Grow Georgia Agenda

April 22, 2026

To the People of Georgia,

Sincerely,

Katherine E. Juhan-Arnold

Candidate for Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture

Gwinnett County Citizen in Snellville, Georgia

The Grow Georgia Agenda

A 4-8 Year Plan to Make Georgia's Agricultural Systems Work

Grow Georgia means building systems that work. For producers. For consumers. For working families. For the future.

This agenda is built around nine pillars, a regional implementation plan, a first one hundred days roadmap, a first-term operating agenda, and a second-term scale plan. It is designed to be ambitious enough to matter and disciplined enough to achieve.

Georgia needs stronger middle-of-the-supply-chain infrastructure so smaller producers can aggregate, chill, pack, process, and move product into schools, hospitals, food banks, retailers, and local buyers.

• —Launch up to 3 regional community hub pilots in the first term using existing sites wherever possible.
• —Introduce only 1-2 micro-hubs if additional support is clearly needed after pilot evaluation.
• —Target an estimated capital range of $2 million to $4 million per full hub and $150,000 to $400,000 per micro-hub.
• —Use federal and blended funding first, including infrastructure and market-development grants, so the entire burden does not fall on Georgia's pocket.
• —Set a first-term goal of 250 producers and food businesses actively using the network.

Georgia needs retained regional veterinary capacity that is ready before a crisis becomes a catastrophe.

• —Establish 6 veterinary readiness regions with one lead veterinarian or clinic partner and a backup roster in each region.
• —Create a state-funded annual retainer for early dispatch and on-call disaster coverage, with an estimated annual state commitment of about $400,000 to $740,000 statewide.
• —Layer that retainer with existing state and federal veterinary loan-repayment and rural-practice programs so recruitment and retention work together.
• —Run annual drills so producers know who to call and veterinary partners know how response will operate.

When disaster strikes, farmers should not have to become their own case managers while trying to save an operation.

• —Create a Grow Georgia Agricultural Response Corps with regional response leads and case-intake navigators.
• —Use a single producer file, a single intake pathway, and active handoffs between agencies so nothing gets lost.
• —Model the response after catastrophe-field operations: assess early, document thoroughly, stay with the producer through every transfer, and keep the process moving.
• —Build a permanent agricultural disaster bridge framework so state support can move faster while larger federal relief is still catching up.

Underserved farmers and food businesses need a structured path based on where they are in their operation, not on whether they already know the right people.

• —Create a dedicated Underserved Producers Access and Growth Pathway with regional directors or case managers.
• —Launch a specific fund for underserved farmers and producers, paired with technical help rather than stand-alone referrals.
• —Build stage-based support: getting started, market ready, scaling, and long-term stability or transition.
• —Coordinate calls, licensing guidance, and agency referrals so producers receive an actionable plan instead of a list of phone numbers.

Georgia already has market assets. The job is to make them work better for more people.

• —Use Georgia Grown and state markets more intentionally as economic-development tools for small and mid-sized producers, women-owned businesses, nonprofit producers, and community-based food enterprises.
• —Treat Fort Valley State University and UGA as co-equal partners anywhere research, extension, technical assistance, or workforce development is involved.
• —Build stronger buyer pathways into schools, hospitals, universities, retailers, food banks, and local institutions.

Georgia should be pulling in more outside dollars and overlooked grant opportunities so we can do more for producers without pretending every solution has to come only from Georgia's pocket.

• —Create a Federal Funds and Strategic Partnerships Desk to aggressively pursue overlooked USDA and other federal opportunities.

Georgia agriculture should be productive, resilient, and responsible at the same time.

• —Strengthen pesticide and fertilizer stewardship education and enforcement where misuse threatens people or waterways.
• —Expand practical support for soil health, biodiversity, nutrient stewardship, and climate-resilient production.
• —Reward producers who are reducing unnecessary inputs and building resilience rather than treating mass fertilization as the only path.
• —Align resilience training, water stewardship, and disaster readiness so farmers are better prepared before the next crisis arrives.

Grow Georgia requires a Department led by people who care and who can execute.

• —Hold leadership to three standards: field competence, operational competence, and public-service competence.
• —Set division-level service standards and response targets, then publish progress against them.
• —Create public-facing dashboards, annual operations reports, and clearer complaint and case-status visibility where feasible.
• —Build a culture of follow-through so producers, consumers, workers, and communities do not disappear inside the system.

Georgia cannot keep talking around hemp and cannabis policy. Hemp is already in the Department's lane, and if Georgia moves further on medical or broader cannabis policy, the state should be ready with a responsible, farmer-first framework.

• —Create a Hemp Compliance and Market Access Desk so growers, processors, and manufacturers have one clear place for licensing guidance, testing, labeling, and market-readiness support.
• —Strengthen technical assistance and processor connections so hemp is treated as a legitimate Georgia crop with real markets, safe products, and value-added opportunities.
• —Be clear about the limits of this office: the Commissioner cannot legalize marijuana alone, but the office should be ready with a responsible, farmer-first framework if Georgia chooses to move in that direction.
• —Prepare a public blueprint for any future cannabis expansion that prioritizes Georgia growers, micro and small operators where allowed, strong safety standards, and guardrails against license capture.

The First 100 Days

The first one hundred days are about setting the operating standard, not pretending every long-term project can be finished overnight.

• —Launch a Department-wide operations review covering licensing, inspections, markets, disaster response, and regional staffing.
• —Appoint leadership using a clear standard: field competence, operational competence, and public-service competence.
• —Stand up the Federal Funds and Strategic Partnerships Desk and begin a live grant-and-opportunity pipeline.
• —Convene a Fort Valley State University and UGA implementation summit so research, extension, technical assistance, and workforce planning begin in partnership from day one.
• —Map the 6 veterinary readiness regions and begin negotiating regional retainer agreements for early dispatch and on-call disaster service.
• —Design the Grow Georgia Agricultural Response Corps with intake, triage, transfer, and follow-through protocols.
• —Open the first review of Georgia Grown, state markets, and regional market-access gaps, including where hub pilots should be located.
• —Publish the Department's first service standards draft and a public outline of what Georgians should expect from the office.

Year 1-4: First-Term Deliverables

• —Launch up to 3 regional community hub pilots and introduce only 1-2 micro-hubs if additional support is clearly needed.
• —Bring 250 producers and food businesses into active use of the hub and market-support network.
• —Fully implement 6 veterinary readiness regions with on-call disaster retainers and annual drills.
• —Deploy the Grow Georgia Agricultural Response Corps so producers are not left navigating disaster recovery alone.
• —Open the Underserved Producers Access and Growth Pathway in every region with case-management support and a stage-based growth plan.
• —Establish a specific fund for underserved farmers and producers, pairing financial support with licensing, compliance, and market-readiness navigation.
• —Expand Georgia Grown and state-market functionality so more producers can reach schools, hospitals, food banks, retailers, and institutional buyers.
• —Increase federal dollars brought into Georgia by moving from passive participation to active grant capture and partnership building.
• —Publish annual transparency reports and maintain visible dashboards on service standards, enforcement follow-through, market participation, and response times.
• —Launch the Hemp Compliance and Market Access Desk and publish a farmer-first hemp and future-cannabis policy framework for Georgia.

With a Second Term: Years 5-8

A second term is not for inventing a whole new agenda. It is for scaling what proved itself, fixing what did not, and making the strongest parts of this work durable.

• —Expand successful hub pilots into a stronger statewide network and deepen buyer pathways where the first-term pilots show measurable value.
• —Grow the underserved producers fund and case-management model so it reaches more operations without losing its hands-on quality.
• —Make the veterinary readiness network and disaster corps permanent parts of how Georgia prepares for and responds to crisis.
• —Embed Fort Valley State University and UGA more deeply across workforce, resilience, extension, and producer-support systems.
• —Use transparency tools to benchmark performance year over year so Georgians can see what improved, where the gaps remain, and how the Department is responding.
• —Strengthen the long-term stewardship agenda through biodiversity, soil-health, nutrient-stewardship, and water-protection incentives and technical support that help producers stay viable while protecting communities.
• —Expand in-state hemp market development and update the farmer-first cannabis framework if Georgia law changes.

Grow Georgia means building systems that work. This agenda is how we begin.