By Clint Thompson
The Protecting Our Produce Act will help Southeast specialty crop producers impacted by imports from South America.
That’s the message shared by Sen. Jon Ossoff and Congressman Sanford D. Bishop Jr. (GA-02) with Georgia growers on Friday in Camilla, Georgia. Each will introduce the bill in the Senate and the House.
The bicameral bill would establish a five-year pilot program to provide support for producers of blueberry, squash, bell pepper, cucumber and asparagus when that crop’s national average market price falls below its five-year average price (reference price) if the difference is caused by unfairly priced imports.
Sen. Ossoff
“Georgia fruit and vegetable growers face the possibility of economic devastation, because there’s not a level playing field with their competitors in South America. We have to produce food here in the United States. Georgia’s No. 1 industry is agriculture. It is the economic powerhouse of our state. It feeds our state, feeds the nation, and it feeds the world,” Ossoff said.
“Our food security is a national security issue. But if we don’t level the playing field for our fruit and vegetable growers here who face so much unfair competition from South America, we risk losing fruit and vegetable production in Georgia and across the country. That’s why we’ve introduced the Protecting Our Produce Act, to level the playing field for farmers in Georgia and fruit and vegetable producers across the country who face this abusive and unfair import competition from South American agriculture.
“We are modeling this on the reference price program, so that Georgia growers who are unable to profitably produce and sell fruits and vegetables because of a wave unfair imports from South America can get support from the federal government in order to remain in business and continue to invest in growing their operations.”
GFVGA Approves
Chris Butts, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA), has preached against unfair imports since taking over at the GFVGA.
“We always preach we’re at the intersection of trade policy and labor policy that is not favorable to our growers. This bill and this program are a good first step to level that playing field. It’s a pilot program that focuses on commodities that we knew would be impacted by imports. We know there’s data that supports that already, and we know that there are farmers who are having revenue taken from their businesses and that revenue is going off shore,” Butts said. “This is a good first step.”