Following the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene, U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations this week regarding the critical need to support Georgia agriculture.
He emphasized to both sides how urgent it is to approve Georgia’s agricultural disaster aid before the year is up.
“The numbers are staggering, but this isn’t about numbers. It’s about families and rural communities, and without our help, the simple fact is that many of these family farms will fold, and they may fold soon. They’re staring at devastated farmland and orchards, deep in the red, and under immense stress. If they go under, our rural communities go under. The local tax base funding schools and infrastructure is destroyed. And the rural way of life in Georgia risks disappearing altogether,” Sen. Ossoff stated in his testimony.
Sen. Ossoff added that, “We must refuse the temptation to delay or to get dragged into politics. We must swiftly pass disaster assistance by the end of the year. My constituents and Americans in every state hit by this terrible storm and hit by natural disasters for the last several years are counting on all of us.”
Sen. Ossoff and Congressman Austin Scott (GA-08), along with Georgia’s entire Congressional Delegation, led a bipartisan, bicameral group of 34 lawmakers from Southeastern states in September, in the days following Hurricane Helene, to urge Congressional Leadership to make sure disaster relief resources are made available to agricultural producers in the wake of the devastating effects of the storm, according to his office.
He discussed the destruction seen by Vann Wooten, one of our Jeff Davis County Commissioners, as well as a number of other farmers, including those that produce poultry, cotton, lumber, beef cattle, blueberries, pecans, peanuts, tobacco, vegetables, citrus, soybeans, nursery crops, and dairy.
Wooten’s chicken barns, which used to produce 180,000 birds every 11 to 12 weeks, are now reduced to rubble. Wooten’s story was included by Senator Ossoff.
Woman Loses $10,000 After Simple Parking Question Leads to Florida Condo Rental Disaster
In that statement, he mentioned the following regarding Wooten: The Georgia Poultry Federation reports that 495 poultry houses took significant damage, including 295 that were completely lost. Vann Wooten, a county commissioner in Jeff Davis County, who’s raised chickens for 31 years, saw all 10 of his chicken houses destroyed, many with birds still inside. Without our help, he isn’t sure now whether he’ll be able to return to raising chickens.”
