In late August 2023, Hurricane Idalia ravaged Southeast Georgia, downing not only trees and powerlines but also numerous farms, severely impairing Georgia’s agriculture. The impacts can still be seen today.

Georgia is the nation’s most robust producer of pecans and has been leading the nation consistently each year with the highest utilized production of pecans in recent times. Clearly, pecans are a large part of Georgia’s economic agricultural system. Each year, the pecan industry comprises around two billion dollars of Georgia’s economy and generates approximately 13,000 jobs, making it a substantial portion of the state’s economy.

However, pecans do not grow instantaneously. Pecan trees require 4 to 10 years to mature, with some not producing nuts until they are around a decade old. Hurricanes pose a huge economic threat to the almost 3,000 pecan farmers located in Georgia, as even downed limbs can deeply hinder a tree’s productive capacity for years. In these orchards, farmers plant trees via the process of grafting. During the process of grafting, farmers take established roots that thrive in Georgia’s rich soil and attach them to the tree shoots so that as they grow, they combine and transform into a more productive, resistant plant. These trees are then planted 40 to 70 feet from one another, which means they require a considerable amount of space to grow and produce pecans.

Hurricanes Idalia and Helene have caused severe damage to Georgia’s economy because of pecan tree destruction. Hurricane Idalia made landfall as a Category 3 Hurricane, eventually becoming a Category 2 hurricane as it crossed the Florida-Georgia Line. Idalia sustained winds of 50 to 70 miles per hour. These speeds are substantial enough to topple trees, wrench immature pecans from their branches, and cause tree limbs to fall. Elevated wind speeds are especially troubling for pecan trees, which can only withstand 60 mile an hour winds before causing major structural damage and an increased risk of uprooted trees. Orchards in Idalia’s path in Southeast Georgia experienced around 50 percent loss of trees and substantial losses for that year’s pecan crops.

Hurricane Helene posed a similar threat for pecan farmers. In late September of 2025, Hurricane Helene swept across Georgia, not only killing hundreds of people, but also severely damaging Georgia’s agriculture, most notably the pecan industry. Helene emerged from the Atlantic Ocean as a Category 4 hurricane, eventually losing steam and crossing the Florida-Georgia line as a Category 2 hurricane. With wind speeds reaching up to 137 miles per hour, Helene downed pecan trees in its path, causing an estimated $5.5 billion in agricultural damages, with economic losses totaling around $100 billion. In comparison, Hurricane Helene was stronger than Hurricane Idalia, causing an estimated 40 percent loss of trees from eight to 29 years old and an estimated 70 percent loss of older trees that were already proven to be reliable producers.

The resulting damages from these hurricanes have caused major economic distress for Georgia as the orchards continue to recover. Hurricane Helene, in particular, caused losses of $138 million in the pecan industry alone. Due to the lengthy maturation period, the impacts of these natural disasters are far-reaching. Pecans, while a sizable agricultural resource for the state of Georgia, are not an especially resilient crop. Large catastrophic events will take longer for the pecan industry to recover as the trees not only need to be replanted but also tended to and harvested. Meanwhile, the pecan harvesters have little-to-no revenue source until pecan production increases again.

In addition to plant damages, tariffs on U.S. exports to China have troubled pecan growers, as they face greater competition from others internationally who offer lower prices. 

China has imposed additional tariffs in direct response to the blanket tariffs the U.S. recently imposed on Chinese imports. Under the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement, the U.S. has currently suspended its tariffs covering pecans, but farmers are unsure about the impacts of future tariffs. Because Georgia has exported around 50-70% of its pecans to China for the last decade, the U.S. and China trade war will greatly harm farmers as the cost of pecans in China increases. The quantity exported to China will subsequently decrease and stifle Georgia’s economy. In addition, the cost of pecan production continuously increases as farmers combat scab, a disease affecting plants that can lead to deformed fruit and leaf drop. Scab requires numerous fungicide sprays due to increased resistance. Combating the disease raises the costs of production even higher—at times an upwards of 60 percent. These rising costs to pecan production, coupled with higher crop prices abroad due to tariffs, will reduce the profit margins of pecan farmers and make it even more challenging in the future to survive catastrophes such as hurricanes as they await a new crop of pecans.

Amidst higher costs, lower prices abroad, and lower margins, Georgian pecan farmers, from small family farms to large growers, are concerned with the future of their industry. Pecan farmers can still manage to plant, grow, and sell pecans due to government aid following natural disasters, but it is imperative that Georgian communities also take action to support such a vital industry. For one, farmers can consider seeking other sources of revenue as they recover, such as selling pecan wood. Some may even consider agritourism as a way of increasing community awareness while simultaneously boosting funds. In addition, supporting local growers through farmers markets and buying locally can help to increase pecan farmer’s profits, and one can even join community organizations whose goal is to inform the public of farmer’s needs. Lastly, when local and national elections arise, citizens should always remember to look into policies that advocate for the wellbeing of farmers. Farmers are the backbone of America, and their resilience continues to sustain society. Naturally, society needs to reciprocate this strength and pour back into the industry which allows it to thrive.

Candy canes, brick-sized candy bars, peppermint mocha frappe latte cappuccinos – ‘tis the season for sugar, a white powder that falls more abundantly than snow in the realm of holiday tradition. For the true sweet savants, December and January are just the icing on the cake. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, the average American consumed 78 pounds of sugar in 2010, including 39 pounds of sucrose, or “traditional” table sugar. As consumers sprinkle their diets with the sticky substance, they aren’t the only ones feeling the rush. Since as early as 1789, the United States’ sugar policies have offered the country’s cane and beet producers a pretty sweet deal in the form of tariffs, import quotas, price support loans, and processor marketing allotments (legally-binding limits on the amount of sugar that can be sold each year). But at an annual cost of nearly $2 billion (more recent and more politically charged estimates range up to $4.5 billion), U.S. government involvement in the sugar industry has begun to leave a bitter taste in the mouths of consumers on both sides of the aisle.

Sugar tariffs first became a staple of U.S. trade policy in 1789 when, strapped for cash, the United States imposed a duty on imported commodities in an effort to raise government revenue. At the time, sugar production in the fledgling nation was limited at best, so the sugar tariff had more to do with feeding the Treasury than protecting an industry. Over the next 100 years, sugar production slowly increased, and in 1890, the McKinley Tariff Act replaced the tariff with a 2-cent-per-pound subsidy. Unable to compete with international sugar prices, the United States scrapped the subsidy four years later and reinstated the tariff that sugar producers would come to know and love.

Within 40 years, however, rapidly declining world prices rendered the sugar tariff insufficient to protect the U.S. industry, as it had become more economical for Americans to import sugar and pay the tariff than to purchase domestic sugar. In response, Congress passed the Jones-Costigan Act, or the Sugar Act, in 1934, which established import quotas and domestic marketing allotments, limiting the supply of sugar and propping up domestic prices. This legislation and its subsequent revisions form the basis of the modern U.S. sugar program. Though the act was allowed to expire following an unexpected price hike in the early 1970s, its provisions, including import taxes and quotas, were brought back with a vengeance along with a new non-recourse loan program by 1982. Under the program, sugar refiners could borrow money from the federal government and then either market their sugar and service the loan or forfeit their sugar to the Commodity Credit Corporation and default on the loan. The import quotas, which were replaced with a tariff rate quota in 1994, were meant to limit defaults and forfeitures by keeping the domestic price of sugar artificially high and ensuring that it did not drop below the loan rate. In theory, the program was supposed to operate at no net cost to the federal government.

Today’s sugar program, laid out in 2002 and continued under the 2008 Farm Bill as well as under both the House and Senate’s proposed 2013 bills, is a sticky, tangled web of policies that essentially serve to raise the domestic sugar price above the world price. These policies include a loan rate of 18.75 cents per pound for raw cane sugar and 24.09 cents per pound for refined beet sugar and an overall allotment quantity (the amount of sugar domestic producers can sell in the U.S. market) of no less than 85 percent of estimated consumption. Additionally, the United States maintains a tariff rate quota at the World Trade Organization minimum, restricts the Secretary of Agriculture’s ability to adjust the tariff rate quota, and requires that the USDA, in order to avoid loan forfeitures, must purchase any surplus sugar at a loss for ethanol production. Basically, the sugar program is designed to guarantee the income of sugar producers by controlling the supply and maintaining the price of sugar.

These measures have generated quite a sugar-induced buzz among the U.S. industries that rely on the substance as an input and American consumers, the parties that ultimately shoulder the cost of the program. With some fluctuation in price, U.S. consumers have paid roughly twice the world market price of sugar over the past 20 years. In October 2013, the world market price of wholesale refined beet sugar was 26.5 cents per pound, while in the United States, the price was 43.4 cents per pound. The artificially high price of sugar also exacted an indirect price on American consumers: with the reinstatement of sugar controls in the late 1970s, the newly purposed and relatively inexpensive high fructose corn syrup came to replace sugar in many American products. The jury is out on which substance is unhealthier, but items produced with cane sugar consistently rank higher in taste tests.

In addition to paying a higher price in the market, American consumers pay for the sugar program in the form of government spending. As part of its deal with the producers, the U.S. government must purchase and store any surplus sugar. When supply surged ahead of demand in August 2013, the USDA combated the plunge in prices by purchasing 7,118 tons of refined beet sugar for $3.6 million, which it sold to an ethanol producer at a loss of $2.7 million. The move was intended to help sugar producers repay $298 million in outstanding loans, which, if unpaid, would turn into forfeited sugar. This was the third such intervention of the summer.

Advocates of the sugar program argue that protectionist policies in other countries left the United States no choice but protect its own industry (and jobs) in response. Under a provision of NAFTA that took effect in 2008, for example, subsidized Mexican sugar flooded the U.S. market and placed immense downward pressure on prices. But due to the sugar program, the price of this downward pressure did not fall on sugar producers, but on consumers and taxpayers. If the United States wishes to see other nations’ protectionist agricultural policies eliminated, maintaining its own high trade barriers is not necessarily the answer. In terms of job protection, the American sugar industry is by no means the job-creator of the year. The Department of Commerce estimates that for every job saved in sugar production, the United States loses three confectionery manufacturing jobs. Pinched by inflated sugar prices, candy makers, bakers, and food processors are moving abroad.

Despite efforts from these sugar-dependents and groups such as the Coalition for Sugar Reform, sugar producers have thus far been able to sweet talk their way out of any significant legislative scrutiny. In 2013 alone, the sugar cane and beet industry contributed about $5.3 million to politicians on both sides of the aisle. Sens. Al Franken, D-Minn., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., do not agree on much, but as representatives of two sugar-producing states, both seem to have something of a sweet tooth. Though sugar consumers have ramped up their lobbying efforts since the 2008 Farm Bill, they cannot quite compete with the sugar-producing Goliath.

The House and the Senate will likely finish off their updated Farm Bill deliberations in 2014. At the forefront of the discussion are the cuts to food stamps, allowing the sugar question to fly somewhat under the radar. For the time being, it appears that the U.S. sugar program is here to stay. Still, for all its sweetness, the Big Sugar price tag has turned increasingly sour on American consumer palate. This holiday season, be on the lookout for visions of sugarplums followed closely by dollar signs.

Sub-Saharan Africa, the land of vast natural resources and limitless human capital, is the only region in the world experiencing such prolonged levels of extreme poverty. While other countries are moving up the ladder of opportunity, countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are trailing stagnantly behind. Although Africa’s industrial developments have appeared to skyrocket recently with the help of foreign investors, the agricultural system on which Africa depends has yet to be made more efficient. 

Agriculture represents 30 to 40 percent of Africa’s GDP and is responsible for almost 60 percent of the export income in Sub-Saharan Africa. Although its economy lays dependent on this sector, agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa remains the most undercapitalized in the world. Even as trade liberalization and globalization have allowed farmers to export their goods and to play a direct role in the global market, African farmers have yet to reap the benefits. More than any other factor, African farmers are set back because of the absence of functional market information. Without information such as the accurate price of their goods, farmers lack the knowledge to make informed market decisions.

One of the most recent solutions that has gained popularity within the discourse of African development has been the institution of commodity exchanges. Commodity exchanges would deliver reliability, efficiency, and transparency to the agricultural sector by instituting a structured and secured means of transaction among buyers and sellers. The exchanges would provide valuable market information for farmers, such as the price of goods, which would mitigate their market risks.

Established in 2008, The Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) has quickly become the most sophisticated commodity exchange in all of Africa. Since its implementation, Ethiopia’s agricultural system has experienced unparalleled success. Overall agricultural output has dramatically increased and several new promising sectors, such as floriculture, have arisen as a result. Because of ECX’s ability to bolster the agricultural sector, many African leaders are now looking to set up their own exchanges.

The first African nation to follow suit has been Rwanda, with its more regional focused exchange program, called the East Africa Exchange (EAX). Launched in Kigali earlier this year, EAX aims to achieve regional economic integration, along with market efficiency, through a network of commodity programs throughout the region. The EAX includes countries such as Burundi, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, Tanzania and Rwanda. The program’s regional focus would allow the linkage of similar markets and would be more efficient in addressing the unique market functions of a specified region. Moreover, in regional integration, the exchanges would leverage individual national markets to have a stronger global presence.

On the other side of the continent, similar efforts in instituting exchange programs have been espoused. After long talks about addressing agricultural inefficiencies in the country, Nigeria has finally approved the privatization of Abuja Securities & Commodity Exchange. The exchange, which in the past decade experienced less than satisfactory performance, is said to have real potential after its privatization.

The major obstacle of instituting commodity exchanges in Sub-Saharan Africa is the steep cost of establishment, both financially and structurally. A commodity exchange would require an extant level of macroeconomic stability within a nation and a supportive legal framework to allow the exchange to operate effectively. The impediments are compounded when implementing regional commodity exchanges, as the aforementioned prerequisites must be met for all participating nations. In addition, instituting regional commodity exchanges would require a synchronized set of exchange rates and grades and standards among participating nations.

Despite these discernable challenges, pioneering figures in African economic development, such as Dr. Elleni Gebremedhin, are pursuing the institution of these exchanges. By the year 2020, Dr. Gebremedhin expects her company eleni LLC, to have implemented 10 exchanges throughout Africa. Her company has already received seed capital of five million dollars from Morgan Stanley, the International Finance Corporation, and 8 miles, Bob Geldof’s pan-African private equity fund.

With sizeable investments such as these, successful commodity exchanges in Africa seem nothing short of conceivable. Revamping the agricultural sector in Africa can be a viable goal if the necessary infrastructural support exists. In the coming years, we will see if commodity exchanges can serve as one of the solutions to Africa’s agricultural woes.

The use of genetically modified (GM) foods, often referred to by critics as ‘Frankenfood’, has stirred controversy at home and abroad for decades.  This debate has recently erupted and become a pivotal point of contention for North America, Africa, and Europe in the years following the introduction of the first genetically modified food.

In the mid 1990s, the company Calgene was permitted to sell their genetically engineered tomato, FlavrSavr.  It was manipulated in order to prevent rotting and decay that occurs in typical tomatoes, and, for the most part, consumers responded positively to the new product. But, commonplace to free markets, competition soon entered and swept FlavrSavr out along with it. However, remnants of it survived in the form of a tomato puree that eventually reached receptive consumers in Europe.

All of that, however, came to an end when a prominent scientist in the UK spoke out against GM foods after being commissioned to do a study on their effects. In his research, he found precancerous conditions in lab rats that had been used in GM food testing, and attributed these conditions to genetic engineering. Utilizing visible media outlets, he sparked an exodus from GM foods in Europe.

Today, the European public resoundingly endorses a moratorium on the crops- extending not only to GM crops themselves, but also to crops including potential GM contaminants.

The United States responded a bit differently.

In most pragmatic terms, the United States sees possibilities and opportunities for producing GM foods; the applicability for such benefits lie beyond simply stabilizing their own food sources, but for garnering food security for other nations as well.

Following in the footsteps of Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution, some countries have profited significantly in their production of genetically modified foods. Some of the most tangible of these results can be seen in various parts of Africa.

For decades, Africa’s food supplies have been scarce. In some areas, such as Somalia, this scarcity coupled with governmental interference and aid blockages, has led the country to be declared in a state of famine. With a crisis mirroring what occurred in in the early 1990s, Africa is in need of a solution- but only some countries are viewing biotechnology as the answer.

Even as this technology positions Africa at the precipice of a solution, a fear of losing its trading relationship with Europe threatens this new elucidation and it is only the larger and wealthier African countries that have invested.

South Africa, Burkina Faso, and Egypt were all producers of GM crops by 2008 and as of 2011; Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mali, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana began conducting research and field trials of GM crops, which may be the first step towards adoption.

Clearly these countries are open to consider the idea of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and the food source they could help secure.  But, with all the potential benefits why is Africa only considering this idea? Could it be that biotechnology would actually do more harm than good?

The answer is, at the very least, 3-fold.

The most obvious of these answers is Africa’s aforementioned trading relationship with Europe. In many areas it has been suggested that some African countries grow some GM crops for their own personal use, while still maintaining a section of non-GM crops for export to Europe.

What in theory seems like a valid suggestion is quickly dismissed by Europe’s policy that outlaws all crops produced or tainted by GM materials. And with crossover from GMO plots to non-GMO plots as a real possibility, the presence of GMOs in Africa at all could certainly fall subject to Europe’s scrutiny.

Perhaps most visible, but often most forgotten, is the sheer cost of procuring GM seeds.  With small farmers accounting for 70 percent of the nation’s population, these seeds provide a high start-up cost that seems to be an insurmountable challenge to many of these farmers who lack adequate funds for procurement.

Finally, hidden beneath the surface lies yet another problem that Africa faces in light of biotech proponents—potential legal pitfalls. Although there are 23 countries that now employ biosafety laws, they also have strict liability clauses, which make companies liable for any mishaps. This sort of complication, allowing for a lawsuit over the slightest damage, makes private partnerships with African countries highly unattractive to GM food companies.

While the U.S. sees Africa’s concern as both valid and applicable, it is not a position they adopt. The United States is one of the largest proponents of genetically modified foods, and with 70 percent of processed food in the US meeting the definition of a GM food, it only makes sense that the US advocates on behalf of the technology they currently employ.

Currently, there are two types of genetically engineered crops that make up the majority of the market: IR/Bt (insect resistant) and HT (herbicide tolerant).  According to the Center for Food Safety, HT crops currently make up about 70 percent of all GE crop acreage in the U.S.

The Human Genome Project cites many benefits that the U.S. has gained through the adoption of GM foods. They state that GM foods provide for an enhanced taste and quality, a reduced maturation time, an increase in nutrients, and improved resistance to disease, pests and herbicides along with new growing techniques and products.

With such a substantial push for GMOs to reach the continent of Africa, the U.S. and its respective companies must wrestle with the question of what is best for Africa and her people. Though GM food could save lives and alleviate food shortages in a way that is less damaging than conventional food aid, one must ask, “At what cost?”

Although there is not a clear answer, there is a broader picture to consider. And to fully grasp what that picture is now, it is necessary to remember what that picture once was.

In 2001, the southern most parts of Africa faced a major food crisis, leaving 10 million people- 28 percent of the population- in danger of starvation.  Maize, the staple food in the country, had suffered a severe blow as an imported good. To combat this need, the World Food Program responded in August 2002. The US donated a significant amount of maize, but despite dire need, the maize was not received with open arms.

Due to the fact that 70 percent of maize made in the U.S. was (and is) genetically modified, Zambia, along with Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi refused the food and the 18,000 tons that were donated and were put under guard and shipped out. Eventually, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi agreed to accept the GM maize, but only after many precautionary steps. Zambia, however, only accepted the maize on behalf of refugee camps, and ultimately refusing it for their own people who were in varying states of starvation.

In response, President Mwanawasa told critics, “Simply because my people are hungry that is no justification to give them poison, to give them food that is intrinsically dangerous to their health.”

The government argued that because Americans have a much more varied diet they are not subject to the effects of GMOs the way that Africans, who eat maize three times a day, would be. Therefore, research the U.S. had conducted on her subjects does not translate to the potential consequences that GM foods could pose for African countries.

Yet, given the current state of the economy, coupled with unstable governments, food scarcity and impending wars, it seems the acceptance of GM foods is inevitable—at least in some parts of Africa.

Though these countries certainly do not view GM food as a panacea for the food shortage, they are starting to acknowledge them as a sort of stopgap measure.

Perhaps the future for these Frankenfoods can best be explained by the words of Frankenstein himself.

“The labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind.”