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Agri-Pulse | Hurricane Milton hits phosphate production, damages citrus groves
"...Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., and Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., along with Georgia’s entire congressional delegation, led a letter on Oct. 1 following Hurricane Helene’s landfall pushing for disaster relief funding to prevent deep and lasting economic damage to agriculture in the southeastern United States.
President Biden and some lawmakers have asked congressional leaders to return before the Nov. 5 election to consider a disaster aid funding package. House Speaker Mike Johnson has described the calls as 'premature,' saying that Congress can consider disaster aid after returning to Washington for a scheduled session."
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WALB | Georgia officials work to bring aid to farmers devastated by Hurricane Helene
"Hurricane Helene had an estimated $6.46 billion impact on Georgia’s agriculture, according to Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper. $3.2 billion was a direct hit on commodities, making it $700 million more than Hurricane Michael in 2018.
Congressman Austin Scott heard from South Georgia farmers about Hurricane Helene’s economic impact on Georgia agriculture as they shared the main concerns about recovery and posed ideas for legislatures to consider when building a disaster recovery program...
Congressman Austin Scott said his main goal is to help develop a disaster package that specifically focuses on agriculture — by taking the assessed damage estimate to develop an appropriate amount.
'So that agricultural is taken care of and we know it’s taken care of and so that those dollars don’t get mixed in with just street clean up and other things,' he said.
Many farmers, especially those in timber, raised concerns about the future of their investment being that it takes 20 to 30 years to grow, but Scott said there is a way to help with some recovery.
'The other part of it needs to be block granted to the states so pecan orchards, pine trees, a lot of the commodities that don’t have insurance products that money needs to be blocked granted back to the state,' Scott said.
Scott said he is optimistic that there will be legislation passed to help farmers recover from this disaster.
'Nobody is going to come out of this better than they would if the storm hadn’t hit,' Scott said. 'I mean our farmers, things were already tough for them with commodity prices and this loss is going to be a huge lick to them so we are going to do everything we can to help them.'"
Read more here.
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