August 20, 2014
www.gfb.org
Vol. 32 No. 33
ISAKSON: AGRICULTURE WILL REMAIN PRIORITY Sen. Johnny Isakson gave assurances that he would continue to work on behalf of agriculture and Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black urged attendees to be the faces of farming during the 2014 Georgia Farm Bureau Commodity Conference, held Aug. 14 at the UGA Tifton Campus Conference Center. “I realize the responsibility I have as the senior senator,” said Isakson. “Agriculture will be the letter A for me – first in the alphabet, No. 1 in my heart.” Isakson, who will become Georgia’s senior senator in 2015, outlined agricultural successes in Congress, paid tribute to Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who steps down at the end of 2014, and discussed challenges still ahead. “The thing we did not do is we failed to do anything with immigration,” Isakson said. “Quite frankly it’s the most difficult political issue I’ve come across. It is one heck of a problem, and we haven’t threaded the needle yet.” Approximately 300 people attended the conference, which featured Culpepper speeches from U.S. Rep. Austin Scott (R-8th District), American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman and University of Georgia weed specialist Dr. Stanley Culpepper. Culpepper gave an overview of new seed and herbicide technology Dow AgroSciences and Monsanto have developed designed to help farmers combat weeds, such as Palmer amaranth (pigweed), that are resistant to glyphosate. The technology, developed for cotton, corn and soybeans, would allow farmers to apply auxin herbicides, including 2,4-D and dicamba, to kill weeds without killing their row crops. The annual conference, which marks the kickoff of GFB’s policy development process, also featured a screening of the classroom version of the documentary film “Farmland.” Crawford County Farm Bureau President Leighton Cooley, who is one of six farmers featured in the film, shared his experiences from the making of the film, which was shown in theatres nationwide in May. The conference culminated with meetings of GFB’s 20 commodity advisory committees for the consideration of policy recommendations. Conference attendees also had a chance to review information from a dozen research projects being conducted by UGA, which had research displays set up and made its researchers available to talk about their work on agricultural issues. UGA Peanut Entomologist Dr. Mark Abney presented information about the pests that threaten peanut crops. Abney said infestations of lesser corn stalk borers and two-spotted spider mites have been bad this year. One key area of focus is establishing economic thresholds to determine when pesticide treatments should be applied.