A Little Perspective on the Storm
As much of the metro Atlanta region resets the clocks on their microwaves and coffeemakers this morning, and suffers through the inconveniences of internet outages and tree limbs on our lawns, it’s worth noting that while we may be late to work, we still have jobs to go to, and none of us is worried that this years’ earnings are at risk. But last weeks hard freeze has pretty much killed off Georgia’s blueberry crop for the year, eliminating between 80 and 90 percent of the entire harvest worth by some estimates more than $200 million.
It will likely hurt not only growers, but anybody that does business with them.
“We’re down to 50 people doing what 400 were doing. So, we’re down 350 employees,” said Miles.
Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black and Georgia House Agricultural Committee Chairman Tom McCall toured south Georgia to assess the damage earlier this week, as reported in the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
In and around Atlanta, we talk a lot about the movie and television industry, which contributed $7 billion to Georgia’s economy last year –a fantastic that was nearly zero less than a decade ago. But Georgia’s agricultural sector is more than 10 times that amount.
While there is such crop insurance, “Growers with insurance could get repaid for about half their crop. Allen hopes those companies settle up sooner than later so growers can start to focus on next year. As growers wait for insurance companies to decide what they’ll do, all they can do is watch and wait.”
So as you call your cable company and sit on hold to try to figure out when service will be restored, try to remember that your annoyance doesn’t compare to someone waiting to be told how much less they will earn this year.
It doesn’t even come close.
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Mike Hassinger
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Ideally crop insurance would be a private rather than federal government program but it is a relatively small portion of USDA budget. The good news here is that the Vidalia onion crop was not heavily impacted.
Ask yourself WHY it is not a private program that the insurance industry wants handle. Even if it was, it would most likely still need to be federally underwritten, like the private flood insurance program.
Exactly Ellynn. My family are farmers or their suppliers in South Georgia – farmers rely on the crop and selling the harvest (i.e. my Grandmother counts on harvest income for most of her yearly income). The private insurance market wouldn’t provide affordable insurance rates due to the threat of exactly this situation when everyone would be making claims. Without subsidized farm insurance, many farmers would go out of business with an event like this. There is subsidized farm insurance to ensure that we have a strong agricultural base and preserve a stable food supply. Now, before someone goes off about blueberries not be essential food supply, this same insurance support our wheat farmers in the midwest and an industry in Georgia, as noted above, that is worth more than $70 billion. Also, its not just the farmers, it is their suppliers who also benefit such as the people who install irrigation systems, farming equipment sales, etc.