Georgia has lost nearly 2.9 million acres of farmland and open land to "developed landcover" in the past 50 years, reported Georgia Conservancy Inc. President Katherine Moore. What can be done to protect additional agricultural land from being gobbled up by residential, industrial and other uses? Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper offered suggestions.

Moore and Harper were two of the seven featured speakers Tuesday when District 4 state Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, convened the first meeting of the Senate Study Committee on Preservation of Georgia's Farmlands, which he chairs. It was held in Bulloch County at Georgia Southern University's Center of Continuing Education on U.S. Highway 301 south of Statesboro.

Between 120 and 150 people attended, filling a large room in the building that until a couple of years ago was home to East Georgia State College's Statesboro program.

The other committee members are Sen. Jason Anavitare, R-District 31, Dallas; Sen. Brandon Beach, R-District 21, Alpharetta; Sen. Jason Esteves, D-District 6, Atlanta; Sen. Russ Goodman, R-District 8, Homerville; Sen. Freddie Powell Sims, D-District 12, Dawson; and Sen. Sam Watson, R-District 11, Moultrie. They were appointed by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, as president of the Senate, under 2024 Senate Resolution 470, of which Hickman was lead sponsor.

"The purpose of what we're all here to discuss is to protect agriculture, but we've also got to provide jobs for our families, and (find) where the balance is," Hickman told the group. "People continue to ask me, 'What is the goal of this committee?' And I think the goal of this committee, like so many committees, is information. You know, we don't know what the answer is, but hopefully we can come up with some bills." 

After the meeting ended nearly three hours later, he said he expects "two or three bills to come out of this, maybe even more than that" for the 2025 legislative session.

The committee is scheduled to hold public meetings in three other rural communities in different parts of the state — in Cornelia in northeastern Georgia on Aug. 30; in Moultrie, home of the Sunbelt Ag Expo in southernmost Georgia, Sept. 25; and Cedartown in northwestern Georgia on Oct. 28 — before meeting at the Capitol in Atlanta in November. 

"Then shortly after that we will render our report," Hickman said.

A half century of change

Moore said the Georgia Conservancy, a statewide conservation organization founded in 1967, wants to help Georgia "play the long game for its long-term sustainability … in the sense of economics as well as the environmental sense of sustainability."

The Conservancy worked with Georgia Tech researchers to plot historical trends in the use of land by analyzing satellite imagery from 1974 through 2021. During that time, the loss of Georgia forest land, changed to something else, was estimated at about 2 million acres, but that could include woodland converted to farmland.

Researchers found that the 47-year growth in "developed landcover" totaled nearly 2.9 million acres, and estimated Georgia's "permanent loss" of agricultural land, including pastures, row-crop land, orchards and vineyards, at 2.6 million acres.

Showing slides of the satellite maps of the state, Moore noted that the loss was not limited to the metro Atlanta region or to high-density areas.

"Low-intensity development is driving the land coverage change, and not just right outside the major cities of our state," she said.

This development includes sprawling residential areas in some traditionally agricultural counties.

"The expansion of low-density residential is one of the major threats to ag land," Moore said.

Working with a different group of Georgia Tech researchers, the Georgia Conservancy also looked at farmland being occupied by solar panels — Moore called on-ground solar electricity production "an emerging industry" — and estimated that these had covered about 30,000 acres by fall 2021.

"That still pales in comparison to the impact of low-density development in terms of what is a threat to our ag land," she said.

Saying she didn't want her report to be all "doom and gloom," Moore cited Georgia Department of Natural Resources information that 10% of Georgia land has now been "permanently conserved" through various programs, but noted that this compares to about 16% of North Carolina's land and about 30% of Florida's land being permanently conserved.

State ag commissioner

Not surprisingly for a Georgia agriculture commissioner, Harper began with comments on agriculture's status in the state's economy. An Irwin County farmer and former state senator, he was elected to head the Georgia Department of Agriculture in 2022.

"Agriculture is our Number One industry, period," he said. "Agriculture is the backbone of our state's economy; it's what we do well; it's what we've always done well; it's allowed our state to prosper."

Harper said his department is working "every single day to protect this $84 billion industry that's 17% of our state's economy."

But he also cited rising production costs that reduce farmers' net income even when farm revenues rise, and a study showing that a high percentage of farmers have considered suicide. He listed mental health as one of the state's concerns for them.

"You can do everything right on the farm, and at the end of the day, you can still lose everything," Harper said.

In agriculture, the drive is always "to do more with less every single day," producing more peanuts or cotton, putting "more beef on the hoof, more lamb on the chop, more pork on the side," more efficiently, "with less seed, less fertilizer, less land…," he said.

"But at some point, the 'more with less' doesn't work anymore," Harper added. "At some point you've got to have a certain amount of land, you've got to have a certain amount of viable production capability to feed the populace."

He acknowledged Moore's numbers as similar to statistics the Department of Agriculture is tracking and said, "Right now, we're on a trend in our state by 2040 to lose about three-quarters of a million more acres … in ag land. That's concerning."

Harper expressed appreciation to the lawmakers for the passage of the Georgia Farmland Conservation Act in 2023, creating a fund to offer farmland owners a financial incentive to conserve land when faced with pressure to sell it for development. This year the program was launched with about $2 million, but that should allow the state to begin attracting federal dollars to help, he said.

This year, he noted, Georgia Senate Bill 420 became law, prohibiting "nonresident aliens" and foreign corporations from countries declared "foreign adversaries" by the U.S. commerce secretary from purchasing agricultural land or land within 25 miles of military bases.

'Smart growth' plans

Harper's suggestions for the committee included encouraging participation in and funding land conservation programs and taking further steps to "incentivize the use of agricultural land for agricultural purposes only," as well as proposing measures to ease the tax burden on farmers and create "smart growth and development" plans.

"We can be successful and we can work together and ensure that … we have zoning policies on the local level that make sense, that we have statewide tax policies that allow our farmers to be successful," Harper said.

The agriculture commissioner also suggested redirecting some of the state's economic development efforts to industries that add value to Georgia's agricultural commodities.

"Why don't we focus more on finding ways of bringing those industries and those businesses that can make that raw product into the finished goods consumers can use and incentivize those businesses here in our state," he said.

Other input

The committee also heard from Georgia Southern's president and the director of its Institute for Water and Health and from representatives of the Georgia Grown Innovation Center in Metter and of Ogeechee Technical College's Agribusiness Program.

In the final hour, the committee received comments from members of the public who signed up. Several expressed concerns about development surrounding Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America and its supplier industries and the large wells to be drilled in southern Bulloch County to supply water to the plant.