalizing our grant.

But it is in their legal,

office of legal counsel, what they call their office of general counsel. That is where it currently resides.

We're waiting on them to give us the green light to go. We have everything ready to go. Farmrecovery.com

is the website where you can learn about it. We have the application ready to go. We have all our processes set up. We have everything related to every commodity. This is covered under the block grant.

And so we we as an agency are are ready to go. We have a program manager that we have brought on who's a retired FSA employee,

who worked for USDA.

Matter of fact, almost every person that we have brought on our team,

to help us with this are all retired USDA FSA employees who have historically worked with

disaster programs.

That was intentional.

I wanted to bring on the people that understood how these programs work to help us work through this process, and they have been very helpful,

to get us to where we are and help us ensure that we have what we need to get us across the finish line.

And so and and once we do that, once those applications come in,

they can help us go through those as quickly as possible.

We,

we're we're we're gonna be working a pretty tight timeline once this rolls out,

but we have got to get the green light from USDA for us to be able to do that. That. So we're still working with them to work through,

that.

We,

we we feel really good about where we are,

and feel really good about the fact that we feel really close to the end,

but we can't do anything until we're given that that thumbs up and that final,

sign off from,

our friends at, at USDA.

The hemp program

is something that we have been really working to to really,

I guess, you could say,

clamp down on over the last year or so. Our team at the department's done a really good job,

of overseeing this. I know we've had a lot of conversation about this over the last year or so.

Many of you all know I moved our hemp program under our law enforcement unit,

and and our hemp program includes a number of civilian inspectors, five of, five of them to be exact.

Those, five civilian inspectors have worked to,

do over 1,100 different inspections in the last twelve months.

We have two licensed inspectors, actually a little more than that. But we have,

on on the month side, we have two licensed coordinators that oversee our licensing,

program for this program.

And and that's what that represents as you can see how many growers, processors, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and labs that we have licensed,

here in the state of Georgia.

Well and the labs may not necessarily be in the state. They just have to be approved by us.

And so,

those almost 8,000, a little over 7,900

entities that are participating in this program bring in a little over $2,000,000

in license revenue to the state of Georgia.

The general assembly gives us a little over $1,000,000

to operate the hemp program. So we're bringing in twice as much as you give us to operate it.

But, but we're working every day to address the issues that we see.

Of the you'll see in just a second how many violations we have,

done. But of the violations

that our inspectors are going out and and and digging into, 81 of those have been referred to our law enforcement team for criminal investigation.

Of those 81,

27 of them were related to under 21,

sales by by,

some,

some facilities in our state, and our team took action.

And, we addressed those,

either by citation or by arrest depending upon,

the the egregiousness

of the

action. In addition to that, our law enforcement unit has been working hand in hand with local law enforcement across the state to do undercover stings. We have done a multitude of those.

Some of those have resulted in significant

activity.

Some of them, we're still working those cases,

and and some of those cases will come to fruition,

over the next couple of weeks.

And so our team has been working really hard to hold folks accountable,

to what the law says and what you have allowed us to do and what we're working to do to ensure

that it's a successful

program. This is the dashboard that we have on our hemp program at the department,

and gives us

insight into what our team does every single day. So as our inspectors go out and inspect a facility,

we have an online

inspection form that they utilize. This is an example of us trying to adopt some new technology as an agency.

And as soon as they fill out that form, it automatically populates into our dashboard.

So this is this is,

pretty well up to date,

by the minute almost.

And it gives us unique insight into what we're seeing in the field. What are the issues? Where are the problems? Where are the hot spots? And that gives our especially our law enforcement team,

a little more insight into where where we need to focus a little more effort,

to ensure that we're addressing the issues and that people are abiding,

by the law.

In that bottom right corner, you'll see a bunch of those red dots on the state.

That is, in a that is every licensed entity that we have a license

on record for in our state.

And so we know where they are,

and we go visit them,

every day. Our team is out there today just like they are every day, ensuring that folks are doing what they're supposed to be doing.

The Georgia Agricultural Trust Fund,

some of you may be familiar with this, others may not. We do a report

on that every single year.

Actually, the law requires us to do a report. We submit that report to OPB in the House and Senate budget offices.

We'll be getting y'all a copy of that report.

But that report details out what we do with the the funds that you you allow us to utilize,

through the agricultural trust fund.

That that,

trust fund,

we primarily use those dollars toward maintenance and upkeep at the farmer's market.

And,

obviously,

it's only

a couple of million dollars a year, so it's it's not an extensive amount of money. So it doesn't go very far.

We've utilized this in a lot of cases, and you'll see this as you look through the report,

to address the issues that we had from hurricane Helene,

on our farmers markets,

both in Augusta and in Valdosta

and other places. We,

utilize it to try to address those infrastructure

needs that we have.

But at the end of the day, it's not a big enough pot to really go in and address some of the bigger issues that we're seeing. We can primarily focus on life safety issues,

to ensure that we're addressing those,

and ensure that we have,

addressing the needs when it comes to some things like ensuring that,

that that that, water related issues and stormwater issues are addressed at the same time whenever we're able to do that.

With the help of the general assembly and the governor's office, y'all have helped us also

get additional funding for,

the Atlanta State Farmers Market, which we have utilized to invest specifically in Atlanta,

and that is going toward significant infrastructure investment.

And and the unfortunate part

is,

you can't go out to the Atlanta State Farmers Market and see where we've spent the money because it's all basically underground, right?

So appreciate your help in that because it is much, much needed.

We're in the process now of building

the retention pond on the West side of the Farmers Market that will allow us to better manage our stormwater issues that are there. That was part of the funding that you helped us with. That is allowing us to do that, to address that. We're continuing to ramp up our security and our efforts, especially on the Atlanta market.

We,

we,

we have two law enforcement officers that are dedicated to the Atlanta Farmers Market for security purposes to ensure that we're addressing

the issues out there.

As y'all know, as I have told you, there in some cases, there are many.

And so we're we're really stepping up our efforts there to ensure that we're addressing the issues that we see out there, everything from petty theft to to drugs and produce.

There's a wide variety of of crime that we see and have has been seen on the market, and our team is working to address that to ensure that we protect the people that are going and coming from out there, but also the businesses that reside out there, but at the same time protecting our farmers,

because our farmers at the end of the day are competing against

individuals that are utilizing

a commodity,

an illegal commodity to supplement their agricultural operation.

The cartel does that significantly in Mexico, and and they utilize the Atlanta State Farmers Market as a hub to a degree.

And and and

it's uncompetitive

for our farmers here to compete in that marketplace,

because it is completely

unfair,

because our farmers are not getting subsidized like that as you can imagine.

And so,

so we we've got work to do to ensure that we're addressing that

every day.

So I'll end with this, and then I'll open it up for questions, mister chairman.

But what we're asking for, just wanted everybody to know what our operational ask were for the budget.

Thanks to the governor and appreciate his help, we've been able to address some of this,

but we're asking for the general assembly's help to help us with the rest of it. Our operational need,

just really high line,

a little over $3,800,000

with the governor's help. We he, we were able to get about 2.5

between FY '26

amended and FY '27.

We appreciate their help in that, but there are still some additional inspection system upgrades that, that were not funded in the governor's budget that we would like your additional help to help us fund that, and also,

working with us to help us address the need that we have from some of those federal shortfalls that we see as an agency. Because that funding shortfall and that funding,

issues, as you can see, since 2002, it's been an ongoing issue for us, especially in one particular program.

We have to pull funding from other parts of our budget or try to find funding to cover that. Well, when we do that, that means I can't hire more people because we're utilizing those dollars to cover budget holes.

So any help in that regard would be,

would be very helpful.

The governor did put in the money for our our our ask for 48 vehicles.

But this is, as I've said many times, we would appreciate y'all's help in allowing us to have an annual appropriation for that.

Just like state patrol, just like DNR, just like GBI and any other state agency that utilizes a lot of vehicles, we do too. That is our employee's

office. That's where they work.

And so,

employee morale,

is built out around not only addressing

pay, but it's also built out around the equipment that we allow them to use.

And as you can see on part of that operational need, some of that is a laptop refresh. You know, just simple things like that help us keep our employees, help us retain our employees, and vehicles are a perfect example of that. When I walked in the door, we had

about a 3 and a half to $4,000,000 backlog in vehicle needs. With your help, we've been able to work on that,

but we still have a a lot to go,

to help us catch up to where we need to be to address the issues that have been outstanding,

and ensure that our employees have equipment that allows them to get to where they need to be and that all of our employees,

are in vehicles that deserve to be. And lastly,

mister chairman, as y'all know, our food safety lab, and dairy lab was housed in the Agricultural Building across the street.

As you know, that is in that building is in currently in in middle of a renovation, which was much needed.

And, our lab has since been moved out to our friends at Georgia Tech that you're gonna hear from in just a second. And we're very proud of our partnership with Georgia Tech and their, our work with them to house our lab. It was very difficult, I can tell you, to find a place

that met our need.

We searched high and low.

Thankfully, Georgia Tech had some facilities that that we were able to utilize.

Unfortunately, this is not a long term agreement with them, though.

It's, it's a short term agreement to give us an opportunity,

to to get over the hump, so to speak.

And so we've we're asking the general assembly for your help and us constructing a new lab because

a lab doesn't belong on Capitol Hill nor does the old agricultural building have the infrastructure needed

to be able to to house a modern day laboratory.

It just does not exist. And so with your help last year, y'all included money for design of a new laboratory at the at, at the Farmers Market in Forest Park.

This year, we're asking for the construction money. The governor included 25,000,000

of our $34,000,000

construction ask. We're just asking for the additional funding to to be able to help us get, be able to help us obtain the lab that we, we we need to do the job that we do every single day. There's a lot that we do in those labs that are critically important to food safety and security and and the continuity of business in our state.

And, this facility will allow us to bring

all of that under one roof,

without us having to ship samples out to other states like we're having to do right now because we don't have the lab space to do it. It's gonna give us the ability to do our work here in Georgia and our team do it, and have the space to do it as well,

in in addition to some,

other,

maintenance space that is included in this to allow us to do the job that we do,

every single day.

I'll I'll close with this and then open it up for questions, mister chairman. But as you've heard me say,

at the department, since I walked in the door, we've seen a 33% increase in the

entities now just in the last three years.

33%

increase in three years. In that same time period, we've only seen about a 12% increase in employment.

So if you do the math, that means we're seeing about a 15%

increase on workload on our staff. So, yes, we have grown as an agency,

but so has the workload on every person that works for us at the Department of Agriculture. Those are things that we've got to continue to work together.

The Department of Agriculture. Those are things that we've got to continue to work together to address,

to ensure that we have the team and the resources and the employees to execute the mission that we've been asked asked and tasked with every single day because the work we do impacts every Georgian every day. The work we do impacts every Georgian every day,

the Department of Agriculture

and our team does.

And so I look forward to our work together to addressing those issues and ensuring that our team has the resources to do the job that, that we do every single day. So with that, mister chairman, thank you for an opportunity to visit with you and,

share a few things that's going on at the department. As you can imagine, there's a lot more that we can talk about,

but, but appreciate

y'alls,

you you you listening

and and our work together to help us do the job we do every single day.

Thank you, commissioner. And,

I I I do appreciate and I hope this committee just heard you. You expanded,

responsibilities

with the department. You have not shied away from,

doing those things, for the folks, people of Georgia citizens. And thank you for,

taking that head on.

And so I certainly hope, we can support you and

and,

and the department.

Thank you for your, availability.

You and your staff,

here are great, and always available

to me and anybody on this committee That's right. Each and every day. So thank you. We do have a couple of questions. We'll get on to Georgia Tech here.

Yes, sir. Shortly. So,

do want you to answer a couple of questions.

Representative Lewis Ward.

Thank you, mister chairman.

Good morning, commissioner. Good morning.

Can you give us the website again for the block grant? Farmrecovery.com.

Farmrecovery.com.

Ma'am. F a r farmrecovery.

And, just to follow-up. Yes, ma'am. How do you plan to communicate that the grants

application process is available? So,

well, a couple of ways. You can you can

that website, you can monitor that website,

but the other way is we're we're gonna be pushing it out via social media platforms, via, I'm sure I will be doing some interviews with with local and state media. We'll be utilizing our partners at Georgia Farm Bureau, Agribusiness Council, Poultry Federation. I know some of them are in the room,

among others. We'll be utilizing all of our agricultural,

partners and friends to help us push that message out.

So if there is a platform to push that information out, we will be utilizing it to push it out to ensure that individuals know that the block grant application period is is, opening,

and and that this is where they need to go to apply. So we're gonna be doing everything we can to push that out. And plus, you know, obviously,

at the department, we're we're we have a, you know, we have a email list of of those that

interact with our agency that that get a license from us. So we'll be you utilizing that to push and share information with those entities. So we're gonna be using every mode of communication

we that are that are that is available to us to push that information out. Thank you.

Representative Tyler.

Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you, commissioner.

You were talking about the trust fund. Can you share the sources of

the funding for that? Yes, ma'am.

So the trust fund is funded by GateCard

revenue. So the Gate as as y'all may be familiar with, the Gate Georgia agricultural tax exemption is the is the tax exemption program

that oversees,

that that allows farmers and producers in this state

to receive inputs on their in their farm operation,

sales tax free.

Well, to to be able to do that, you have to have a gate card. Well, to get a gate card, you have to purchase that from us at the department. So the revenue that comes in from that is what is put into that trust fund.

Okay. Mister chairman, if I could

follow-up quickly. Follow-up for Just real quickly. Okay. And I and I guess the reason why I'm concerned about that is because you're you're doing a lot with a little. Yes, ma'am. I'm thinking how can we increase that

if it's if it's Yes, ma'am. If it's limited only to what you take in based on those cars Yes, ma'am. It kinda stuck. Well, if you if you get really in the weeds, the the farmers markets bring in about

the farmers markets in Georgia,

create about a billion dollars in, in activity in in in agricultural activity in our state.

They also,

bring in to the department in in the fees that we collect through the markets a little over $8,000,000

The General Assembly

appropriates

about $4,000,000

to us to operate those. So we only get about half the money that we bring in

to operate the markets in addition to the to the trust fund that we utilize,

which is a little over $2,000,000

a year.

So,

so you can imagine

large buildings, lots of space.

Those those maintenance issues and things cost lots of money for us to repair. And so, so yes, ma'am. To your point, that is definitely something,

we could have a continued conversation about. This body asked us to create a plan for the future, especially at the Atlanta market. Our our team did that. We presented that plan last year. We'd be happy to share with you that that plan and what that looks like and continue that conversation. But,

but definitely, yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Representative,

Cameron.

Thank you, mister chairman. Thank you for your testimony, commissioner. And thank you for your help in Walker County.

And also,

I saw last night, I think Happy Valley Farms is now in Georgia grown program. So thank your staff for their help. Is is we move forward the next three to five years, do you see

any issues that kinda keep you up at night related to growers and producers in Georgia that we need to

well, a lot, you know There's there's a lot that keeps me up at night,

to be honest with you.

Yeah,

the

ag economy right now,

representative Cameron is pretty tough.

Our farm families are dealing with a lot, not just in Georgia, but across the country.

In the last three years, less than 5% of American farms have broke even or made a profit.

40% of of Georgia farmers in the last twelve months have con contemplated suicide.

You know, those are staggering

statistics. We saw a net farm decline of $42,000,000,000

in the last two years of the previous administration in addition to a $50,000,000,000

agricultural trade deficit, the largest in American history.

You know, we have an unlevel playing field when it comes to our our agricultural industry across the globe, which has created

issues,

and allowed countries like Brazil to overtake The United States in cotton production and cotton exports

because we have not given our farmers

the level playing field that they need to participate on every single day. We've seen

things like seed increase in eight in cost by 18%,

interest expense by 73%,

fertilizer by 37%,

labor by 47%.

Those are costs that our farmers are seeing every single day, and those costs have only increased just our farmers are seeing every single day, and those costs have only increased

just in the last four years. At the same time that's happened, we've seen commodity prices at an all time all time low. In the last forty years, we've seen 46

fertilizer companies become four. There are basically only three companies in America that you can buy seed from. Matter of fact, one company controls 45% of the seed in the cotton market. We have four companies that control 85 of the beef,

beef production in America. We have one company that controls 40% of it, and it's owned by China.

So there are a lot of issues in the agricultural sector right now. We have a lot that we have to work on, but it's gonna take us partnering with our friends on the federal level to address those issues. And some of that's being worked on. The h two a program is a perfect example of that. We saw a $250,000,000

increase in cost on Georgia farmers and producers

in the four years of the Biden administration. This administration

has already reduced that cost on our farmers and producers here in the state of Georgia and given them an opportunity to recoup costs. In some cases, I've been told by farmers that participate in h two a, this is the only thing that's gonna allow them to operate this year.

There are challenges in agriculture right now.

Our farmers are hurting.

Our our agricultural industry is hurting. But by putting farmer policies first

in a nation that depends on this industry, agriculture success is America's success.

It is national security. A nation that can't feed itself, clothe itself, or cover its head with with with wood products

can't sustain itself.

And and we're seeing a lot of that slip

away. It's imperative that we come together in a bipartisan manner to address those issues that are critical

to this nation, that are critical to our success.

So you asked me a very open ended question.

And I appreciate your candor. And there's a lot going on. Yeah. But I look forward to our work together to fix those problems and ways we can address those.

But I feel confident that we can

because the American spirit and the American farmer is that of resilience, and they have been resilient for a long time.

And we can we can fix that. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, commissioner, and,

thank you for your passion and,

for agriculture

and responsibility for it. We got some more questions, but we're gonna move on. Yes, sir. We got our next speaker, and,

so I'm gonna ask my good friend and former colleague,

Clay Pirkle, to come to the, podium,

and,

introduce our next speaker Okay.

A former

Georgia Tech graduate. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Georgia Tech hates when I say that because they know how dumb I am, but,

you know, I'd I say it as often as I can. Thank you, mister chairman Clay Pirkle.

I'm a farmer.

I just wanna say as a farmer, I can't be more proud of my friend,

and what he just,

what how he described the ag economy.

And one of the things he said specifically

that,

I would like to before I introduce the as I would do when I'm sitting on that side of the desk,

that I wanna specifically point out when he talked about the $50,000,000,000

agricultural trade deficit.

It is the largest in the history of this country,

which means we import more food than what we export

in the terms of $50,000,000,000.

And when, the commissioner said when a country can't feed itself,

it is a national security issue.

When we are when we are bringing in more food than we're sending out, then we are relying on others to feed us, and that's the state of the ag economy.

My point here today,

however

that was a great job, though.

53%

of all the peanuts grown in The United States

are grown within the borders of this great state.

1,853,000

tons, a record

in 2025,

was grown

in

Georgia.

And I want to thank

the governor,

the members of this committee,

the house, and the senate,

last year

was the first time

that the state of Georgia

ever

provided,

research funding

for the post harvest handling and inspection

of peanuts.

It had been done

in the early sixties

by none other than Georgia Tech,

but

state of Georgia had not invested any funds in how we can make this process

more efficient and fair to both farmer and,

buying points and shellers.

And last year, you stepped forward, and

the next speaker today,

is Georgia Tech.

The commissioner did, but often you get asked and when I was in your shoes, I get asked for money. Money, money, money. I need this for this, this, and this.

And almost never did they come back and say, thank you.

And let me tell you what we did with that money.

Today,

we're going to show you,

Georgia Tech got a little bit of seed money,

but they used it very efficiently.

In July 1, they got some seed money that you provided,

and they already have a prototype that will

change the peanut industry, and they got more coming. And with that,

here's Doug Britton with, Georgia Tech.

Thank you, representative Pirkle, for that overly generous introduction,

and thank you, chairman Dickey and members of the committee. It's a it's a pleasure to, be here this morning and talk a little bit about what we're doing at Georgia Tech, and I'm gonna launch this presentation just real quickly.

We won't start at the end. How about that? Let me see here if I can go back. Y'all gonna get it right from the very beginning. How about

there we go. Alright. So I'm gonna start talking a little bit about some of our work that we're doing in the fiber space, and that's with our Renewable Bioproducts,

Institute.

So this is an institute, and and doctor,

Carson Meredith is the director of this institute. I'm it's a it's a pleasure to have him with us this morning. But I'm gonna talk to you just a little bit about some of the needs of our friends in the in the in the in the forest products

sector. The Renewable

Bioproducts Institute's

vision is really to enable a resilient society through,

Earth's carbon resources.

And the way they do that is we look at taking plant materials, so timber, lumber, and other agricultural,

waste materials in in particular,

process that through chemistry and engineering, and then produce products that have provided a value added product for the industry.

This has generated or or launched this center for renewables based economy in wood

called REWOOD, and you may have heard of that already.

And I'm gonna mention four particular products that have been been part of that innovation in the initiative.

One is this transistor paper for,

or or for electronics.

So this is a very special paper that allows you to print

electronics on paper. And the reason this is important is it allows you to rapidly produce electronics that you can't currently do in in traditional chip manufacturing. This could really

change the way we look at some electronics manufacturing processes.

The second is lignin and other cellulosic materials for battery separators. So we're becoming a player in the in the EV space in terms of vehicles, but also in battery production. And this is an opportunity to leverage some of our natural resources in the state to support that industry. The next one I'm gonna mention is in the pharmaceutical industry. And this is a product called Xylosolv,

and it's really an alternative replacement for acetaminophen,

which is the primary active ingredient in Tylenol.

Who knew we could generate that from wood products or wood based fibers?

The last one I'm gonna mention here in particular is our sustainable nylon, otherwise called Zylon, which has been trademarked. And this is an agricultural

based nylon material or replacement for nylon, which you know is a petroleum based,

product

to be able to allow for our

fiber producers in the state to have an alternative value added product that can come out of of their products and the and the materials that they produce on a daily basis. So out of that has come the Georgia Forestry Innovation Initiative.

Thanks to the governor and others, this is a partnership with the Georgia Forestry Commission

and the Renewable Bioproducts Institute

forestry products sector. And this has come as a result of a lot of the pressures on our timber industry, whether it's been the closing of some mills or other activities and storm damage. We've gotta find ways to generate higher value added products for some of this, material. So the proposal here is to put together a pilot process. And now here's the thing. We know the technology works for those products, but we need to be able to prove that it can scale.

And that's the fundamental challenge that we have. And so what we're looking at here are really two areas that we wanna focus on. One is our carbon products. And we think about so so when you think about this, think about charcoal. Right? That's the simplest one that I can give you that you might think about as a product that's a value added product. But that's not the only one that we have. We also have biochar,

which is an amendment we can put back into the soil that really improves the condition of our soil. We also have graphite.

This is material that gets put in batteries, right, that's used for the production of high-tech

systems and technologies that are important to the state of Georgia.

The next one I'm gonna mention is the Xylosolv, and this is really, really critical. This is a solvent

that's used in pharmaceutical

industries

to specifically

clean and purify

pharma products,

drugs, other materials that we then use, and it's used at pretty high volumes.

Here's the shocking thing. 70 to 80% of what's currently used in this country comes from China.

So when we talk about having a resilient infrastructure or product that we can produce here in the state of Georgia,

Xylosolv can be a product. Right? The challenge that we have is is that whole scale up question. How do we manufacture it? How do we make it process? How do we get it from a lab scale system to a pilot system? And then the second part of it is, how do we get enough of the material in the hands of potential customers that can convince them that this is a viable alternative to what they're currently using? Because if we give them small doses that we have from our labs, we don't have that opportunity for them to really try it at a reasonable scale. So we're very

appreciative for the support in this initiative and excited to pursue it, and doctor Carson's gonna, doctor Meredith's gonna be here with us, so he'll he'll be able to answer any of the technical questions at the end. I'm gonna move on into our AgTech space

where our vision is really to transform the poultry agribusiness and food manufacturing sectors through advanced technologies. As many of you know, we don't have a College of Agriculture at Georgia Tech, so we partner very extensively with our friends at the University of Georgia, particularly,

Dean Place and and and doctor Applegate and the poultry science department have been super partners for us and we're excited for that work there. I'm gonna focus on some of our research topics this morning,

specifically our strategic thrust areas in the future of poultry operations,

our chemical and biological sensing, our our row crop work that our that my good friend, representative Perkle just mentioned, and peanuts and then some of our agricultural robotics in terms of our perception work as well. So let me start with poultry.

Poultry is our is our largest

agricultural commodity as the commissioner mentioned this morning. And what we're looking at doing is automating various steps in that process. And one of the particular challenges that we were that was highlighted through COVID was this lack of labor and the ability to get people to do the deboning operations in the poultry

plant.

So we've taken this approach at looking at taking three d images of the external carcass of this of this poultry

product, mapping that to the internal bone structure, and then creating unique cut trajectories for each product individually.

That first set that you saw there with that robot was a very slow developmental robot.

The one you saw there at the end is a high speed wash down robot. So we're transitioning again this product from the lab

to a proof of concept in the field to just recently. And that that, by the way, that test was just done in December, I believe, that last one that you saw, in order to be able to prove out again this whole trans this process of tech transfer into the commercial space. And so we're actually we've got a we've got a group that's going out to see a plant tomorrow that's a commercial company that's interested in some of this technology. So we're excited about that. The goal there is to meet the yield considerations that we see with the human labor as well as minimize or reduce the number of bone chips that are created, and we think we have some solutions to help solve those problems. The next one I'm gonna mention is our poultry house robotics. This is where we have a robot that drives around autonomously in chicken house. And you might say, why is this important? Well, you just heard the commissioner mention our challenges with avian influenza.

And if we can have a mechanism for monitoring these birds twenty four seven

in our in our operations and be able to assess the condition of those birds, we have an opportunity to very rapidly maybe reduce that response time, commissioner, and get some in get some input. But not only that, we can also help the productivity of these processors. So this is a broiler breeder house. So what we're looking for in this particular case is eggs. And so you see that little arm on the front of the robot, it's going out there identifying eggs and picking that up. Now what's unique about this, and you say, yeah, but I've seen all sorts of vehicles and stuff in the space. This is fully autonomous, but it's gotta work around chickens.

And so we've gotta know how to navigate around those chickens and be able to make sure that we're not causing stress or harm. And I don't know. I'm not a chicken expert, but I see Mike Giles as my poultry federation friend. I don't think they're super stressed about that robot being in the space, and that's really a big consideration.

Matter of fact, they're more curious than anything. But this is something that we're doing and leveraging this technology. In addition, we can look at things like conformity and health and other sensors that are on that platform to be able to do early detection and management of the of the flock twenty four seven.

On the chemical and biological sensing side, we've produced this this sensor called an interferometric

biosensor. Now this is a platform technology

that allows us to detect things like salmonella, campylobacter,

and e coli when it comes to the pathogen side of things. But it also can detect PAA or chemicals or two four d or most recently, PFAS, the forever chemicals.

We're also looking at diseases like COVID and flu and avian influenza. We did a significant set of tests with the Georgia Poultry Lab Network a lot not long ago on some testing for that. The exciting part about this sensor platform technology is it's already been commercialized. So a small company out of Valdosta, Georgia named Salvis, which is a sub a subsidiary of CJB Technologies,

has taken this technology and built a handheld unit that they wanna deploy into the commercial space. And this is an example of how we transition technologies into the commercial realm.

I'll mention our volatile organic compounds work.

This is an area where we're looking at gases, essentially,

that come off of plants. If you've ever driven by a a field or a yard and you say, man, I can smell that fresh cut grass or I can smell that that hay that's just been cut, those are volatile organics, lighter light organic materials that you can smell and we can pick up and detect. And the goal is or what we've discovered in talking to our friends at the University of Georgia is plants emit these chemicals for a variety of different reasons. Right? And in this particular case, we were studying water stress. And they actually put out a volatile organic material

that

volatile organic compound well before you'd see it in the

field, and this is peanut plants.

So this is an opportunity for us to help our farmers understand what's happening in the field well before they'd be able to see it in the actual canopy of the plants. And you can see the decision tree right there that's used to make that separation in between the water stressed and the non water stressed.

Representative Pirkle mentioned, and this is actually some work representative that we did back looking at, the inspection of peanuts and the modernization of that process.

And the goal here was to be able to separate peanuts based in the buying point based on the quality characteristics and the defects that are important to our buying point friends. Now this was just a really early stage test, and I and I say that because,

boy, let me tell you, there's a lot of opportunity for improvement as you can tell. But I wanted to share it as a vision of the future. In addition, we've been able to help the the, peanut industry already look at improving the efficiency in the buying points by looking at minimizing the amount of loose shell kernels that end up in the wrong positions,

then also studying the sampling opportunities, just looking at pulling out peanuts from the trailer. And I believe you should have a handout in your packet somewhere that talks a little bit about some of the work that we've done in support

of the, the peanut row crops in particular, the modernization

of the inspection process.

I'll mention just quickly some work in our in our agricultural robotics. This is an early development and prototype looking at harvesting for cane berries. But more recently, this has been migrated to look at blueberries, which is a much more valuable commodity and product in the state of Georgia. But it's an intelligent gripper, and what it can do is it can tell the ripeness of that fruit or that product and then grab it. Now don't get too hung up. I know there are a lot of farmers in the room and they're going, this would never work in the field. And I a 100% agree with you. But what we're doing here is we're learning how to make it and how to manage this fruit that's typically very sensitive to damage if you don't harvest it correctly. And so we're looking at that. We've also done some work, Chairman Dickey, looking at some peaches in the past, at peach tree, thinning. And those have really been student projects where we've engaged students on that front. And speaking of students, I wanna talk a little bit about a very exciting thing that's happening through our Georgia Tech rural computer science program.

This is a project.

Our rural computer science program, as some of you may know, was championed by our friends, chairmans Dubnick and Jones.

And the goal was to provide valuable computer science education in our rural communities where they didn't have access immediately to places in the metro area that might have access like Georgia Tech or other opportunities to learn computer science. And one of the really interesting things that we've done is we've

deployed what we call the FarmBot.

This is actually a commercial little farm robot. It's a gantry robot, and it goes back and forth on rails and back and forth. And what it does is it's got a camera. It's got the ability to dose

water and nutrients in each of these little plants. And so what the students are able to do is actually plant these plants,

program the robot using their computer science, their real computer science technologies,

and really understand how computer science and robotics might apply directly to their livelihoods. And what what we're hoping to do is bridge that gap between agriculture and technology,

ground them in computer science through lived experiences

around our farmbot

opportunity and then leverage their unique strengths and abilities and skill sets that they come to naturally having been in the rural communities to understand how do we actually convert them from being technology consumers

to technology producers and developers for their specific needs and communities. And this is a great opportunity to teach them computational reasoning, automation, logic, and systems thinking, specifically for developing the next generation of future farmers, and it's something that we're super proud to be part of. I should mention we have nineteen, nineteen, I believe, of these farm bots in districts across the state.

And I think there's opportunity to do more. I should mention just briefly that the rural computer science program has impact in about 50 different districts across the state. And in the past, I think, three years, we've had over 14,000

students go through that program. So it's had a major impact in our rural communities, and we're super excited about that. I'm gonna just end here real quickly. And I say our goal is really to drive innovation that empowers

Georgia. I mean, we want to think differently at Georgia Tech. We want to bring perspectives. We want to solve real problems. And we want to support the state, whether it's in our fiber world or in our ag world. Those are so tightly coupled. And that's why I presented on both this morning.

We think we can do it by connecting people with the SUD universities, our industry partners, our departments of agriculture,

whether it's and in developing thought leaders. Right? This is the next generation, whether it's FarmBot or other things, the students that work in our programs, but also our young people and our academics. Right, to say, hey, there is opportunity in the agricultural spaces to solve some of these interesting problems, adopting advanced technologies.

That's a key thing for us to be successful in the long run. And then drive this notion of transformational innovation kind of at the intersection of traditional disciplines, whether it's the engineering sciences, the agricultural sciences, and

emerging technologies, and that's really our goal when it comes to driving innovation. I I we don't do this alone. I've got so many great partners, and you can see many of them listed here. I won't go through all of them, but we're super thankful to have partners across the spectrum, whether it's agencies,

industry, and our university partners as well.

I don't do this alone. I've got a team back at the office and back in the labs. And by the way, they're heavily involved in the international production and processing expo this week. We've got a booth down there and having a lot of great conversations to talk about the future of ag, the processing technology that we're producing, and in particular for our poultry friends. So,

with that, chairman, I will I will hand it back to you and be happy to answer any questions if you have any.

Well, thank you.

We might take, we're kinda after the hour and, wanna make sure everybody gets,

on time. So,

representative Ford.

Hey. I wanna thank you for being here. I'm

a cotton producer, peanut producer in, in the peanut

processing business. My family owns part of a shelling plant in a bond point,

in in the cotton business. But again, one problem and, commissioner Harper talked about the cotton industry and how it's failing.

Have you looked at

an alternative method of harvesting cotton by chance?

We have not specifically looked at cotton. I'll tell you our first real foray into the row crop space was last year, right, when the legislature gave us a little bit of seed funding to be able to to support some of this. We'd be happy to support cotton industry and looking at different things. We've had some conversations and and looked at some things.

We're not experts on the cotton side, so we need support on that. But on the engineering side, that is certainly something that we'd be happy to consider and look at. There's one company that makes a efficient

harvesting,

harvester, and it's very, very expensive.

They control the market.

They do a lot of sponsorship and funding of to the different organizations, and I think it has really slowed down some of the research to alternative methods. So

I would,

I think there's a, spot for that, definitely. Wonderful. Yeah. Well, I had the pleasure of visiting, representative Perkle on his farm one day, and he would when I met him, he was out there, I think, fixing the cotton harvester, if I'm not mistaken. So

There's a need, isn't there, Clay?

Well, thank you, and thank you, the great institute, Georgia Tech and, what the work they do.

I'm gonna do,

that's the end of our program. I'm gonna do a little bit of housekeeping.

Representative Herb

Heather still wants me to remind everyone we did

cancel the,

the tour to the, food bank today and, didn't have enough response, but we might do that in the future. It's a great, facility down there. If anybody wants to go, we'd love to try to schedule that again or we might get food bank here, next meeting to give a little update,

on on that.

Next week, we will,

probably,

take up a couple of, hearings on bills.

I'll put one in your, folder.

Representative Motenahan has house bill nine

forty seven.

Get familiar with that.

It's a lot of discussion around this building

about that. So you need to get up to speed,

with,

nine forty seven.

And then,

from last year,

SB 33

senate bill, senator Kirkpatrick is working on.

Sub for, her bills,

that we heard last year but did not pass. And, so that will be coming your way in the coming weeks.

So,

with that, is there anything else? We have rural caucus today. Thank you, commissioner. Hostess

over there every week,

with that,

lunch.

And,

so hearing nothing else,

meeting adjourn.