Comité Agriculture and Consumer Affairs del Senado, 28 de enero de 2026

Transcripción

258 turnos. Seleccione un tiempo para reproducir ese momento del video.

1. 0:24:17

   What number are you, uh, Senator Watson, Chairman Watson? 13. All right.

2. 0:24:22

   Let's pray. Dear in heaven, we just thank you for this day. We thank you for all your many blessings, and, uh, just to continue to ask and pray that you be with folks dealing with the weather and, uh, just continue to, uh, be with our state as, as we deal with issues with weather and issues with, uh, agriculture and, uh, all the, all the other things that we have to deal with the state. And just lead and guide our leadership as we make decisions for our, for our state and for the people of our state, and just, uh, be with our families and our farms, uh, while we're away and just watch over them and, uh, keep them safe.

3. 0:24:54

   In your name we pray, amen.

4. 0:24:56

   Amen. All righty. Um, with that, we have the Thriller from Ocilla, our, uh, our awesome ag commissioner who's gonna update us on-

5. 0:25:07

   Yes, sir

6. 0:25:07

   ... everything that's going on in his department.

7. 0:25:09

   Happy to do that, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate it, and always good to be here. In addition to being the Thriller from Ocilla, I'm also a Dirt Road Scholar.

8. 0:25:16

   Yes, you are.

9. 0:25:16

   Just, uh, uh, I still got my card, my membership card, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that. Uh, no, uh, Mr. Chairman, thank you for just giving us an opportunity as an, as an agency to, to give y'all an update on some of the high, high points of what's going on at the Department of Agriculture. Um, as y'all know, there's a lot happening in our agency. Uh, as, uh, we've talked about before, we have, uh, 22 different divisions, and that doesn't include a lot of subdivisions. Uh, when you include all of those divisions and programs, I mean, we're, we're around about 50 different areas that we oversee as an agency.

10. 0:25:51

    Uh, and, and which is a lot. We do a lot at the Department of Agriculture, which is why I say that our agency is one of the only, if not the only, agency that impacts every Georgian every single day. Uh, because of the work of our state's number one industry and what it does, um, it's critically important that we continue to have the resources to do the job that we do every day and that our employees do every day. Uh, you know, uh, we issue over 70 different licenses. Right now, we have about 88,000 licensed entities that we oversee as an agency.

11. 0:26:24

    That's a 33% increase since I walked in the door, uh, three years ago. Um, so a significant amount of, of new, uh, investment and opportunity in our state. And again, uh, our agency allows those, those communities and those different entities to be successful every single day. And so we're proud of the work that our almost 570 employees go to work to do every single day, um, to ensure that our industry is successful. Uh, I always like to point out, too, the attached agencies. Those are administratively attached to the Department of Agriculture.

12. 0:26:56

    You know, those are pass-through funding and, and, uh, that we, we, uh, we pass through our budget to them. Uh, and, uh, and so those are a s- a significant amount of entities that are attached to us, uh, that we, uh, that we push. Y- y'all appropriate us the money, and we send it to them. Uh, so, uh, obviously, I think that, uh, it's always important to point that out because of the way our budget works, um, and, uh, ensuring that you, you know that, uh, some of our budget is money that we never see as an agency, that we never utilize, uh, and, uh, because it's passed on to those, those other, uh, those other entities.

13. 0:27:35

    As far as what's happening in the department, um, I'll hit on HPAI 'cause that's the biggest issue right now. But before I, I dive off into that, I wanna, uh, mention, you know, there's a lot of challenges that we're facing when it comes to, uh, emergency management and the role that we play as an agency, which is what... You know, when I walked in the door, that was one of the things, first things that we worked to, to address, is our agency's ability to respond to emergencies when they arise in the agricultural sector. That's everything from hurricanes to tornadoes to high path avian influenza and everything in between.

14. 0:28:08

    And it's critical that we as an agency are prepared to address those issues that our agricultural and, uh, industry, uh, uh, and our farm families, but also our consumers. Uh, because when it comes to these instances, it's our, it's our employees that ensure that that food is safe to go back to the grocery store whenever those ins- whenever those, uh, storms happen. We're checking to ensure that those dairy operations are con- uh, have continuity of business and other, other entities throughout our state and help them get, continue to s- to, to stay on their feet.

15. 0:28:39

    And so our emergency management division that we have been building out with your help, uh, including our emergency operations center that many of you have come and saw in operation during this high path avian influenza response, uh, is a perfect example of, of things that we can ensure as an agency that we're providing that, uh, that resource and that capability to the citizens of the state because it's critically important that we protect this industry from the threats that we have. High path avian influenza, the cotton jassid, the yellow-legged hornet, which I'll mention in just a, a second, the spotted lanternfly, among other things.

16. 0:29:13

    And as part of that, though, I think it's partnerships, and I wanna mention this really briefly, uh, 'cause he's in the, in the room, but Director Johnny Sabo at Georgia Forestry Commission, as well as Commissioner Walter Raybon, uh, at Georgia Department of Natural Resources. This past weekend during Winter Storm Fern was the first time that our three agencies come together and collaborated a- and worked together to respond, uh, in ways that we can, uh, in response to the winter storm. Uh, and, uh, I appreciate Director Sabo and Commissioner Raybon and our, our, our sister agency partnership, uh, and it being able to ensure that we're not duplicating efforts, uh, but at the same time that we're being specific in targeted areas that need that help and that assistance.

17. 0:29:56

    And our agencies were able to do that over the weekend. Uh, and, and Johnny and Walter and I were all at the incident command center together Sunday, uh, with our teams and, and just, uh, helping monitor that. And, and it truly is, shows how our agencies can work together for the betterment of our citizens. And obviously, that was all under the, the direction and the command of the State Operations Center and GEMA and the work that they're doing to ensure that we're directing resources appropriately. And as an agency at the department, we serve as the ES 711 lead, the agricultural lead for the State Operations Center.

18. 0:30:29

    Uh, and so it truly is, uh, it's critical that we continue those partnerships, not only in storm response, but we're doing that through the Georgia Grown Wood program, too. Our partnership with our friends at Georgia Forestry and Johnny and his team and others in promoting, uh, our n- our, the fact that Georgia's the number one forestry state in the nation. And y'all have funded that, and, uh, there's additional funding in the budget, uh, to continue that effort in a bigger way. And, and, uh, that's just perfect examples of how we can collaborate to ensure that our number one industry continues to be successful every day, to ensure that we're protecting this industry and ensure that we're protecting agriculture.

19. 0:31:04

    So when it comes to HPAI directly, um- The press release just went out. Uh, so we have a third confirmed case of high path avian influenza in our state. So in the last two weeks, we have had three cases, two in Walker County, and now this third one in Hart County. Uh, I can tell you as of right now, um, that all three of those events, uh, obviously Walker County were handled before the winter storm. Hart County was handled, uh, just yesterday. Uh, but we have completely contained and, and addressed, uh, the issue, and contained the virus in those areas, and are working through C and D and complete virus elimination on those farms as we speak.

20. 0:31:45

    Our teams are deployed on all three farms, working with our industry partners and others to ensure that we address it as quickly and efficiently and effectively as possible. But this is a perfect example of why it's important that we have the tools, the resources necessary to do the job that we do every single day. Uh, just in the ... Oh, just on Walker 01 and 02 in less than two weeks, it has cost our agency about $150,000 to respond to this incident, just in Walker County. That does not include Hart County, which is kinda just now really kicking off.

21. 0:32:16

    Um, but, uh, but it is imperative that we address this. Poultry, we're the number one poultry producing state in the nation. 37% of ag- Georgia agriculture is tied to poultry alone, so it's important that we hit these cases head on and quickly. And having the emergency management capability that we do allows us to do that. We're able to be on site in less than four to five hours in most cases. In less than 12 hours, we're able to have it completely locked down with our law enforcement unit and completely quarantine the entire, uh, control zone, uh, and those farms that are impacted by this to ensure that any movement of poultry is, is monitored and controlled by the Department of Agriculture and our animal health team and our state veterinarian, and the work that they do in that, which is yeoman's work to ensure that we're taking care of that.

22. 0:33:02

    Uh, and so in, and in most cases, in less than 12 to 24 hours, we're able to completely contain the virus and ensure that it never, uh, leaves that area. Uh, so couple of examples of some things. With your help, uh, last year, if you remember, y'all helped us, uh, get some additional funding for, uh, emergency response capabilities. We have had some equipment, but we, we needed more. I mean, this is, today is a perfect example. We have three, uh, uh, HPAI events happening concurrently right now. And as you can imagine, that spreads resources thin.

23. 0:33:35

    Uh, last year, the HPAI events we had were hap- happened one at a time. So we were able to address those once, then go to the next one. Unfortunately, right now, we have three happening as we speak that we are addressing, that we're working with our industry partners on, which have been phenomenal partnership, and even our other state agency friends. In some cases, uh, uh, I, I mentioned Johnny a second ago. Director Sabo has allowed us to utilize some of their resources that they have to help us ensure that we have the tools needed to address the concerns that we have on these operations.

24. 0:34:07

    But this is a foaming rig. This is what a foaming rig looks like. Uh, and, and those foaming rigs are critically important when it comes to our response capabilities and being able to address it quickly. That foaming rig needs to be ready to go and ready to be deployed ASAP. Uh, and with your help, we've been able to, uh, add to our, uh, stockpile. So whenever we go to these operations, we can, we can do multiple, um, we can address, uh, multiple houses at one time. Uh, and, and that, that, that does not create unnecessary delays.

25. 0:34:40

    As you can imagine, high path avian influenza is very, very contagious. It is an airborne virus. Uh, the quicker you address it, the quicker you can ensure that it doesn't spread any further than where you are. The longer you wait, the more complicated it becomes, and the more chance you have of that virus spreading, uh, in, in a, in a, in a larger area. So it is critical that we address it as fast as possible. And that's what the equipment looks like. When it comes to our staff and what our staff have to do, uh, this is, um, obviously, uh, as I joke, uh, with folks, uh, you know, it, it almost looks like Outbreak a little bit when you see our team walking on a poultry farm, uh, in the midst of an outbreak.

26. 0:35:19

    We set up what's called a hot-cold line. When you're on the cold side of the line, we can dress just like we are, but if you wanna go to the hot side, you gotta be completely in biosecured, uh, uniforms and, and suits, um, gloved up, booted up, you know, masked up, uh, before you're able to go on the hot side. Uh, our teams, uh, obviously that equipment is not, sometimes is not very comfortable. I've been in those outfits multiple times myself as I've visited these, uh, instances as we've had them over the, over the last year or so.

27. 0:35:51

    Um, and even when it's cold outside, those suits can get pretty hot. Uh, so you can imagine when we have an HPAI response during the summertime or the hotter months, it can be, it can be very, uh, trying on our staff and our team. Uh, so having those team members that we can rotate in and out to ensure that we're c- have continuity of, of the operation is critically important. Um, lastly, this is what foaming looks like inside of a poultry house. Uh, it's basically like a firefighter foam.

28. 0:36:22

    Uh, and that's, uh, this is what, uh, it looks like. This is how we do, uh, some of the operations that, uh, when we're, whenever we're working those depopulation operations with poultry to ensure that we're addressing it. I get asked this question from time to time, "Why do we depop?" Well, when it comes to HPAI, every, every chicken on that farm is going to die from that virus. Uh, so it is critical that we do it more effectively, more efficiently, in a more humane way. And that is what we work to do. We do it humanely, but we also do it quickly to ensure that that virus doesn't spread to affect any other poultry that may be in that area and, and to prevent spread, uh, around the state.

29. 0:37:01

    When it comes to, like, other threats, I mentioned the yellow-legged hornet briefly a minute ago, but this is a, a view of our dashboard- And what we're doing with the yellow-legged hornet, just a quick overview. Yellow-legged hornet come to the state of Georgia in August of 2023. The first detection in North America ever was in the Savannah area in August of '23. Uh, the yellow-legged hornet is a predator of the honeybee. The honeybee is very important to agriculture because it helps us ensure that we're able to, to, uh, to pollinate, uh, our, our crops in, in, in a lot of cases.

30. 0:37:33

    Um, but we are continuing our efforts to de-co-to combat this invasive species. The yellow-legged hornet, um, uh, as I said, can be detrimental to ag because of its, its, uh, predation on honeybees. What you're looking at, the dashboard you're looking at, every one of those, what looks like a blob, is actually dots. And you can kind of see that on the left side as that line comes down, uh, that mo- on the west side of that, down the state, uh, that every one of those dots represents a trap that we have deployed as an agency, uh, that our team has deployed.

31. 0:38:07

    Every one of those traps are checked constantly to ensure and to find the hornet. Uh, this is how we're doing it. Uh, our team have, have become experts in hornet trapping, believe it or not. Uh, and our team is doing a, a yeoman's work in this. Um, and this is just an example of those threats. As I mentioned earlier, HPAI, yellow-legged hornet, cotton jasid, the spotted lanternfly, among others that we're dealing with as an agency that, that, uh, we're not specifically funded for. You know, a lot of the funding that it's taken us to do this, we're having to pull from other resources.

32. 0:38:42

    Do we get federal reimbursements for some of this? Yes, but not everything is covered by that. For example, all the HPAI incidents we're involved with within Hart and Walker Counties are in areas where there is zero cell phone service. So we have went out and been able to obtain Starlink units and have deployed Starlink units to those sites so we can communicate with our team, but also so they can have access to the resources that you've helped us obtain to be more effective in our operation. They can't use that software and that data and that, that, those, those needed systems on-site if they don't have access to, to cell service or to internet.

33. 0:39:18

    Uh, the, the reimbursements does not cover cost like that. The other thing that the cost doesn't cover is anytime I pull somebody off to do a yellow-legged hornet operation or to do the HPAI operation pulls them off from their regular everyday day-to-day duties, which is part of our response as an agency, right? But that also costs us as an agency on the back end. Uh, so even though we might get some reimbursements for our response, uh, it does not cover our total cost as an agency.

34. 0:39:48

    Uh, and I think that's critical to, to understand. Um, I wanna hit on the block grant, uh, briefly too, uh, because this has been a, a, a big issue. Hurricane Helene, as y'all know, has been, uh, significant, uh, in our state. Um, and, and, uh, it continues to, to hurt farm families across our state. And at the department, obviously it's been not lost on us nor me, uh, in the work we've got to continue to do to ensure that our producers get the needed help that they need to continue to get over and, and recover from that storm.

35. 0:40:24

    Uh, to date, a little over $600 million has come to the state of Georgia through traditional USDA programs. But those traditional USDA programs don't cover certain areas, uh, like future losses in, in things like pecans and blueberries and citrus, uh, future losses on things like poultry, certain infrastructure losses that are not covered. That is what the block grant is about. The block grant is to cover those things that USDA traditionally can't. We have spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on this agreement with our, with USDA and, uh, and working with them every single day.

36. 0:40:55

    Unfortunately, our last two meetings that we were supposed to have with USDA, uh, the one last week and the one earlier this week, were both canceled by USDA. Uh, so we're waiting on them, uh, to hopefully give us the green light so we can move forward. We have already built the application. We have the website up, farmrecovery.com. We have all the information needed for our producers. We already put that out to tell people what you need, uh, to be able to apply. Uh, we're just waiting on the green light from our friends at USDA to be able to, to move forward on this. Uh, we're ready to go, uh, and our, and our team is ready to go.

37. 0:41:28

    We have actually hired, uh, what I consider a specialist in this area, some retired FSA employees, uh, all of the team that we have, we have brought on board, uh, to help us with this program. The team lead is a retired FSA employee who has, uh, really helped us navigate a lot of, uh, a lot of the bureaucracy, so to speak, to help us get to where we are. Uh, but the rest of the team are also former FSA employees that have specialized in emergency disaster assistance, so they'll be able to help us work through those block grant pro- applications and get the money out the door quickly.

38. 0:42:04

    Um, th- there's only one exception to that, uh, and that individual helped work on the Hurricane Michael response, and so they are part of that team also. Uh, just timeline for your awareness. As soon as USDA gives us the thumb up, thumbs up, we're gonna spend two weeks pushing out that information that, "Hey, application portal is now live." Uh, at the end of that two-week period, we're gonna open applications for six weeks, uh, and then we'll close applications at the end of that six-week period, and we'll begin working through that applications.

39. 0:42:36

    We'll be working through them during that six weeks at all, as also, but we'll work through those, uh, and push those dollars out the door as, as we're able to work through those applications and verify that information that our farmers, uh, have submitted to us to ensure that they're able to get the needed money that they need, um, to be successful. Our, uh- Hemp program continues to be, uh, something that obviously we're, we're operating at the department. Uh, October twenty twenty-four is when the law went into effect. Uh, so not quite, a little over a year, uh, we have been working the, the program.

40. 0:43:10

    Um, with your help, we have five inspectors, civilian inspectors. Those five civilian inspectors, over the last little over a year, have done almost twelve hundred inspections on the licensed entities that fall under our jurisdiction as an agency. We have license coordinators that help ensure that we get those licenses issued. Uh, and, and you'll see there the, the licenses that have been issued. Uh, the, the number of licenses for each of the categories that we have, uh, to, to either be able to grow it, process it, manufacture it, wholesale it, or, or sell it at a store, or, or even if you're a lab, that you're, you're certifying those products meet the standard and meet the certificate of analysis that we require and the, and the, and the things that we require for you to be able to meet.

41. 0:43:54

    Um, as you can see, a little over seventy-nine hundred licenses have been issued for our hemp program in our state, bringing in a little over two million dollars in revenue to the state of Georgia. Uh, we get just over a million dollars to fund the hemp program. Um, so we're funding it. W-so basically, we're bringing in twice the amount of money it's costing us to fund the program, so the state's making money off of us right now in the running the, running the hemp program. Uh, but, uh, we're continuing to operate that. Uh, our team has done a phenomenal job, uh, and, and I'm proud of the work that they have done.

42. 0:44:29

    Uh, part of that is, of those twelve hundred inspections, whenever criminal activity is, is, uh, is seen or noticed, our team, our inspectors hand that off to our law enforcement division. Eighty-one of those have been handed off to our law enforcement division. Twenty-seven of those investigations have involved under twenty-one sales. And in many cases, we have done stings and undercover stings with local law enforcement across the state and working with others to prosecute and ensure that we're holding them accountable. We've, uh, we've either wrote citations or taken people to jail when appropriate, dependent upon the violation and the criminal act, uh, that has been, uh, done in our state, uh, that shouldn't have been done.

43. 0:45:08

    Uh, and our team's doing a really good job. Uh, just like yellow-legged hornet, we've been trying to bring on new technology with some of these things that we've been dealing with. We have in the hemp program also. This is a dashboard. This is a live da-- Well, this isn't live 'cause it's a screenshot, but it is a live dashboard. Uh, just like the yellow-legged hornet is a live dashboard, and it updates by the minute, basically. So as our team goes out and inspects a new facility, uh, we have the capability to pull up that inspection form immediately. We can see what's happening in that particular location. It gives our law enforcement team to see where those issues are.

44. 0:45:41

    In the bottom right, you'll see the state. Every one of those dots is a licensed entity. Uh, we are tracking all of them. We're, we're ensuring that they're abiding by the law, uh, and we know where the hotspots are to ensure that we're addressing that, and we're gonna continue to work to do that, uh, every single day. The trust fund is, uh, a fund that is made up of funds that come typically from gate card revenue, uh, on the, on the, uh, ag t- uh, the ag exemption, uh, tax program. Uh, that, those funds, it's a little over two million dollars a year, about, give or take a few, uh, that, that the, that the department is able to manage.

45. 0:46:17

    We use the majority of those funds for maintenance and upkeep on our farmers markets. As you can imagine, the number of eleven markets that we have across the state, uh, two million dollars doesn't go very far, especially when you have things like Hurricane Helene that, uh, that c- that take-- that took roofs off of farmers markets in places like Valdosta, uh, and Augusta, uh, where you have significant life safety issues in some of our markets. So we utilize those funds to help us address those issues. Uh, thanks to your help, uh, you've been able to appropriate us specific dollars for the Atlanta State Farmers Market.

46. 0:46:51

    Most of that has gone toward infrastructure and some life safety issues, uh, but most of it's gone toward infrastructure and, and unfortunately, I can't take you out there and show it to you because most of it's underground. I can show you where we dug the hole. Uh, but a lot of the work that we've been doing is addressing those, uh, uh, uh, storm water issues as well as the water, water quality issues that we have had out there, which are critically important for food safety. 'Cause those entities that are out there have to have, uh, quality access to those, uh, those, that, that infrastructure to be, uh, successful.

47. 0:47:25

    But when it comes to our farmers markets and the work that we're doing through the trust fund, it's, it's critically important. Our farmers markets are about a billion-dollar industry every year. The businesses that utilize our farmers markets is a billion-dollar industry in our state. It is a significant amount of investment that a lot of individuals are participating in, and we have a responsibility as our agency. We've been tasked to oversee that. Uh, and, and we do that every single day. But continued work toward investment to ensure that those markets are kept up to date and up to speed are critical. Uh, so a little over two million dollars in a trust fund doesn't go very far, but we're working to do what we can with what we have and address those most pressing needs as they arise.

48. 0:48:03

    Um, just to get into our, our budget ask as, uh, really briefly, and I'll hit on this briefly. Um, uh, what we are asking for, uh, in the AFY, uh, twenty-six and the FY twenty-seven big budget, little budget and the big budget, um, is, is this is kind of a, a mixture of both of those. Uh, but as an agency, we're asking for an operational ask of a little over three point eight million dollars. A lot of that is a, a mixture of, uh, refreshing lap-- a third of our laptops.

49. 0:48:33

    As you can imagine, um, laptops and vehicles and equipment are critically important for employee retention, uh, ensuring that they're able to do their job, uh, effectively and efficiently. Inspection software is critically important for us as an agency as we work to either upgrade that or continue the, the, the licensing, um, agreement that we have with the softwares that we use to do the job that our team does every single day, whether that's in food safety or pest control, uh, or plant protection or animal health or any of those areas where we utilize that technology.

50. 0:49:06

    In addition to that, you know, our team has seen a lot of shortfall when it comes to federal funding. This is, uh, this is, uh, it, it-- The federal funding shortfall has really, has really hurt our ability from an operational perspective as an agency to be able to operate effectively and efficiently, to be able to really plug those holes where we have those issues because we're having to cover, uh, those underlying expenses that otherwise we wouldn't have to-- we would not have to cover had we-- had w- had-- if we had the appropriate funding to do so. Uh, in addition to, to, uh, the, the shortchanging in regards to the COLAs over the last couple of years and a- among other things, there's a lot that goes into that number.

51. 0:49:44

    The governor, uh, uh, we appreciate, uh, has, uh, funded about two point five of that three point eight. Uh, and I appreciate their, their work to do that. Uh, we look forward to working with y'all to help us, uh, continue to, obviously, to keep that and, and hopefully build on that investment. Vehicles are critically important for us as an agency. Uh, we're no different than State Patrol, DNR, GBI, or any other state agency that uses a lot of vehicles. We use a lot of vehicles. For the most part, the majority of my staff, that is their office.

52. 0:50:15

    Most of our employees, their office is their vehicle. Uh, and as you can imagine, that's another recruitment, retention issue. When you have, uh, equipment that is ... that works and that they can utilize, it helps with employee morale. Uh, and so we have been asking, uh, over the last couple of years for continued yearly appropriation for vehicle refreshes because our fleet constantly is turning over. When I walked in the door, we had a little over a $3.5 million need in vehicle needs.

53. 0:50:48

    Y'all have helped us a little bit to address that, uh, but we, we still have some, some backlog. Uh, so with your continued help, we can continue to do that. The governor has included all of the money we asked for, for those 48 vehicles in his budget, and we're appreciative of that, and we thank them for that, and we just want your efforts to help us with that. The new lab, uh, in regards to our, our lab network, you know, we, we, we have a variety of labs. We have a lab here in Tifton, uh, a lab in ... or a lab in here in Atlanta, a lab in Tifton, and they oversee a variety of things, feed, seed, fertilizer, metrology, et cetera.

54. 0:51:23

    But here in Atlanta, the primary labs are our food safety and our dairy lab. Uh, those labs are, are checking to ensure that those products are safe for consumption before they make it to the marketplace. Historically, that lab has been in the agriculture building across the street. Uh, as you can imagine, a 50, 60-year-old, uh, plus, uh, structure, uh, is, uh, does not bode very well for a modern-day lab. Uh, and so with y'all's help last year, we were able to get funding in the budget that allowed us, uh, to, to begin design for construction of a new lab at the farmers market here in Atlanta that will give us the needed space and capacity to do the job that we've been asked to do without sending samples to other states, to have the room to continue to grow and expand, to use it as a backup lab to Tifton if it ever was to ever go down in a storm.

55. 0:52:12

    Right now, Tifton serves as a backup to Atlanta, but not vice versa, because we do not have the space, never have had the space in Atlanta to do that. This new lab will give us the capacity to ensure continuity of operation to ensure our number one industry continues to be successful. Uh, right now we're utilizing lab space at Georgia Tech. It's actually smaller than the lab space we had in our facility here, uh, in, in, on Capitol Hill. So it's, obviously, it's been very, uh, strenuous on our staff, but we're working through it temporarily.

56. 0:52:43

    Uh, but with your help, we can have a, a modern lab space that allows us to do the job that we do. The governor included $25 million of that $34 million construction ask. We would appreciate your, your help to get us to the 34, uh, because talking with GISFC, uh, uh, they have not brought us back the, the number yet, but they tell me that that 34 million is definitely, uh, in the range that they're, they're seeing and that they, that they had no issue with us continuing to ask for that based on the need that we have that we have presented to them, uh, for our lab, uh, and the work that we do every single day.

57. 0:53:18

    Lastly, I mentioned this already, the number of licensed entities have increased 33% since I walked in the door. Um, and in that same time period, we've only increased our employment by about 12%. Some people says that, that, that, that's a, a version of growing government. Uh, for us, though, as an agency, even though we have grown our employment by 12%, uh, our licensed entities have increased by 33%. If you do the math, that's a 15 ... almost a 15% increase in workload on our employees, even though we have grown our staff.

58. 0:53:52

    So our employees are seeing almost a 15% workload increase every single day. Uh, that, tho- those are things that can, can be unsustainable for a staff and for a team. So we have work to do to ensure that we have the resources we need to do the job we do to protect the, to protect the consumer, keep prices low at the grocery store, and allow our farm families to do what they do best every single day. Uh, so Mr. Chairman, there's a lot that we can hit on, a lot that we can talk about, a lot that's going on at the Department of Ag. These are some of the highlights of some things, issues that we're dealing with as an agency to allow us to do our job, but at the same time, some things that we're dealing with that are, that are top of mind and are hot button issues right now.

59. 0:54:32

    Our agency impacts every Georgian every day. The work that our employees do impacts every Georgian every day. The success of our agency is directly related, uh, to the success of our state's number one industry. If our agency isn't successful, it's hard for our number one industry to be, and Georgia's been named the best place to do business for 12 years in a row. Uh, for us to be the best place for business, the number one industry needs to be successful as well. Our success, uh, relates in and ties into all of that success, and I look forward to our work together to ensuring that our agency and our team can do the work that we do and continue to, to bring you updates on the things and the work that we're doing.

60. 0:55:09

    So thank you for allowing me to be here. Happy to take any questions, uh, briefly. Uh, but appreciate you, Mr. Chairman.

61. 0:55:14

    Well, thank you, Mr. Commissioner. That was, uh ... Certainly appreciate everything that you and your team do each and every day. I wanted to, real quick, and Senator Howard, I'm sorry, I neglected, we have a new member of the, of the Senate Ag Committee. Uh, what number are you?

62. 0:55:29

    11.

63. 0:55:29

    11. Can you just real quick introduce yourself to everyone?

64. 0:55:33

    Hello, everybody. Senator Jaha Howard. I'm representing parts of Cobb County and Fulton County. Happy to be here. Thank you.

65. 0:55:39

    That's right. That's right. We're proud to have you. Um, you, you, you're gonna enjoy the Ag Committee. We try to, we try to do good work, and we try to have a little fun along the way.

66. 0:55:50

    That's right.

67. 0:55:50

    Isn't that right, the senator from the 11th?

68. 0:55:52

    That's right.

69. 0:55:53

    That's right. Um, all right. We have, uh, we have some lights blinking. We're gonna start with number 14. Is that, is that, uh, is that-

70. 0:56:01

    Sims

71. 0:56:01

    ... Senator Sims? Okay. Good deal.

72. 0:56:03

    Thank you so very much, Commissioner. By far you are the- Hardest working public servant I've seen in a long time, and I want, I say that from the bottom of my heart, and I want to thank you for all that you do, and especially, uh, since it's supportive of the majority of my district, which is very rural and very ag. Having said that, look at this map right here. I have Early, Calhoun, and Clay that are not eligible for any Hurricane Helene money.

73. 0:56:38

    What, what, what, what happened?

74. 0:56:39

    So those, uh, that, that map that you're looking at, uh-

75. 0:56:43

    It's not in no-

76. 0:56:43

    Senator, uh, yeah, oh, I got it. I was pulling it up.

77. 0:56:49

    Yes, sir.

78. 0:56:49

    The ma- the map that you're looking at, those counties that are eligible, that is based off of the USDA declaration for-

79. 0:56:55

    So it's USDA I need to fuss with?

80. 0:56:57

    So we, we use the USDA declaration for ag disaster.

81. 0:57:02

    Okay.

82. 0:57:02

    Uh, and we felt that was the fairest way to do it, uh, because USDA determined that those were the counties that were declared disaster area for that hur- for the Hurricane Helene.

83. 0:57:11

    Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

84. 0:57:12

    And as an agency, we felt the fairest way to, to utilize the block grant was to utili- was to utilize the same counties that they were using in their disaster, uh, programs. And that was the county map-

85. 0:57:24

    Okay

86. 0:57:24

    ... and the counties listed that they utilized. And so that's why we're using that county list.

87. 0:57:28

    Okay.

88. 0:57:28

    Yes, ma'am.

89. 0:57:29

    All right. Well, I'll have to check with USDA.

90. 0:57:32

    Yes, ma'am.

91. 0:57:33

    Thank you so very much. Appreciate you.

92. 0:57:35

    Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

93. 0:57:37

    All right. We've got, uh, our vice chairman here, but, uh, before you do, real quick, just, you know, especially for, uh, Senator Howard, you know, uh, hasn't grown up in the, the ag industry, um, and really all of us, but, um, explain just real quick, if you don't mind, about when, when you have these AI events, for instance, go to Hart County, and you've got those three donuts, and you've got, what? A, a 160 farms, 126 farms, or something like that?

94. 0:58:06

    In the Hart County, uh, control zone, there's 132 farms, I believe.

95. 0:58:11

    Okay. And, and just for the members of the committee, you've got the inner ring that you have to test those chickens every day?

96. 0:58:16

    That's correct. So there's a three-kilometer ring and a six-kilometer, or a three-kilometer ring and a 10-kilometer ring. Uh, those are basically the two control areas. There's actually a larger ring around that that is monitored. Uh, but the, the main ones are the s- the, the three and the, and the 10. Uh, those are the control zones that our team monitors. Within the 10 is, in the Hart County example, there are 132 farms in that area. 132 farms does not mean 132 poultry houses. Those farms could have one poultry house or 20 poultry houses.

97. 0:58:49

    We don't, you know, a lot, we have that data. Uh, so 132 translates into a lot of poultry houses, right? Uh, so that's a lot of work for us, uh, as a team. It, what we do in those control zones, in the smaller zone, it's constantly monitored to ensure that that spread doesn't get any further past than the f- immediate farm where we're working. The bigger zone is monitored, uh, uh, not as, um, not as heavily. So we're monitoring those farms consistently, though, uh, with the work of the poultry lab and our poultry lab team, uh, or the poultry lab team, um, are able to monitor those to ensure that there's no further spread in the bigger zone.

98. 0:59:29

    In that zone, though, we also control movement of poultry. Unless you have a permit from the Department of Agriculture, you cannot move poultry within that zone unless we give you the authority to do it. And there's a lot of steps and protocol that you have to go through to be able to do that. Uh, and it's biosecurity. It's uptick biosecurity, but there's a lot that goes into it. It's very, uh, it, it is, it is purposely driven to try to ensure that we, that w- there's no further virus spread.

99. 0:59:58

    Thank you. And I'm gonna make this the last question because we've got, um, our, our good friends from Tech-

100. 1:00:03

     Yes, sir

101. 1:00:03

     ... and Johnny Sabo as well. Um, Senator, Chairman Anderson.

102. 1:00:08

     Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, Commissioner, uh, you hit on, uh, some of what I was gonna ask you. But, um, at the same time, I want to echo what, uh, Senator Sims said. You have done an awesome job.

103. 1:00:24

     Thank you.

104. 1:00:24

     I mean, we, we appreciate you. Uh, when we call you, you either answer the phone or you get right back to us, and that, that means a lot.

105. 1:00:34

     Yes, sir.

106. 1:00:35

     Um, with our poultry farmers, so this is number four altogether, five? How many, how many?

107. 1:00:45

     I think this is number, uh, six or seven.

108. 1:00:48

     Six or seven.

109. 1:00:48

     Uh, uh, pol- of commercial poultry. There have been a number of backyard, uh, poultry where we have called HPAI, but this is, uh, I, I'm, I'm, I'm drawing a blank right now, but it's either six or seven commercial in Georgia. Yes, sir.

110. 1:01:00

     What I'm getting at is I'm sure that we have found ways to improve in each one.

111. 1:01:08

     We have.

112. 1:01:09

     And can you share with us where maybe possibly that we can somehow, uh, contain it more-

113. 1:01:22

     So-

114. 1:01:23

     ... dissolve it quicker?

115. 1:01:25

     Yes, sir. Uh, so to your point, after every event, and, and obviously there's, we're, we're in the middle of three events right now, so we'll probably end up just doing one big one, but after every event, we do what's called a hot wash.

116. 1:01:36

     Right.

117. 1:01:36

     About a month after that event, uh, and our team gets together with our industry partners and private partners that were all part of that response, and we get in a room, and we talk about what, what went good, what went well, what, what could be better, and what went bad. And we work through those challenges, and we, we, we highlight those, and we work to improve on every single thing that we did. In every response, uh, the results of that hotwash have, uh, have... We've been able to see the results of that because we've improved in areas where it needed improvement, to speed up, to be more efficient, to be more effective.

118. 1:02:10

     In addition to that, we continue to work with our partners. A lot of this, a lot of issues we're seeing is, is wildlife driven. A lot of wildlife are carriers of HPAI and AI, the virus. Um, and, and so working with our friends at DNR and, and our Wildlife Services division at USDA, you know, continued efforts in, in continuity and collaboration between all of us is critically important that we find ways to ensure that we're addressing this as quickly and effectively and efficiently as possible. So it's, there's a lot that goes into this, uh, to try to find ways to reduce the spread.

119. 1:02:43

     But the biggest way that we can do it is, is our farm families and our poultry industry continuing to step up their efforts in relation to biosecurity. And we encourage that from the department. I think that's a lot of the reason we've seen, uh, we... There's been over 200, about 200 million birds impacted across America, a little less than 600,000 here in Georgia. Uh, I think a lot of that is due to the fact that we have worked on our biosecurity, but at, as these events have happened, it just reminds us that we have got to do a better job of stepping up our biosecurity on our farms, ensuring that we're addressing those issues that need to be addressed.

120. 1:03:17

     That way, we can keep the virus from getting in our poultry houses. And our f- our farm families and our farm network, it's critical that they work to do that every single day. So we're, we're helping with that messaging and helping encourage them to do that.

121. 1:03:30

     I'm gonna do like you, Mr. Chairman. I got a couple more questions.

122. 1:03:33

     Well, the only, the only problem is now, uh-

123. 1:03:35

     I know. I learned from you

124. 1:03:36

     ... Mr., Mr. Chairman, we got, uh-

125. 1:03:38

     I know. I know

126. 1:03:39

     ... all right. Okay.

127. 1:03:39

     But I think it's crucial.

128. 1:03:40

     Okay, go ahead.

129. 1:03:41

     All right. Is our producers, poultry producers, are they covered insurance?

130. 1:03:48

     So when it comes to a HPAI event, those, uh, those producers, through USDA, there's an indemnity program that USDA operates. It does not make the producer, the farmer, or the integrator whole, but it does help offset their losses in response to the HPAI event. But there is a, there is a program that they can, they are able to participate in. And through the department, our animal health team, our state vets, they help work through that paperwork with our friends. And that's part of what's good about the Emergency Operations Center we have, is because we can have our USDA partners at the table that can help approve those things quickly to ensure that our farm families have the, the, the needed paperwork in place and submitted so they can get that reimbursement, uh, for their losses.

131. 1:04:31

     And my last question.

132. 1:04:32

     Okay.

133. 1:04:33

     To the block grants.

134. 1:04:34

     Yes, sir.

135. 1:04:37

     Does any of the block grant money overlap with what USDA has already gave us-

136. 1:04:44

     Yes, sir

137. 1:04:44

     ... for, for, uh, cleanup and...?

138. 1:04:47

     So by federal law, it cannot.

139. 1:04:50

     Okay. So it's gonna be our own-

140. 1:04:51

     It has to be, it has to address completely separate, um, uh, events.

141. 1:04:55

     I'm, I'm trying to help-

142. 1:04:56

     Yes, sir

143. 1:04:57

     ... a new senator here.

144. 1:04:58

     Yeah, by federal law, the block grant cannot cover anything that any producer, timberland owner, uh, farmer could receive otherwise through a traditional USDA program, which is why I say these are programs that don't exist, and we've, we've had to build them from the ground up. And, uh, our team's done a phenomenal job at doing that. But no, sir, to your question, the answer is no.

145. 1:05:20

     Thank you.

146. 1:05:22

     Good deal. Mr. Commissioner, we thank you for coming and giving us a update.

147. 1:05:26

     Appreciate it, Mr. Chairman.

148. 1:05:26

     We thank you for all the, the job that you do-

149. 1:05:28

     Yes, sir

150. 1:05:28

     ... every day.

151. 1:05:29

     Well, thank y'all. We'll be getting y'all a copy of this trust fund report. I think it's really good. Uh, and, uh, if you wanna read through it on what we're doing, uh, at the farmers' markets, but thank y'all very much. I know my good friends from Georgia Tech have a lot to share, and I'll, I'll get out of the way so they can do that. They're doing phenomenal work too.

152. 1:05:44

     Hey, uh, Mr. Commissioner, as you always say, uh, you keep plowing, and I'm gonna keep plowing. We-

153. 1:05:49

     Same to you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, sir

154. 1:05:49

     ... we are too. The Senate Ag Committee is.

155. 1:05:51

     Appreciate y'all.

156. 1:05:52

     All right.

157. 1:05:52

     Thank y'all.

158. 1:05:52

     Thank you, bud.

159. 1:05:52

     Good to see you.

160. 1:05:53

     Good to see you. All right, now we've got our, our, um, our good fr- We got Doug Britton from Georgia Tech. Um, we've got, uh, I'm sorry, we-

161. 1:06:02

     Dr. Carson Merritt. Carson Meredith.

162. 1:06:04

     Dr., Dr. Carson Meredith. And so thank you all for coming. Let me, y- y'all know, uh, uh, obviously all these mills have shut down. I'm gonna make this real quick, but, you know, timber covers two-thirds of this state, and we've lost all these mills. It's critical that we develop new uses for our, our wood products. And even for folks that aren't involved in the timber industry, I can promise you, you know, if we see the, continue what we've seen happen in the forestry industry and see a devaluation of our timberland, you see how that af- You know, we still have to educate our kids and grade our roads and everything else, so you imagine what that means to the property taxes, everyone else.

163. 1:06:38

     So all Georgians, uh, have every interest in the world, a vested interest to see a, a forestry industry, industry thrive and continue with that. Uh, the floor is yours.

164. 1:06:48

     Thank you, sir. Thank you, Chairman Goodman, and the members of the committee. Appreciate the opportunity. Just out of clarification, how much time do you want me to take on this? Uh- How much time do you want me to take? 'Cause I'll, I'll s- I'll slide through some stuff very quickly.

165. 1:06:59

     I'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do, and, um, it's 2:46. We're, we're supposed to be till 3:00, but we gonna go to 3:15-

166. 1:07:06

     Okay

167. 1:07:06

     ... because what you're doing is important enough to at least give it 30 minutes. And if there's some other folks out there, they just gonna have to wait on us.

168. 1:07:11

     Okay, thank you so much.

169. 1:07:12

     All right.

170. 1:07:12

     Sure appreciate that. So I'm gonna be quick. I'm pleased to have Dr. Carson Meredith with me, uh, this afternoon, who's the director of the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech. And so we're gonna share just a little bit about what's going on in this space, particularly for our friends in the timber products industry. So the Renewable Bioproducts Institute's focus is to really enable a resilient society through the Earth's renewable carbon sources. And so that's a lot of words, but let me just tell you, what we do is we take product like wood products and other agricultural products, we process those products, and we create value-added can-- you know, results, value-added products at the end.

171. 1:07:48

     And what that does is it positions us for a viable future. I'm gonna give you four quick examples and hopefully make 'em relatable. Um, the first one is special paper that we can use to, to print electronic circuits. And why this is important is because what it does is it allows us to scale and rapidly produce electronic circuits that you otherwise couldn't do in a traditional chip manufacturing environment. But having this specialized paper to do that will allow us to do it. Battery separators, using the lignin and cellulosic fibers in the particular materials that are separating batteries in our battery production, this is coming from wood product, and we can do that.

172. 1:08:23

     Pharmaceuticals. This is XYLOSOL. This is a replacement, an agricultural replacement for acetaminophen, which is the primary active ingredient in Tylenol. So you're familiar with Tylenol, that's the active ingredient. If we can leverage what we have here in the state to produce that, that really gives us a new value-added commodity or value-added product. And then the last one I'll mention here is sustainable nylon, or Xylon, as we've trademarked. This is an opportunity to replace petroleum-based nylon with an agricultural-produced nylon, which is more sustainable and provides an outlet for some of our agricultural and f- and wood products here in the state of Georgia.

173. 1:08:59

     So that's part of a program called the Center for Renewables-Based Economy from Wood. You might have heard ReWood as the name of it, and that's kind of the focus is this research of finding these value-added products from traditional wood products and wood streams. And this has become particularly important as we've seen the closures in the mills and the pressure on the industry. And also what's really valuable is we can use timber that's fallen or small-sized timber that wouldn't necessarily go into the lumber production, right? So there's... But, but we can use the large ones as well, but we can also use the small ones, and that really gives us an opportunity to find an outlet.

174. 1:09:33

     So what we're also excited about is the Georgia Forestry Innovation Initiative, and you may have heard a little bit about this. This is a partnership between the Georgia Forestry Commission and the Renewable Bioproducts Institute at Georgia Tech, and it's really to support our forestry industry, particularly given the challenges we've had. And what it does, in a nutshell, is it allows us to scale up from a lab bench process that we know works into a small batch process which allows us to generate enough material to be able to hand it to commercial entities where they can test it and evaluate it for its effectiveness before going to full scale up.

175. 1:10:11

     It also allows us to learn all of the aspects associated with scale up, whether that's, you know, maintenance or operations or materials or processes that might need to be tweaked in order to move that to a commercialization process. It also helps us understand what our workforce development needs might be in terms of being able to supply and build that capacity here in the state. So the governor has supported this, and we're super excited about that, and we're looking forward to being able to put together, um, this pilot program, this pilot that we're gonna-- that, that we're hoping to be able to launch. And really, it's gonna launch around two primary product areas.

176. 1:10:42

     One is carbon products. This is biochar, but also think of it more as charcoal, right? So charcoal is the big lump form. Biochar is the powdered form. And biochar is valuable as a, as a soil amendment to really drive carbon into the soils and help improve the soils. It's also got other uses. The other one I'll mention on the biochar side is the graphite. Graphite's a primary ingredient in batteries. And so if we can leverage what we've got here in the state to start producing batteries, because Georgia's become a battery supplier and producer, and also with our emphasis on EVs, this could be very valuable for us internally to the state economy.

177. 1:11:19

     The second area I'll mention are our solvents, okay? And if we start looking at solvents, there's, there's really this XYLOSOL that you see there on the, on the right-hand side. This is actually a solvent that's used in pharmaceutical purification processes for, for cleaning drugs that then get into-- that end up in, you know, pharmaceutical products, right? And it's a s- it's a solvent that gets used over and over and over to continuously render that, that, uh, that, that chemistry cleaner. The challenge we have with this right now is that xy- that, that product right now, 80% of it comes from China.

178. 1:11:55

     Talk about a vulnerability, right? And so if we can start producing that here in the state with resources in the state, that provides a huge opportunity for us to do something interesting with it come-- when it comes to these solvents that are used in the pharmaceutical industry. The second area where this, this solvent is used is in the, in the coatings industry. So think about clear coat on your car, right? We have several f- automobile manufacturing companies in the state of Georgia. Think about the clear coats or the paints that get used in those particular cases. This is a solvent. It could be used in those manufacturing environments.

179. 1:12:26

     And so you see how it en- reinforces some of the industry that we have here, leveraging the natural resources that we have in place in our state and finding alternative value-added products for that. All right, now I'm gonna pivot a little bit to our agricultural technology research program, which where our vision is really to transform poultry agribusiness and food manufacturing through advanced technologies. As most of you know, Georgia Tech does not have a College of Agriculture, so we partner very closely with our friends up at the University of Georgia and Dean Place, and the folks up in the poultry science and other sciences have been super supportive and really good partners on this whole initiative.

180. 1:13:00

     Um- We have four strategic research thrust areas that I'm going to focus on just really quickly. One is the future of poultry operations. Next is chemical and biological sensing. The third is row crops for peanuts, and the fourth one is agricultural robotics more in general. Whoops, let me go back one. I skipped through that real quick. All right, so this is the first one I'll talk about. This is an interesting system in the poultry plant where we're looking at deboning poultry carcasses, and we're trying to do this shoulder cut. And this is a shoulder cut that's done traditionally by hand.

181. 1:13:31

     And what we're looking at is taking 3D images of the outside of a carcass of a chicken, mapping that to an internal bone structure, and then creating a unique cut trajectory for each chicken individually. And what it allows us to do is hopefully hit the yield targets that the industry's already hitting with people doing it, but it also allows us to eliminate bone chips. That first robotic cell that you saw, that was really using just research robots. This one is a full commercial washdown robot that would be able to survive in a processing plant. And so we're in that process of doing that transition from research lab into the field, and we're very thankful for our partners that let us go do these tests in actual processing plants.

182. 1:14:08

     As you can tell, this isn't in a processing plant. The next one I'm going to mention is our agricultural robotics that's in the, um, that's in the pro- in the, in the grow-out houses. In this particular case right now, this is a breeder house. And what this is is this is a fully autonomous robot, and what it's doing is it's doing a 24/7 surveillance of this breeder flock. Particularly, we're looking for brewe- broiler eggs that get laid on the floor. Chicken see, chicken do. Once you get one egg on the floor, you wake up the next morning and have about 5,000 potentially on the floor. It's a problem. So, and those eggs that lay on the floor can't be used in commercial production because of contamination.

183. 1:14:41

     So what we do is we get it off the floor pretty quick so the birds don't see it or don't trample it, and then what we try to get those out of there so they don't think that that's where they should be laying the eggs. But in addition, we've got 3D sensors on this and other sensors. So think about avian influenza sensors and ammonia sensors and wind sensors and temperature and humidity. And we can do a whole assessment of that house automatically. And also, by the way, we're having to drive this thing autonomously in an environment where there's chickens. And you think people act crazy, just try some chickens.

184. 1:15:12

     They are moving all over the place, and you really have to be able to navigate in and amongst them without causing damage or stress to those birds. So it's a really interesting project, and we're actually in the process of having some conversations with folks that might be looking at taking this commercial. The next one I'm going to touch ba- base on is our biological and chemical sensing. This is an interferometric biosensor, the one on the left, and that's a platform that's been built, and it's able to detect, with the right cartridges and chemistry, a whole bunch of different things, whether it's pathogens, whether it's chemicals, or whether it's diseases. And so we've got a whole number of them s- listed right there.

185. 1:15:44

     What's really fascinating about this is this pro- this technology has already been licensed. And so a company called Salvis, which is a subsidiary of CJB Industries in Valdosta, has taken this technology, licensed it, and they've created this handheld unit where they can slide in a cartridge for different types of things that they want to detect in terms of agriculture, human health, animal health, food, water, and all sorts of other things that they're looking at. So it's very, it's a very unifor- a, a very valuable technology that can be lever- leveraged in a lot of different applications.

186. 1:16:14

     All right, peanut VOCs. So vol- VOCs are volatile organic compounds. These are light compounds that you smell when you do things like cut the grass or, you know, pull up dirt or, you know. Th- those are volatile organics. And what's really interesting, and we found this out in talking to some of our colleagues at the University of Georgia, is that plants emit these volatile organics depending on what stresses they're going through. So if you can detect those things, you can tell what stress they're going through. And so this was a test to look if we could r- do early detection of water stress. So the one on the left is not water stressed. The one on the right is water stressed.

187. 1:16:45

     And you can see the separation there on that plot on the right. And we were able to demonstrate that based on the volatile organics being produced, we could detect early water stress on these peanut plants. Now, this is one that my good friend, Representative Clay Pirkle, is super proud of. Um, but it's really some work that we did out of some allocation that the state gave us last year for this fiscal year. But this is called the, uh, what they're calling it, the Pirkle-ator. Um, but, uh, but it's really a thing that deflects the nuts down so that we make sure that we get the loose shell kernels in the spot so that they fall through the gap at the right point in time.

188. 1:17:18

     And it looks simple, but this has improved the accuracy of getting those, um, those, those peanuts in that sh- in those spots, um, by about 60%. So when we first did the initial test, it was about 33% accurate, and now we're sitting up there at about 90% accurate. And you might not think that, that is a lot, but the problem is, is when those loose shell kernels get into those, into the wrong bins, that means somebody has to go in afterwards and manually pick them out, right? And that takes about another two to four minutes just depending on how much is in there. So this is really a time saver, and when you think about they're doing that 15 times per load and doing it across all of the different trailers that they're pulling out, that c- that, that adds up over time.

189. 1:17:55

     And so that makes it a whole lot more efficient. All right, caneberry harvesting, and, and Mr. Chairman, I'll mention that we're actually looking at moving this into blueberry, right? So there's actually some real interest. Now, this is interesting from, because what we're doing is we're looking at how do we detect ripeness, so there's a sensor in the grip. We're also looking at the dexterity of that hand and then also making sure that we don't damage the fruit when we do the harvest. Now, okay, this probably won't end up in the field, but what this is doing is this is teaching us how to do some things that we n- otherwise wouldn't be able to do in a way that we can go back in and start looking at ways to do this on a larger scale, commercial scale.

190. 1:18:30

     But it's the beginning, right? It's just the start, and my colleagues are working on this to try and solve some of those caneberry and blueberry harvesting challenges, challenges in the fruit and vegetable side. I'm gonna pivot real quick and talk about our rural computer science program. So, uh, several years back, um, Chairman's, uh, uh, Dubnik and, and Jones, uh, championed rural computer science in the state, and that was to be able to enable our students in the rural communities to have access to high-quality computer science education. And so in partnership with Georgia Tech, that's a program that's been rolled out.

191. 1:19:02

     About 14,000 students have participated in that in about 50 different districts across the state. This is one of the interesting application spaces, and so what we've got is this thing called a FarmBot, and you'll see a picture there on the bottom. That's actually a gantry robot that goes up and down on, across that little box and then back and forth. And it's got sensors on board, and it's also got the ability to deposit water, and deposit fertilizer, and provide an alert if it starts to see something going wrong. And the students are the ones that are programming this. So they're leveraging their computer science backgrounds and their understanding into an application space that our rural, that our rural students understand, which is agriculture.

192. 1:19:40

     What we're really trying to do is bridge that gap, that understanding of how do we get our students to go from being consumers of technology to being producers and developers of technology specific around the ag space to provide a viable future for our industry in the state, right? So this is part of that plan in terms of doing this. Right now we have, I think, these farm bots are in 19 districts across the state. I'll s- I'll close with this, and I've gone really fast, so I hope it's not been too fast. But-

193. 1:20:08

     Mm-hmm

194. 1:20:09

     ... um, our goal is really to drive innovation, really, uh, to empower the state and empower Georgia, right? And by Georgia, we mean gold Georgia. The gold Georgia, right? Not just the red Georgia and the Black Georgia and... but the, the whole Georgia. We think we can do it by reshaping, by, by reshaping the future and connecting people, whether that's universities, industry, our, our departments of agriculture, our thought leaders, you know, across... whether it's our students in our K through 12 or our senior researchers, um, adopting advanced technologies, whether it's AI, or virtual reality, or chemistries that we're seeing at Renewable Bioinstitute, um, or it, to, to really drive transformational innovation in this space, right?

195. 1:20:47

     Because we think that it's at these intersections that there's lots of opportunity, and we're excited to be playing in those spaces and driving value for our partners in the State of Georgia. We have, uh, so many partners, um, I can't... I'm not gonna go through 'em all here, but you see a bunch of 'em. And we're always expanding. We're looking forward to, to growing this list as we have impact across the state. Um, with that, I, I don't do this myself. Carson and I both have teams that are full of people that are energetic and interested and excited to be there and to do this. I just get the privilege of representing them.

196. 1:21:18

     So I just wanna say, uh, thank you for the time, and I'm happy to answer any questions, but I know we're short on time. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll stop there.

197. 1:21:25

     Now we have, uh, Senator Sims.

198. 1:21:30

     Thank you so much. I've learned, um, quite a bit. But I've always been a part of agriculture because I, uh, was married to an ag teacher and farmer many, many years ago. Um, also attended Fort Valley State University.

199. 1:21:46

     Oh, yeah.

200. 1:21:48

     Are they partners with you all? And, and I don't ask because it's an HBCU, Historically Black school, it's because there's 1,000 acres plus down there that is, has the potential for so many different innovations and uses, which, of not being used the way they should. They are, they are underperforming and, um, mm, it needs some help. Do you-

201. 1:22:13

     Yeah, so-

202. 1:22:14

     Do...

203. 1:22:15

     Y- yes, ma'am. We, we do actually have a partnership with Fort Valley State. We have a joint project through the USDA National Institutes of Food and Agriculture right now-

204. 1:22:23

     Mm-hmm

205. 1:22:23

     ... um, looking at the Center for Scalable Intelligent Applications for Poultry Processing. Now, they don't have poultry directly, but they're doing a lot of red meat, so goat and beef.

206. 1:22:31

     Yeah.

207. 1:22:31

     And so we're actually looking at how do we translate some of that stuff that we're doing in the poultry space into that space, and they are our partner. Dr. Bruko Oku is our partner down there, and he's really helping us with that part of the, part of the project. So yes, we do actually have a connection, uh, with Fort Valley State.

208. 1:22:46

     And perhaps move them away from just the red meat technology because you guys seem to be, it's the technology that is driving, um, what you, what you do, of course, because that's what you are. But it's just, um, an amazing ventures that you guys are into right now that will help the industry grow. And we probably will end up displacing some workers, especially in the chicken plants eventually, and that's a part of my district as well.

209. 1:23:19

     We have a lot of huge chicken plants. But, um, w- we need to have more, they need to have more engagement. And then the other question I wanted to ask you about was student engagement, K through 12. I see that you are really involved in that, and what can we do as a state to help with you, uh, especially in the Department of Education? I know we've put some greenhouses in some places. Um, and the innovation, especially with hydroponics and that kind of thing, is really popular, but what, what can we do?

210. 1:23:54

     Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that. Um, we, we, uh, we are really active in the computer science space because that tends to be one of the strengths that we have. But the similar thing could be done in engineering. Several of my colleagues have written some of the curriculum that they're using for AI, artificial intelligence, not the, uh, avian influenza that we heard the commissioner speak about.

211. 1:24:13

     Mm-hmm.

212. 1:24:14

     Um, and so we're active in that space. And really it's just getting the word out right now because typically once we produce some of that stuff, it's pretty scalable. We can make it available. My colleague Do- uh, Lima Cook and Dr. Lizanne DeStefano are the ones that spearhead our rural computer science programs. Um, and it's just a matter of, of, of getting the connections and making sure that people have access to it. Um, and we've been fortunate to have support from the state to, to drive that and to support that moving forward. So I think continued support on that front is really valuable for us.

213. 1:24:46

     Thank you. Thank you so much.

214. 1:24:48

     All right. Thank you. Uh, S- Chairman Watson.

215. 1:24:51

     Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, and I can probably get with you offline, but I wanted to go back to one of those slides with the, the salmonella testing, and is that... Uh, we have to test for listeria on a regular basis now. Is that a tool that would, we have to order swabs, then we have to swab, and then we have to send them off to the lab, and it's kind of a very difficult, you know, process. Is that something that could be Tested with something similar to this?

216. 1:25:17

     Y- yes, sir. Yeah, yeah. So this, the whole idea here is for this to be a rapid test so that you could do something within about 15 minutes. I will tell you that one of the complications is being able to distinguish between live and dead bacteria, particularly when you're looking at those. However, that said, this is something that Salvis is actually very actively pursuing. So I think this is gonna be something that could be a very valuable tool for you in the near future.

217. 1:25:39

     Yeah, there's been a ton of listeria recalls in Florida and, and, uh, across the country with produce. So that would, yes, be ... If it could be instant and, yeah. We, but we can get more online.

218. 1:25:50

     Yes, sir. Ha- happy to send more.

219. 1:25:53

     All right. Good deal. Thank you. And we've got enough time. I'd like to ask Director Sabo to come up. Um, said we're gonna go. We got 10 minutes anyway. Uh, Johnny Sabo, thank y'all for coming.

220. 1:26:04

     Thank you for inviting me.

221. 1:26:04

     And, you know, I've been up there, uh, guys, and seen what they're doing up there. Well, I spent a half a day with them, and, and it's really amazing work, and could transform the economies of rural Georgia. The man, the myth, the legend. 10 days into becoming the director of the Ge- of the Georgia Forestry Commission, Hurricane Helene hits. But, uh, he's done a phenomenal job. And, and, uh, thank you for being here. I'm sorry. Um, but just, it's hard to condense everything in. But, um-

222. 1:26:34

     I understand

223. 1:26:35

     ... um, appreciate everything you do.

224. 1:26:38

     Yes, sir.

225. 1:26:38

     Do you wanna talk about what's, what's going on in the forestry industry, but as well as the governor's task force that you helped head up and-

226. 1:26:44

     Yeah. Ha- happy to do so. Um, and, uh, this was kind of a, a last-minute thing, so forgive me for not having a presentation. But what I thought might be appropriate to talk about today was just kind of, kind of how the sausage was made for the governor's task force. And I should start with saying, did everybody get a copy of the report?

227. 1:27:00

     Mm-hmm.

228. 1:27:00

     Okay. Good deal. Um, and so, you know, in that report, we, there was some information, but not really to how we got to the three specific items of recommendation. And, and that and, and highlighting something that GFA is pursuing that I believe everybody will be seeing soon enough. And w- when we looked at everything in the forest industry, and, and let's just talk about what we lost for a moment. That was a small diameter wood. And in forest industry, that small diameter wood's what makes everything go round. Our genetics aren't there to plant trees at 300 to an acre, and we grow straight saw timber, right?

229. 1:27:34

     We have to plant them close, start growing up. We, we thin out the small diameter wood, and then that's when we start getting saw logs and everything else. On top of that, for a lot of our sawmills, they really stay afloat by moving, moving their res- what's called residuals. So the chips and all the leftover pieces, and traditionally, that would go to the paper mills to burn in the boilers and used for other products. So when we lose paper mills, it's, it's devastating. And then we look-

230. 1:28:02

     Can I-

231. 1:28:02

     Not just in Georgia, but... Yes, sir.

232. 1:28:04

     Uh, just real quick, if you don't mind me. Uh, just for, uh, some of the members of the committee. I mean, when we, when we lo- the mills that we've lost altogether, you have the direct jobs. But with the indirect jobs, um, you know, if the Hyundai plant was, what? 7,000 jobs. It's like the biggest economic, uh, development announcement in the state's history. If that's the case, then the, these mill closures have been the largest economic contraction announcement in the state's history. And that's the only way I can see it. Uh, because when you take in not just the direct jobs, but all the mills, we're talking about like 122 logging crews, if I'm not mistaken-

233. 1:28:40

     Yes, sir

234. 1:28:40

     ... that are no longer gonna be in business. I just wanted to interject that.

235. 1:28:43

     Right. W- when we look at, uh, direct, indirect, and induced, we're talking 6,000 jobs and a $2.9 billion loss to the economy. Um, so you take the mill in Early County, you know, the, the restaurants in town, I mean, everything. When we start looking, the trickle effect that it has, um, it is massive. Uh, I'll... Don't quote me on this, but I wanna say the number in Early County, that was something like 64, 67% base of their tax revenue within the county just closed overnight. So how, how do we get that back, right?

236. 1:29:14

     How, what, what do we do? And, um, you know, there, there's a lot of things that's been thrown around in the forest industry for years. Some of it's sustainable aviation fuel, um, uh, renewable energy, a lot of different things. And so I just kind of wanna paint a picture real quick. Renewable energy is a thing. That's something that we have the technology for. It's something that we can do right now. Uh, we're making a lot of pellets, and that's our number one forestry export going out of Savannah, going to Europe. Europe has renewable energy standards.

237. 1:29:47

     Energy standards are left up to each state, and so there's 28 states that have a renewable energy standard or portfolio. Um, they tend to be West Coast states. I'll just kind of frame it up that way. But, but that's really left up to the state. So the numbers really have to make sense. If, if you don't mandate it or subsidize it, the renewable energy numbers, from everything that I have seen, do, do not make sense. I know there's others that will argue differently, and that's fine, but it is a technology and it is a use. So we didn't, we didn't pursue that pathway.

238. 1:30:18

     When you start looking at, at renewable fuel standards, that is mandated by the feds, and that's something that's been in place for over 20 years. And basically, that's why you will never see a, a stick of wood, an actual whole tree go off of somebody's property to go into a mill to make sustainable aviation fuel. Now, you can use the residuals, you can use other products, but, but until something has changed at the federal level, that will never happen. And so I think I made a comment during the joint session. I don't know if anybody's ever changed, tried to change federal law regulation lately, but it's, it's an uphill battle, right?

239. 1:30:52

     So it's like, all right, if we're gonna put all of our money into something, all of our ducks into a basket, you know, what direction do we go? And I, I really couldn't be more blessed to be, you know, in a state with a group like Georgia Tech and the work that the ReWood Group, Dr. Carson is doing, and his team. And so then we start looking at, okay, well, how do we, how do we look at market share for petroleum-based, historically petroleum-based products, pharmaceutical coatings, car coatings- The biochar, different things like that, and, and how do we elevate that? And a short version of it is the profit margins are much better.

240. 1:31:24

     The technology's there, as he said. They've already done the research. So the, the 10.9 that we're asking in the funding, it's not for the tabletop research. That's done. The- they've, they've done their homework, right? This is to scale up and then the, the transfer technology to, to industry. Um, early projections, we're looking at, at, at full scale out is roughly 12 million tons of wood we project we could use, you know, based on that 10.9 million investment. And so to, to put that in perspective, the mill closures that we lost, they utilized about 8.2 million tons.

241. 1:32:01

     Four million of those tons were in the state of Georgia. So the mills were on the borders, right? Um, so i- if we get a third of this right, we've replaced the amount of wood that, that we lost overnight when those mill closures, you know, based on the research that Georgia Tech has done. So that, that is huge. The other part of it is, is the mass timber facility. There's, there's, there's a lot happening with mass timber in the private sector. There's a lot happening in other states. Um, there's actually an Atlanta-based company who built a mass timber-- When I say mass timber facility, I mean, like, plant to make mass timber on the West Coast.

242. 1:32:35

     They're based here in Atlanta. And so there, there's obviously, there's a clear pathway on us building one in Georgia, but we have to increase the usage. And Georgia Forestry Association, the foundation, they've been doing a lot of work on that front, and there's a lot moving in the private sector. But if we're gonna be the number one forestry state in the nation, how do we, how do we do better as far as building with wood, utilizing wood? And when we talk, talk about buzzwords like carbon capture, but just r- being renewable, and renewable-- a resource that we have right here that, that we make in the state, how do we do better with that?

243. 1:33:09

     And so that- that's where the Georgia Forest Commission is asking kind of for us to be the guinea pigs. Let, let us build a county unit out of mass timber. I have 101 county units across the state. 37 of them need replaced today. And then we think about partners like Department of Ag and DNR and all the other state agencies, and it's not gonna be right everywhere. We, we acknowledge that. But where it is right, where do we build with mass timber and we find alternative markets for these sawmills? 'Cause while Georgia's population is, is predicted to grow, and that will help our sawmills, if you look at the 10 or 15-year populations a-across the United States, it's actually expected to decline.

244. 1:33:45

     So the sawmill's tied so close to new starts, when I say new starts, new builds, if that declines, we start losing sawmills, and we start losing other markets. You know, so being proactive, how do we find these new markets now? And I, I couldn't be more happy to work with the team that we had. We, um, we worked with-- I mean, we, we met with folks from even, like, Douglas County, Colorado. They're doing a lot with biochar and some different stuff out there, trying to, trying to mitigate their, their fuel loads from wildfire hazards. Um, hearing from other companies with-- I mean, it, it-- from outstanding ideas to somebody who said, "Hey, I, I've got a thought.

245. 1:34:18

     I wanna talk to you." So we, we met, we researched, we looked at a bunch of different things. And at the end of the day, just a great partnership between all the state agencies, USG, um, even down to, like, the technical college. So when we start talking about bringing this stuff online and, and, and having conversations with Commissioner Dozier, you know, how do we start prepping for seven, eight years down the road to where we have the workforce that knows how to work in these plants? And so they're, they're gearing up, and they're looking at that as well. So, um, you know, I, I, I don't wanna say we got caught, you know, with the mill closures.

246. 1:34:50

     I mean, we-- I- inevitably, if you're paying attention, it was gonna happen. All the states around, around us lost them, 80-year mills. I mean, that's, that's going to happen. Um, wish we had a little bit more time to plan or a little bit of heads-up. You know, six months might've been nice than overnight, right? But a- at the end of the day, I am very optimistic about where we go in the forest industry and our future. It's, it's not gonna be overnight. I mean, it is absolutely a marathon, not a sprint. But, uh, I'm, I'm confident in our folks here in Georgia Tech.

247. 1:35:21

     I'm confident in, in all the agencies and the leadership that we have here in the state. Number one state to do business. You know, we have ports, a rail system, the infrastructure, and we have the trees. Um, I got-- I actually had a phone call with an investor out of, uh, Europe earlier this week that was interested in forestry, and he said, "Well, explain sustainability to me." And, and I gotta credit one of my team members for putting it this way. He said, "Well," I told him, I said, "The mill there was in Savannah for 90 years. 90 years using that much wood, and really it was only drawing from a half circle, right?

248. 1:35:53

     If you think about it, they're, they're not gonna go out to the Atlantic and pull wood." And for 90 years, and we actually have more wood there on the ground today than we did 90 years ago. And so when you think about our genetics, you know, how we grow trees, how we practice silviculture and everything, I mean, the, the sustainability is there. You know, we have the infrastructure, and we have everything. And I'll tell you, there's a lot of people jockeying to, to look at Georgia right now as far as wanting to be here and wanting to be a part. It's finding what is the, the right industry, and then from my perspective, not having all our eggs in one basket, right?

249. 1:36:25

     I mean, how do we spread it around a little bit more to where if somebody does close, it's not quite the hits to the producers and the loggers and the families? And, um, you know, we know losing the loggers is, is gonna be really hard. That's something that we've, we've heard over and over. Um, that is a, a extremely hard business to be in, and my heart goes out for those folks. But at the end of the day, there's no quick fix for any of that. But I, I am very confident in us attracting industry and, and building out industry in new places. But I just wanna say thank you for your, for your time today.

250. 1:36:56

     I kind of wanna just give a brief explanation. That's some questions I've had publicly, or, or I, I should say just in casual conversation about how did we get to these three, these three things here, the Georgia Grown. You know, and that's really about putting us in front of our other states. Um, I, I love our neighbors. I love my counterparts in the other one, but I play to win, right? So I-- if we're gonna attract industry, I want it to be us. And, uh, so it's about putting us in front. It's about finding alternative uses for wood, and it's about, you know, taking that dimensional lumber for our sawmills that we currently have and not losing them and, and making sure we're using more of it.

251. 1:37:30

     So...

252. 1:37:31

     Good deal.

253. 1:37:32

     Yes, sir.

254. 1:37:32

     Good deal. Thank you for that.

255. 1:37:33

     Thank you.

256. 1:37:33

     Do we, do we have any questions for Director Sabo? All right. Well, thank you for coming. Thank you, Doug, uh, Carson-

257. 1:37:44

     Carson.

258. 1:37:45

     Carson. Thank you, Dr., Dr. Carson. Is it May- Meredith. Meredith. Well, thank you. Thank you for coming. I appreciate y'all being here. And, uh, thank y'all for sticking to that with this. And, uh, with that, uh, we're gonna adjourn this meeting. So thank y'all. Oh, by the way, this is in your folder, Ag Committee dinner. So y'all need to all try to be there. You gotta be there or be square, man. Huh? Are you gonna sing? Yes, I'm singing. All right. "If I Can Dream" by Elvis Presley.