ICYMI: 82% of Georgia farmers suffered financial loss due to Trump’s incompetent response to COVID-19

According to a new study featured in the Valdosta Daily Times, Georgia farmers have suffered substantial financial losses due to Trump’s botched response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study shows that 82% of farmers have seen revenue loss, with respondents predicting an annual loss on average expected to be short nearly $50,000.

This news comes as Donald Trump admitted on-the-record that he worked to conceal the true threat of coronavirus from the American people — a decision that has cost an untold number of lives and caused devastating economic harm.

“Georgia farmers are hurting because Donald Trump didn’t take action when he could have, and knowingly downplayed this pandemic. Even before COVID hit, farmers’ debt piled up and some went bankrupt because Trump put his reckless trade war ahead of American agriculture,” said Maggie Chambers, spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “The economy might be working for Donald Trump and his friends, but it certainly isn’t helping families across rural Georgia who still haven’t gotten relief. We can’t afford four more years of this president’s incompetence, and Election Day can’t come soon enough.” 

Valdosta Daily Times: Survey: 82% of farmers suffered financial loss due to COVID-19

By Riley Bunch

KEY POINTS:

• “A new impact study released this month by the University of Georgia Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development shows that 82% of farmers have seen revenue loss — those predicting an annual loss on average expected to be short nearly $50,000.”
• “Dr. Mark McCann, assistant dean for extension at UGA, said the pandemic has been unlike any other event to impact Georgia farmers.”
• “This is pervasive,” McCann told CNHI. “It affects all ag producers, regardless of size. … There’s very few people that miss being impacted.”
• “Department of Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black said the depression in prices in the livestock industry has created a big hole in the economy.”
• “Nearly 70% of farmers said they were not taking part in any relief program and only 22% were enrolled in a federal program, according to the report. More than three-quarters of the farmers surveyed responded that the federal programs did not provide sufficient relief.”
• “Experts on the agriculture industry are not only concerned about the economic rebound, but the emotional toll the pandemic has taken on Georgia farmers.”
• “’This is just another stress, another economic fact that is laid over that,’ he [McCann] said.”

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