ºÃÉ«TV

Tax breaks for farmers, higher weight limits for trucks, and reforming Georgia’s Gratuities Clause prohibiting gifts to individuals or businesses top a list of proposals a legislative study committee issued during Thanksgiving week.

The state Senate Study Committee on the Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands unanimously approved 11 recommendations Nov. 25 aimed at slowing the conversion of prime farmland across the state to development.

“It’s not a simple solution,” Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, said after the study committee adopted its report. “It’s going to take a multi-faceted approach.”

Georgia has lost about 2.6 million acres of farmland during the last 50 years to residential and commercial development.

Along with losing farmland, the state also is losing farmers to retirement without a ready supply of replacements. There are more farmers in Georgia over the age of 65 than under.

Higher costs for farm inputs including seed and equipment coupled with foreign competition driving down crop prices are discouraging young Georgians from taking up farming.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get young people back into farming,” said Sen. Brandon Beach, R-Alpharetta, a member of the study committee. “It’s almost impossible for a young person to break into the business.”

The General Assembly has taken several steps in recent years aimed at addressing the issue. Lawmakers passed the Freedom to Farm Act in 2022, making it harder to file nuisance lawsuits against farmers.

Last year, the legislature passed a bill raising the legal weight limits on commercial trucks hauling certain types of cargo in certain parts of Georgia as well as a second measure – the Georgia Farmland Conservation Act – establishing a $2 million state fund to pay farmers willing to guarantee preserving their properties as farmland.

This year, the General Assembly enacted legislation prohibiting foreign adversaries from buying farmland in Georgia.

The study committee’s 21-page report includes several recommendations aimed at easing the tax burden for farmers. Broadly, it calls for the legislature to continue providing the state income tax breaks Gov. Brian Kemp and lawmakers have been offering to all Georgia taxpayers, and for increasing the $2 million Georgia Farmland Conservation Fund.

Specifically, the report supports expanding the state’s Conservation Use Valuation Assessment (CUVA) program, which allows farmers who pledge not to develop their land to receive property tax assessments based on the land’s productivity value instead of its fair market value. 

The study committee is recommending doubling the maximum acreage individual farmers may set aside for conservation from 2,000 to 4,000 acres.

The panel also suggested extending tax relief to farmers and timberland owners who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene by expanding state tax credits to recipients of state and federal disaster relief aid.

The 2023 truck weights measure raised the weight