A man had just walked on the moon, “The Brady Bunch” had debuted in prime time and the department mostly worked for and with farmers the last time Georgia had a new agriculture commissioner.
If there’s any doubt how much can change in 42 years, consider that the new head of the state Department of Agriculture has openly wondered whether his workers should be given iPads so they can stay in the field longer inspecting not just ag operations but groceries, pet stores and farmers markets.
“I can tell you, ‘because we’ve always done it this way,’ no longer works here,” said Gary Black, who took over as agriculture commissioner in January. “It’s a new day.”
Black, the former president of and lobbyist for the Georgia Agribusiness Council, has been busy modernizing the department inside and out.
Not only is he cleaning out four decades’ worth of items accumulated during Tommy Irvin’s record tenure — including murals of slaves working on Georgia farms — he is changing the department itself.
Instead of having a deputy commissioner, Black has carved his office in two. One part will handle in-house issues in law and budgeting, while for the first time a chief operating officer will work on outreach to consumers statewide.
Billy Skaggs, a gregarious former county extension agent in Fulton, Hall and Haralson counties, will lead the effort.
“Gary Black is trying to remove the vestiges of the past and take us forward and look forward with new technology and new ideas,” Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall said. “I see a wonderful partnership in the making.”
Hall is an unlikely ally. He is a Democrat who represents one of the most urbanized areas in the state.
Yet he cornered the new Republican commissioner at the GOP headquarters on Election Night, hoping Black’s campaign promises would mean the two could team up on urban gardens in Atlanta.
They have. One of the first marketing projects for the department will be helping Hall promote an 8-acre urban garden in the Old Fourth Ward. The Wheat Street Garden broke ground in December.
“That’s a partnership I don’t know has ever existed,” Black said of the Atlanta-Agriculture Department teaming. “But you need to reach out to a wide range of people to make things happen.”
Technological advances mean there are fewer people who work in agriculture to reach out to, anyway, even as the industry remains the largest part of the state economy.
But with high-profile outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, such as tainted peanut butter from plants in Georgia, the department is often seen in a new light. Inspectors are responsible for making sure such facilities are meeting standards for safe food.
Black proposes increasing training for inspectors and sending out managers on some inspections of production facilities or slaughterhouses. He also has called for more accountability: Any food safety issues missed by an inspector could result in that inspector being named and reprimanded.
“If we improve communications and manage our people better, they are going to better serve all of Georgia,” Black said.
That also means new goals. Black’s predecessor Irvin probably will be most remembered for eradicating the boll weevil, the chief pest of the state’s cotton production for decades.
Black is on the forefront of an entirely different crisis with his ideas on childhood obesity. He wants schools statewide to use locally grown produce one week each year, with students learning about food production and nutrition before digging into their meals.
Black and John Barges, the newly elected state school superintendent, have talked about the plan since last fall’s campaign. It remains in the idea stage until Black can find a pilot community willing to help draft guidelines on how to unite the growers and schools.
Another partner waiting to jump in is Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which has met with Black on ways the department can join its fight against childhood obesity and in raising awareness of the need for healthier food for kids.
“We are optimistic about the role the Agriculture Department is going to take in our initiative,” said Linda Matzigkeit, a senior vice president with the hospital system who recently met with Black. “We’re excited that he’s excited.”
That excitement carries over to the Agriculture Department staff — and to the building itself.
Dozens of the 200 agency employees in Atlanta have volunteered, on their own time on Tuesday evenings, to help Black spiff up the building as part of his Operation Face-lift.
Among the first things to go were paintings of slaves picking cotton and harvesting sugar cane. In their place will be donated murals of agriculture around the state, such as a large painting of the former Fruitland nursery that is now Augusta National Golf Club.
The slave murals drew little protest through the years, largely because the department headquarters drew few visitors despite its prime real estate across the street from the state Capitol.
“The concept is, we’re making changes, trying to put on our best faces, because we want people to come and see us,” said Dr. Rex Holt, a veterinarian who serves as the department’s director of meat inspection.
Holt, decked out in a T-shirt and camouflage pants instead of his usual suit and tie, recently helped with that goal by joining other employees to paint Black’s new office.
Black is setting up shop in a former back room off the large, wood-paneled office that had traditionally held the commissioner’s desk.
That bigger space — shining from recent buffing — is destined to become a state room for visitors.
Black envisions schoolchildren who now traipse through the Capitol coming over to check out the room and a kiosk that showcases all the things that grow in Georgia or are overseen by his office. He wants the state’s agriculture groups to fund and Georgia Tech to build the display.
Agency money will go instead to more community outreach and consumer issues. Black said he wants people to hear about his department every day, not just when food-borne illnesses make the news.
“We are going to make sure that people know the way we touch their lives every day,” Black said. “We are going to make this the face of 21st century agriculture.”
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