The Ag Forecast in Tifton was last Friday. Below are handouts which recap the “takeaways” for each commodity covered:
The meeting started with call outs to all the VIP’s in the audience like Reps from Sam Perdue’s office, local Chamber of Commerce members, Rep Austin Scott and many more. Austin Scott said a few words highlighting the disaster relief efforts, block grant(s) for non-traditional crops, and difficulties with the H2A bill.
After which UGA’s Amanda Smith, Ag Econ, took the podium to discuss the current economic outlook, crop by crop. She started by looking at the “macro economic picture,” stating that Ag Econ was entering a plateau phase. Which is clear by the observed flat farm income, reliance on the Farm Bill “safety net,” and yes…..more consolidation. Many of her takeaways are listed in the handouts above.
To finish up the meeting guest speaker Dr. Jeff Dorfman, State Fiscal Economist of Georgia (among other hats), talked about recession trends in the Keynote Address. Simultaneously discussing trends on the state and national level Dorfman remained positive stating the pros and cons we are living through: pros like 3.2% unemployment in GA, 70% of new plant openings are outside of Atlanta Metro; cons like Trade Dependency and Hurricane Michael. He concluded by saying the block grant(s) may go live in February (this month) equaling relief from Michael and mentioned how well GA can can sell commodities while also labeling commodities as “products” like GA Grown.
AgSnapshots 2020- https://agforecast.caes.uga.edu/content/dam/caes-subsite/caed/publications/ag-snapshots/2020AgSnapshotsFINAL.pdf
Ag Forecast 2020(full report)- https://agforecast.caes.uga.edu/content/dam/caes-subsite/ag-forecast/Ag%20Forecast%202020.final.pdf
Ag Forecast 2020 (2page summary)- https://agforecast.caes.uga.edu/content/dam/caes-subsite/ag-forecast/takeaways.pdf
Thanks y’all!
Best Wishes,
Joshua Grant
Slide Pics from the meeting:
