By Clint Thompson
It is business as usual for Chris Butts and the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA).
Following the election of a new agriculture commissioner last week in Georgia and the uncertainty surrounding the future of the state’s No. 1 industry, Chris Butts, GFVGA executive director, is approaching this change with the same forward thinking he had with Georgia’s outgoing ag commissioner Tyler Harper.
“What I’m telling our folks is our issues remain the same. Now there’s just different people that we’ve got to talk to about it,” Butts said. “Job number one is if they’re not familiar with the issues, we’ve got to get that information to them in a way that they can understand and demonstrate a sense of urgency for some of those problems and some of that change.
“It’s who we’ve got to work with. It’s up to us to make sure that they understand our challenges and where they can help us. I think that makes associations like GFVGA and Farm Bureau and others more important than ever.”
Labor Tops List of Issues
Georgia has numerous ag issues that growers are challenged with and what newly-elected Ag Commissioner Katherine Juhan-Arnold must help her producers overcome once she takes office.
“It starts with labor. We continue to focus, laser focus on the AEWR (Adverse Effect Wage Rate). We can’t change everything about ag labor, certainly not about immigration, but let’s focus on the AWER piece. e continue to push SAWA (Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act) and ask for that bill to go through,” Butt said. “We’re pushing SAWA as hard as we can for Congress to act on it when they come back. Before we have a change in Congress, get that bill passed and it will provide some certainty and some consistency to the H2A program.”