Last week, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins visited Georgia to announce the release of more than $500 million to help farmers rebuild from 2024’s Hurricane Helene. The widespread agricultural and forestry devastation from Helene cost the state’s economy about $5.5 billion, including job losses and impacts to related industries, according to the University of Georgia. The replanting, building, and equipment costs alone are estimated at $874 million. USDA has agreements for similar grants in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. Each state administers its own program, so the details and schedule vary by state. Georgia’s applications opened on March 16 and will close on April 27. “President Trump understands that farmers were so negatively impacted, and of course, we have to continue to stand by them,” Rollins told the state House of Representatives last Tuesday. “The only fault now would be us not doing our part to help Georgia’s great agricultural and forestry communities.” The money, welcome as it may be for farmers, is intended to fill a hole in the USDA’s own disaster recovery programs, which typically don’t cover some key expenses, especially replanting perennial crops like fruit or nut trees and blueberry bushes or replacing flocks lost after the storm destroyed a poultry barn. Those gaps have been particularly stark in Georgia in the wake of Helene, which did significant damage to the state’s pecan, poultry, and timber farms — several of the state’s top agricultural products. “When you think of pecans, poultry, timber…
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