James November-December 2024 web - Flipbook - Page 21
s the sun came up
on the morning of
Friday, September
27th, thousands of
Georgia farmers and
farm families woke
to find that their
worst nightmare had become reality.
Overnight, Hurricane Helene had
ripped through the eastern half of
our state, leaving in her path damage
so catastrophic, so devastating it is
difficult to put into words. Helene left
generational family farms and lifelong
hometowns unrecognizable to their
owners and residents. Unfortunately,
no community along this storm’s path
was spared, and hundreds of thousands of rural Georgians are just now
beginning what will be a years’ long
road to recovery.
Helene could not have come at a
worse time for Georgia farmers. Our
state’s and our nation’s ag economy
was already in a hard spot before the
storm with net farm income expected to drop by several billion dollars
nationwide because of record inflation,
high input costs and depressed commodity prices. When you combine that
with one of the most damaging storms
in our state’s history, you can begin to
realize how dire the situation is for far
too many Georgia farmers.
Preliminary damage estimates
from the University of Georgia College
of Agriculture and Environmental
Sciences and the Georgia Forestry
Commission peg the economic impact
of Hurricane Helene on Georgia’s
agriculture industry at nearly $6.5 billion, with direct losses to farmers and
forest landowners around $3.2 billion.
For context, the University of Georgia
Extension estimates the market value
of all of Georgia’s agricultural products
at $9.57 billion.
Our number one industry lost
roughly one third of its value overnight.
It will likely be months before we
can understand the full scope of the
damage caused by Hurricane Helene,
and these numbers are likely to continue climbing as further assessments
and calculations of crop and infrastructure damage are made. The only storm
in recent memory that can compare to
Helene is Hurricane Michael in 2018,
which caused roughly $2.5 billion in
direct losses.
So, what does that mean for Georgia farmers who fuel our state’s number
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