A Top Senate Official Speaks at Annual Banquet

Georgia’s Farm City Week is coming up November 21-27 and last week, local and state officials from across Northeast Georgia attended the annual Farm City Week banquet at the Toccoa Falls College Dining Hall.

Gwinnett County State Senator And Senate President Pro Tempore David Shafer was the keynote speaker.

Shafer stressed agriculture is the foundation of any society.
“So many people in the parts of Georgia I represent have no understanding of it at all and no appreciation that every creature comfort they enjoy would be impossible without the planning, the risk taking , and the hard work of the farmer. Without the steady stream of produce being trucked into the cities, most of them would be luck to be able to hunt and scavenge. Most of them would be completely helpless ,” said Shafer.
Shafer then went on to talk about what he considers to be the biggest issue facing the country.
“In directing a vast social welfare bureaucracy to help people, we’ve ended up doing the exact opposite, and I think that is the greatest challenge our country faces today: to break that inter generational dependence on government, and to help people find within themselves the talent, and the skill, and the will that brought us from the swamps and the forests into the farms and the cities.”

According to shafer, since the “War On Poverty” started in 1965, the federal government has spent $2 trillion to eradicate poverty, but the poverty rate has not moved off the 15 percent mark and the program needs to be re-evaluated.

“What pains me is not the money we wasted, it is not that the fact we had to borrow a lot of that money and will have to raise taxes to pay it back, what truly pains me is what we have done to help people, I do not believe has helped people, it is actually hurting them,” said Shafer. “There are no substitutes for the values of work, thrift, savings, self-reliance, and of dependence on family and community.”

Begun in 1955 by Kiwanis International, Farm-City week highlights the relationship between the state’s farmers and their partners in urban areas who prepare, transport, market and retail the food and fiber farmers grow for the American consumer.

Georgia farmers lead the nation in producing blueberries, broilers, peanuts, pecans and spring onions, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics show.

In 2013, the top ten commodities grown in Georgia were broilers, cotton, eggs, beef, timber, corn, peanuts, dairy, horses and pecans.