Author Archives: John Holcomb

Hard Work and Craftsmanship Paying Off for Teenage Agricultural Entrepreneur

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Dearing, GA

Every morning, just before seven, Eyob Needles arrives at his job at Hillcrest Farms. He cleans the milking parlors, feeds the calves, and never seems to take a break. Yes, Eyob has an abundance of energy and a work ethic that is hard to match. His passion for everything he does has earned Eyob high praise from Hill Crest Farms Owner, Mark Rodgers.

“You know, he took the time to ride up here to ask for a job in the rain on a bicycle. And so, you know, that’s the first thing to catch your eye. He smiles all the time, just has that positive, upbeat attitude, and that helps a lot too when you’re looking for a job. If somebody comes in and just really has that positive outlook on life, you’re more prone to hire them,” says Rodgers.

“It probably comes from my parents, I think, because I know, growing up they were always really hard working to make sure that they could provide for us,” says Eyob Needles. “I think growing up with that, you can actually visibly see it as we grew up with them, that it starts to rub off on you and then you start wanting to follow in their footsteps. I sometimes think I have ADHD, I can’t sit still, so I want to put it to use the best I can. If I sit still too long, I end up just going out of my mind. So, I go out and I try to figure something out to do, like, ‘hey, I want to do this, so I’m gonna do it the best I can and I’ll just work on it as long as I can,’ you know?”

At Eighteen-years old, Eyob acts and talks like a person who has been around agriculture his entire life. Truth is, he’s a relative newcomer. Just over three years in fact. When asked what he loves most about agriculture, he doesn’t hesitate to answer.

“Oh, definitely number one’s the animals. I love animals so much. I mean, I’ll spend as much time as I can in whatever free time I have with animals,” says Needles. “At the end of my shift, I’ll clock out and then I’ll go back to my favorite calf, Bella and I’ll play with her a little bit. Then I’ll go home and I’ll hang out with my puppies. We’ve got three Great Pyrenees,
two of ’em are pups, but I just love the animals and I love being outside and I love working with my hands. And that’s what agriculture provides you, is animals, and outdoor work.”

Did you catch what he said there? That, other Job? By noon, Eyob’s day has only just begun, even though it started at seven am. For one, he’s home schooled, and just like every other teenager, he has to do his schoolwork before he can begin that other job, which is building chicken coops, but these chicken coops are not your average coops. Some would say they’re architectural masterpieces.

“It started when we got chickens ourselves and we needed a build real quick. So, I threw one together out of pallet boards that we had. I actually enjoyed it when I finished it because I was like, ‘wow, I made something out of junk.’ It turned out really well. So I built another one because we wanted wanted more chickens,” says Needles.

Nowadays, he uses brand new pressure-treated wood. Still, he practices sustainability by recycling all the wood he uses and reselling it. His attention to detail and his craftsmanship are impeccable, and his chicken coops have become very popular.

“Just the effort he goes to, to do a really good job and satisfy the customers that he’s selling them to, shows that he’s aware of how to market things. So, I like seeing that in any young person to try to really do a good job and go beyond what is expected,” says Rodgers.

“When I sell a coop, I’ll even like wait a couple weeks and then I’ll come back and message the buyer and I’ll ask them, ‘is there anything wrong? Is there anything you want me to fix or that I should fix for the next one?’ And I’ll take their feedback and I’ll apply it to the next build. So, it started with pretty much nothing, then it’s built up to an actual business that I really enjoy doing. I actually have grown into having all these different tools now instead of just working with a hammer and a crowbar, but starting that way actually allowed me to understand that it takes work and it takes dedication to actually build your way up,” says Needles.

Despite his busy schedule, Eyob is determined to succeed in all his endeavors. He also knows he has a bright future ahead of him, and he is willing to put in the hard work to make his dreams a reality. His passion for agriculture and his talent for carpentry make Eyob a valuable asset to his community, and he has already made a name for himself at such a young age.

“He’s gonna be successful at what ever he does, and that’s one thing we try to instill in all the young people here, is do a good job,” says Rodgers. “That carries into any job you’re ever gonna do anywhere in society. So, we’re not necessarily thinking that they’re gonna dairy full-time when they leave here, and we hope some of them do stay, but some will go on to bigger and better things for them and that’s great, but we want to instill that work ethic that they’re gonna need to succeed.”

By: Ray D’Alessio

Broccoli Harvest Underway in Southwest Georgia

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Moultrie, GA

Down in southwest Georgia, it’s time for some fresh broccoli, and operations like this one, Hartco farms are hard at work in the fields, harvesting this year’s crop. It’s been a season full of hard work, but it’s certainly paid off as they’ve grown a good, quality crop they are certainly proud of.

“I’d say at this point our yields are above average,” says Clay Sellers, Owner of Hartco Farms. “We’ve really had a good growing season on this broccoli, but I would say at this point right now, we’ve had as good of a growing season as we could have had.”

Even though Sellers says they had a great growing season, that doesn’t mean it was an easy one, as sellers says broccoli is a tough crop to grow – one that requires a lot of attention, especially when having to deal with the unpredictability of mother nature.

“Broccoli is a very temperamental plant in South Georgia, as our seasons vary. A lot of heat and humidity in South Georgia. The growing season in the spring can vary from sixty to ninety days. The biggest thing with broccoli is the harvest interval, whenever that thing gets ready, you’ve got to cut it. So, some of that broccoli we’ll end up cutting four times; we have cut it five in instances,” says Sellers.

Sellers says one big factor when growing produce like broccoli is water and the availability to it, as Sellers says there are times when, if they didn’t have irrigation, they wouldn’t be able to grow a crop.

“Our seasons, the way they are in South Georgia, you could be watering that broccoli four times a week or you could be watering it one, it all depends on climate. We’ve tried soil moisture sensors in the past, but those things are not as accurate as they would need to be in this instance, just because a lot of times, we’re watering that broccoli for maintenance to keep that plant from stressing. Our soil moisture conditions could be high at that point, but that plant could be wilted because it’s under heat and a lot of stress, so we’ll use that water to ease the stress on the plant and to make it continue to produce a viable product,” says Sellers.

According to Sellers, the biggest factor they’ve faced the last couple of years, however, is not weather related at all; it’s the costs of much needed inputs that continue to rise when commodity prices remain stagnant.

“Inputs absolutely are probably one of the biggest challenges we face. Fertilizer being number one in the last two years. I use a lot of rainbow homogenized fertilizer, and that stuff is up three hundred bucks a ton what it was two years ago. Nitrogen, same deal, I mean, right across the board. Inputs in general are up. The problem we as producers face is the product we’re selling has not increased at the same pace as the product we’re buying,” says Sellers.

By: John Holcomb

Timber Operation Engineering Revolutionary, Sustainable Building Products

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Dothan, Alabama

With Georgia being the number one producer of commercial timber in the United States, finding new and innovative ways to use it is a top priority within the industry. That’s the goal of SmartLam North America, as they are engineering cross laminated timer, which can be used by major construction companies on a number of different projects.

“It is basically plywood with lumber utilized in flooring for large commercial buildings or high end residential as well as three plies, which can be utilized in walls,” says Derek Ratchford, CEO of SmartLam North America.

This type of building material has a number of advantages over its counterparts as CLT not only creates less of a carbon footprint, but it also makes construction faster and cheaper, as the panels are prefabricated before they are shipped to the site.

“Significantly less traffic on site utilizing mass timber products as well as the speed of installation is significantly reduced,” says Ratchford. “You also have the carbon sequestration side which is better for the environment.”

This product is made by gluing together three or more layers of solid-sawn lumber, which gives it the structural integrity you would typically see from the more common materials used in large scale construction projects.

“It is very competitive, in many applications stronger than steel, but CLT and glue lam are not designed to replace steel. It fits into full mass timber buildings as well as what I call steel hybrid CLT buildings,” says Ratchford. “There’s many uses for it, depends on the spans and the loads that the engineers, architects, and developers are looking for.”

Creating more viable construction options from timber could be a huge benefit for the industry here in Georgia as it has the potential to greatly expand the customer base for the growers.

“It’s an expanded new product line that absorbs capacity of timber and lumber that was not on the market before. With our growth rate, over the next five to ten years, it’s just going to keep growing and growing and growing and put more and more demand on sawmills,” says Ratchford. “It will require additional sawmills in the future as well to keep up with the increased demand.”

For that reason, the Georgia Farm Bureau Forestry Committee decided to take an up close look at the new facility in order to get a better idea of what has made it so popular overseas and how it can benefit the domestic industry in the future.

“We’re probably close to twenty years behinds them, but the growth that they’ve experienced there is here. We are starting to see it not only with the number of projects, but the scope and size of the projects keep growing and growing each year. So, over the next twenty to thirty years, in the wood products industry, this has the most growth potential,” says Ratchford.

By: Damon Jones

Thomas County Citrus Tree Nursery Growing Certified Trees, Georgia Citrus Industry

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Ochlocknee, GA

Two years ago, this greenhouse full of young citrus trees was just a dream for Lindy Savelle, Owner of Georgia Grown Citrus here in Thomas County. However, as you can see, that dream has now flourished into a reality; one in which Savelle grows a variety of different citrus trees designed to be more vigorous and suitable in colder climates.

“To be successful in Georgia, you really need to have a tree on a cold hardy rootstock,” says Savelle. “If you buy it from someplace else, it may not even be on a rootstock. It might just be grown from a clipping or it might be on a rootstock that is an aggressive grower and less cold hardy. So that’s the first thing. You want to have a rootstock that’s cold hardy in nature and then it has to come from a certified rootstock seed. Then, the next thing is our trees are budded, very similar to grafting, but it’s a bud being placed on the rootstock, and that needs to come from a certified mother tree, or a scion tree.”

Not only are Savelle’s seeds and root stocks USDA certified, so is her greenhouse, which means all of their trees are kept in a disease-free environment and are tested before they are allowed to sell them.

“We have people in neighboring states; Alabama, Mississippi, that drive all the way here to purchase trees, but also, we ship trees throughout the US. We’ve shipped to Maine, to Washington and down,” says Savelle. “So, in order to ship outside the state, you have to be USDA certified, but what that actually means to the consumer is that the trees are tested twice a year and the facility itself is inspected once a month. Which, if you’re looking for a citrus tree, you want it to be one that’s grown in an environment that is close to being disease-free as, as you can get it and that’s what we’re striving for, is disease free trees.”

According to Savelle, the importance of greenhouse nurseries like this one with disease tested and free trees can’t be overstated, as citrus is very susceptible to disease and an outbreak could be detrimental to the state’s citrus Industry.

“Florida, our sister state, has lost eighty percent of its production due to disease, primarily citrus greening, which is a devastating disease. It oftentimes takes about five years for that disease to surface where you know something’s wrong with that tree,” says Savelle. “We have a commercial industry now in Georgia of citrus, and we’ve got half a million trees in the ground and a hundred and fifty plus growers who are planting this for a commercial production. So, it’s so important that we protect their investment, our investment. We also have a commercial growth as well. So, you’ve put out a lot of money, you want to protect it from disease. Citrus is one of the highest disease potential commodities that there is.”

By: John Holcomb

Aubrey Plaza Promotes Milk Alternative in Got Milk’s Satire Campaign: Wood Milk

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Parks and Recreation Star, Aubrey Plaza recently starred in a new, satirical Got Milk? campaign promoting her new company and product, Wood Milk.

The video, posted by plaza last week, introduces the world’s first milk product made of wood. She says, “It started with a simple idea: I saw a tree and asked myself, ‘Can I drink this?’”.

Plaza describes Wood Milk as being “bottled right here in the forest where the trees hit the dirt, which locks in the flavors like cherry, maple, and of course mahogany.”

The actress then went on to conclude that the product was fictional by saying, “Is Wood Milk real? Absolutely not. Only real milk is real. Then what did I invest in?”

By: John Holcomb

Annual Convention Beneficial for Pecan Industry

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Perry, GA

Down in Perry, pecan producers got the chance to attend this year’s Georgia Pecan Growers Association’s annual conference; a time that allows growers and industry professionals the chance to fellowship, see the latest and greatest equipment, and learn about what’s happening in the industry.

“It’s really important for the industry to be transparent with all the knowledge that’s out there available to them,” says Samantha McLeod, Executive Director of the Georgia Pecan Growers Association. “This really focuses on their industry in particular, helps them with production on their farms and it also helps them with marketing their product after harvest. We have a lot of our national industry groups here reporting on what’s taking place, both domestically and internationally, so the growers can be a little bit more in the know about the marketplace since we aren’t a publicly traded commodity. It’s a tough, niche industry for us, so conferences like this, for specialty crops such as Georgia pecans is just really critical for awareness, joining of knowledge and information, and of course, camaraderie for the industry.

One highlight of the conference was getting to hear from Justin Jones, a Georgia producer that serves as the Industry Relations Chair for the American Pecan Council. Jones spoke to producers about the council’s efforts and challenges with getting into international markets, especially at a time when other tree nuts are struggling with price.

“From an international standpoint, the one thing we have to do is separate the pecan away from other nuts. When you look at almonds, walnuts, when you, historically, look at where we’ve moved relative to each other, we move very closely, but now you look at what the challenges the almonds are going through, the challenges the walnuts are going through, especially the price point, and now you try and separate that out because the almond and the walnut guys right now are underwater with their price. So that’s one thing we’re trying to do is keep pushing the pecan awareness and that’s the struggle is trying to fight against other, cheaper nut prices,” says Jones.

However, according to Jones, markets seem to be opening up in Asia, as India announced earlier this year that they’ll be lowering tariffs on pecans by seventy percent and China has finally lifted their covid restrictions, to which Jones says has already boosted exports.

“I think one of the biggest things we’re looking at for this coming year would possibly be China, which is a big market for us, not as big as it has been but it’s still a big market. You look at when they released their covid restrictions and kind of went back to a normal situation, you could say, where you look at our exports just in the last month or two; they have climbed tremendously just from somewhat opening up of the markets and people getting back to a normal way of life in China. Will that move the needle enough to focus back to the grower level on price? Still to be determined. Especially with other nut prices like they are right now,” says Jones.

By: John Holcomb

Heavier Truck Weights Now Allowed in Georgia to Haul Agricultural Goods

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Atlanta, GA

With input costs up across the board, farmers are looking for any way to cut their spending in order to stay out of the red. It’s a concern the Georgia Farm Bureau legislative team is well aware of, as they recently helped push a new bill, which increases the maximum weight of trucks hauling agricultural goods, through both the House and Senate.

“You know, this is going to benefit and impact a farmer’s bottom line at the end of the day. If they can carry more weight per truck, more weight per trip, that’s less trips that they have to take to get the same amount of goods from A to B,” says Jake Matthews, Government Affairs Specialists for GFB. “That’s a direct benefit to a farmer’s bottom line really, and with transportation costs being so high these days, this is really going to make an impact on that and help out in that sense.”

Not only will it be advantageous to their budget, but it also gives the farmer a little piece of mind knowing it can help protect them against future disasters.

“Timeliness in getting a crop up and out of the field is really important these days. You know, when you have a severe weather event coming through, the ability to get your crop harvested and out of the field in a timely manner is really important. If severe rain is coming; a bad hurricane or storm, being able to carry more weight is going to allow you to get your crop out more quickly, more efficiently, and hopefully be able to minimize some of the effects of a severe weather event like that,” says Matthews.

The bill’s passing didn’t come without some opposition citing both road safety and degradation concerns. However, being just a four-thousand-pound increase, it should have minimal impact and could actually be a benefit in the long run.

“We’re really not talking about a ton of weight there, but we are talking about over the course of a year, that little bit of added weight is going to have major implications for the farmer, for folks hauling forest products.” says Matthews. “When you spread that out across the year, that starts to add up on the trips and the savings benefits. At the end of the day, you’re going to take a lot of trucks off the road, because it takes less trucks to haul the same amount of products now, and less trucks on the road has a number of benefits from a safety benefit to just traffic congestion and that sort of thing.”

This bill also puts Georgia famers on an even playing field with surrounding states as a majority of those have already adopted similar legislation.

“Most other states are at least eighty-eight thousand pounds or above, in some cases ninety thousand pounds, and it varies state to state on if that’s blanket across the board for all commercial trucks or if that’s just for ag and timber products,” says Matthews. “Even though it varies state to state, the overwhelming majority allow at least eighty-eight thousand pounds for a five-axle truck when hauling some sort of agricultural commodity.”

While plenty of time and hard work went into getting this bill through legislation, it will only serve as a place holder, with the long-term solution still down the road.

“The bill does sunset after two years,” says Matthews. “That sunset was put in place to kind of get us forward with the higher weight, put us on a an even playing field with the other states, but then allow us to come back and take another look at it and see what’s working and what’s not as we go forward. We think we’re going to be able to address it here in the upcoming years and get something more permanent in place.”

By: Damon Jones

Damaged Ashburn Landmark Being Restored

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Ashburn, GA

In the heart of Ashburn, Georgia, there once stood a monument. A monument that paid homage to Georgia’s Peanut Industry, and the people who grow them. A beloved landmark for locals, and for thousand’s who drove past it each day on the interstate traveling to and from their destinations. Dedicated in 1975, the giant peanut stood the test of time, and withered many storms. However, one storm it could not stand up to, Hurricane Michael.

“It was heartbreaking,” says Ashley Miller, Executive Director of the Ashburn-Turner County Chamber of Commerce. “The peanut represents Turner County. Everybody might not know where Ashburn is, but they know where that peanut is and they have for the past forty odd years. So, seeing it laying there, it was pretty bad, but there was so much going on at that time. We had a lot of people who lost their homes. A lot of our infrastructure was messed up. We were without power for a few weeks. So, to be honest, the peanut was definitely a concern, but making sure our people were taken care of was really the most important part.”

“It was mainly just a landmark. You know, we’d go to Tifton or would come through Ashburn, something like that. We’d see it and never really think a whole lot about it, but it ended up being something pretty big. You get used to seeing it like that, and then it’s not there. So, it’s a part missing,” says Cole Sercer, the Metal Fabricator restoring the peanut.

Amazing isn’t? How something made of steel and fiber glass meant so much to so many.
Since its demise, the people of Turner County and surrounding areas, have been yearning for the Peanuts’ restoration, and now their hopes, and in some cases, even prayers, have finally been answered.

“The Turner County young farmers had begun an effort before the hurricane to raise some funds to restore it because it was in need of restoration,” says Miller. “There was about, I want to say six-thousand dollars already in the cookie jar there for the restoration.”

Turns out, that cookie jar was a little small. Other contributions came pouring in, from Organizations like the Turner County Art’s Council, Ag Georgia Farm Credit, The Georgia Peanut Commission, and the Department of Ag, just to name a few. In total, those cookies, that dough, so to speak, totaled well over eighty five thousand dollars. Next step. assign someone the task of building the new peanut. Well look no further than Rebecca, Georgia, exactly thirteen-miles from where the old peanut once stood. It’s here, in this metal building where Cole Sercer, Jake Rice and Justin Dallas are currently fabricating their masterpiece. A newer, much improved peanut, that Cole Sercer calls an honor to be in charge of.

“There’s a bunch of people that it means more to them than you would know,” says Sercer. “Some of the boys from the county, they just contacted me one day, said, ‘hey!, You know, it’s down. It looks like you’re gonna be the lucky one to get to fix it.’ Well, we’re usually the ones that do stuff that nobody else wants to do or something that they’re not capable of. They just said, ‘look it over and see what you think, and let’s either fix what we can, or if it’s no good, let’s build all of it.”

So, it was decided that it would be rebuilt from scratch.

“We built everything from the crown, to the pole, to the peanut. You see a bunch of monuments and stuff like that where they kind of turned somebody loose. That’s pretty much what they did with us on this. We wanted to keep it as correct as we could, so we couldn’t go too crazy, but it was fun,” says Sercer.

“The point of the peanut is that it also represents agriculture and it represents farming, and it represents the economy here in the south,” says Miller. “Everything is touched by the peanut industry. You’d be hard pressed to find someone who works in Turner County that doesn’t have something tangent, doesn’t have a family member or whatever, that doesn’t work in the peanut industry.”

“It’ll be welded, completely sealed up, and airtight. So, we’re hoping it’ll go fifty more years, we aren’t going to have to worry about it anymore,” says Sercer.

By: Ray D’Alessio

Barlow Foods Named 2023 Flavor of Georgia Winner

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Decatur, GA

It’s been said that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And you’ll get no argument from Tiffani Neal, founder of Barlow Foods and the 2023 Flavor of Georgia grand prize winner. It’s an honor that provides affirmation to all of her hard work.

“I’m still surprised. I can’t believe that we won,” says Tiffani Neal, Barlow Food’s Founder. “It’s just a great reminder that we are headed in the right direction. It’s just great to see that your products are enjoyed and appreciated, especially on that level. So, we love our customers, we love their feedback, but to get it from UGA and to be recognized in the state is just totally amazing.”

While starting a business had been the plan for quite some time, deciding on what type came about organically three years ago.

“I love mixing and matching ingredients and putting things together. So, I’d always done that, had a wild idea to get into the food industry. I wanted to create a product, but I didn’t know what that was going to be. So, I made breakfast one day and a friend of mine loved the pancakes and for some reason it just clicked. I got obsessed with the idea,” says Neal.

That was the case for deciding on the name of the company as well, which is an ode to someone that had a big impact on her life.

“I was at my desk working late night and literally a picture of my grandfather was on my desk, but it just kind of spoke to me for whatever reason, and that’s the photo that we have on the back of our packaging, on the back of our cards. It’s just him on a tractor, on a farm. That’s what he did,” says Neal.

While they might be best known for their pancake mix, it was actually a product that was an afterthought that brought home the grand prize; peach cobbler syrup.

“I was sampling the pancake mix. Often, when we were just starting out, I was like, ‘what are people going to eat the pancakes with,’ so, I had some peaches, looked to the side, and decided to just whip up some syrup with this. I did that with the peaches and sweet potatoes initially, and then people would ask more about the syrup, says Neal.”

In order to highlight all the fresh, locally grown fruit within the state, products constantly change with the season.

“Now, we’re looking forward to spring and summer where we’ll get to put out our berry syrup, which are super fun, flavorful. You can do so many different things with them,” says Neal. “It’s strawberry and blueberry season, so, those get to come out. We are always looking at different things like what things are like, what say Georgia, what say the South, what say the southeast region? How can we incorporate that into what we do on a seasonal basis? Just to be in Georgia where we have locally grown peaches, where there is such a huge, strong agriculture community. It’s just so great right? When we win, it’s like the people that we source our peaches from right, the other producers we use locally, it’s like a win for everyone.”

By: Damon Jones

Latest H-2A Wage Rule a Concern for Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers

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LaGrange, GA

Here in the state of Georgia, our farmers and producers rely heavily on our country’s guest worker program known as H-2A. In fact, according to the US Department of Labor, in 2021 Georgia utilized more than thirty thousand guest workers, showcasing just how important the program and its workers are to our state’s fruit and vegetable production in growing and harvesting high quality produce.

“In fruit and vegetable production in Georgia, we’ve got over thirty commodities that we produce. All of which require a lot of intensive hand-labor,” says Chris Butts, Executive Vice President of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. “When you see a Vidalia onion in the store, that onion has been touched and processed by hand multiple times. Same on other crops like cucumbers and zucchini, and even peaches and apples. These don’t lend themselves well to mechanization or automation, so we’ve got to have skilled labor out there in the fields that are helping to grow, pick, harvest, and pack the fresh produce to get it in the local grocery store shelves in the quality we’re looking for.”

However, the department of Labor, back late last year released a new wage rule for H-2A workers that increased their wages by fourteen percent here in Georgia – a mandate that Butts says producers couldn’t have possibly budgeted for and will severely impact fruit and vegetable operations across the state.

“We were hit with a fourteen percent wage increase in Georgia. That was the second highest percentage increase in the country, but that took that wage from 11.99 per hour to 13.67 per hour and it essentially becomes kind of the de facto minimum wage for ag work in that area,” says Butts. “No one can plan and budget for a fourteen percent increase year over year and that far exceeded anything we saw for cost-of-living adjustments for, let’s say social security recipients or consumer price index. It was almost twice that, so, saddling Georgia’s growers with that increase is going to cost them over 120 million dollars just this year alone given the number of H2A workers that we have in the state of Georgia.”

Butts says the wage increase comes at a time when producers across the country are already struggling and believes it will just cause even more of our state’s fruit and vegetable production to be sent outside of our nation’s borders.

“That fourteen percent as you mentioned comes on top of record high prices for inputs; everything that the farmer uses to produce and market that crop from the diesel in his tractor, to chemicals, to packaging. We’ve seen huge increases over the last couple of years and now we throw that fourteen percent pay rate increase on top of that. In our estimation, the only recourse a grower has is to use fewer laborers. They’re not going to be able to afford to bring as many workers as they have in the past,” says Butts.

According to Butts, the effects of that ultimately means less production in Georgia moving forward.

“Ironically, as we continue to battle imports and cheap produce coming across our borders from Mexico and others, I think this will ultimately drive more production south of the border to foreign countries. The AEWR is supposed to be there to protect the wages of domestic workers; we don’t have those domestic workers, so in an effort to protect a worker that doesn’t exist, we may end up sending more of the production of our food to foreign countries,” says Butts.

The new rule went into effect at the end of March, however there’s currently bi-partisan legislation being led by Senators Ossoff and Tillis that would reverse the wage increase through the end of 2023 – a measure Butts says is a step in the right direction.

By: John Holcomb