Georgia politicians ask for more funding from Congress to help agriculture industry

ATLANTA — Georgia Democrats and Republicans are begging Congress for more funding to help the state’s hurricane-damaged agriculture industry.

Agriculture remains Georgia’s number one economic engine but it took massive losses after Hurricane Helene devastated parts of the state.

Some hurricane relief is held up in Congress and both sides are fighting to get it released.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp wrote a letter to a senate committee demanding help and today Senator Ossoff demanded help, too.

“Georgia agriculture was devastated by this hurricane,” Kemp said.

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Ossoff testified before a Senate committee on Wednesday, demanding federal money for Georgia farmers still reeling after Hurricane Helene.

Afterward, Ossoff says this aid is critical for rural Georgia.

“It’s going to be a long road for these family farms to recover, for these hard-hit rural communities to recover,” Ossoff said. “But we have to invest in rebuilding Georgia and rebuilding America when we face a natural disaster like this.”

Now about two months since Hurricane Helene, the size of the economic loss to Georgia is staggering.

48,000 acres of pecan orchards are gone, nearly 500 poultry houses are damaged or destroyed, 25 to 30% of the vegetable crop destroyed, and nearly 600,000 bales of cotton, nearly a third of the total crop were ruined.

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Kemp sent a letter to that committee asking for the addition of an agriculture relief block grant program to the disaster relief to help the state.

The White House wants $100 billion in hurricane relief aid but Congress has delayed getting it passed.

Ossoff says there can be no more delays.

“Delay is not an option. We have to get this done by the end of the year. It can’t get tangled up in irrelevant politics and political games,” Ossoff said.

North Carolina’s Republican Senator Thom Tillis was also before that committee begging for federal assistance to folks in and around Asheville.

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