Lawmakers recommend ‘multi-faceted approach’ to preserving Georgia farmland

Tax breaks for farmers, higher weight limits for trucks, and reforming Georgia’s Gratuities Clause prohibiting gifts to individuals or businesses top a list of proposals a legislative study committee issued during Thanksgiving week.

The state Senate Study Committee on the Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands unanimously approved 11 recommendations Nov. 25 aimed at slowing the conversion of prime farmland across the state to development.

“It’s not a simple solution,” Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said after the study committee adopted its report. “It’s going to take a multi-faceted approach.”

Georgia has lost about 2.6 million acres of farmland during the last 50 years to residential and commercial development. 

Along with losing farmland, the state also is losing farmers to retirement without a ready supply of replacements. There are more farmers in Georgia over the age of 65 than under.

Higher costs for farm inputs including seed and equipment coupled with foreign competition driving down crop prices are discouraging young Georgians from taking up farming.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get young people back into farming,” said Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, a member of the study committee. “It’s almost impossible for a young person to break into the business.”

The General Assembly has taken several steps in recent years aimed at addressing the issue. Lawmakers passed the Freedom to Farm Act in 2022, making it harder to file nuisance lawsuits against farmers.

Last year, the legislature passed a bill raising the legal weight limits on commercial trucks hauling certain types of cargo in certain parts of Georgia as well as a second measure — the Georgia Farmland Conservation Act — establishing a $2 million state fund to pay farmers willing to guarantee preserving their properties as farmland.

This year, the General Assembly enacted legislation prohibiting foreign adversaries from buying farmland in Georgia.

The study committee’s 21-page report includes several recommendations aimed at easing the tax burden for farmers. Broadly, it calls for the legislature to continue providing the state income tax breaks Gov. Brian Kemp and lawmakers have been offering to all Georgia taxpayers, and for increasing the $2 million Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund.

Specifically, the report supports expanding the state’s Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA) program, which allows farmers who pledge not to develop their land to receive property tax assessments based on the land’s productivity value instead of its fair market value. 

The study committee is recommending doubling the maximum acreage individual farmers may set aside for conservation from 2,000 to 4,000 acres.

The panel also suggested extending tax relief to farmers and timberland owners who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene by expanding state tax credits to recipients of state and federal disaster relief aid.

The 2023 truck weights measure raised the weight limit for commercial trucks from 80,000 pounds to 88,000 pounds but limited the higher weights to trucks hauling agricultural products — including livestock — and logs. The committee is calling for increasing the weight limit again and allowing that higher weight limit to apply to trucks hauling a wider variety of products.

The report also supports removing the sunset provision in the law, which calls for the measure to expire next July 1.

The study committee also is recommending amending Georgia’s Gratuities Clause, which supporters say discourages corruption in state government. Any individual Georgian or Georgia business that receives a gift from the state — such as a tax break — must demonstrate a benefit to the state in return.

Bentley said a case can be made that farmers generate a benefit for the state from tax breaks that allow them to stay in business.

“Producing food and fiber for the world is of the utmost public good,” he said.

But Bentley said his group is not calling for the Gratuities Clause to be eliminated because it has served the state well.

“We were more in the camp of looking at adjustments that can be made … a very narrow exception to a rule to keep farms operational,” he said. 

The committee also is recommending an inventory of the growing acreage solar farms are taking up across Georgia.

While the acreage solar farms are eating up has become a concern, the main culprit behind the loss of farmland in Georgia is unplanned growth. The committee is suggesting that cities, counties, school systems, and local development authorities look to incentivize development along existing infrastructure patterns and look to redevelop existing properties rather than letting development sprawl across undeveloped land that could be saved for farming.

“We can’t just conserve ourselves out of this threat,” said Katherine Moore, president of the nonprofit Georgia Conservancy. “We need to be very intentional in how our communities grow.”

The study committee’s report now moves to the full Senate for consideration during the legislative session starting in January.

Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, the committee’s chairman, said several farmland preservation bills could emerge as lawmakers look to bolster an ag industry that generates one of every seven jobs in Georgia and produces an annual economic impact of $83.6 billion.

“Agriculture is the No.-1 business in Georgia,” Hickman said. “We’ve got to protect it.”

This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Capitol Beat News Service.