How rural Georgians are benefiting from the One Big Beautiful Bill
You don’t need a policy brief or a speech from Washington to know when legislation is working. You see it in decisions made and discussions had around the kitchen table on thousands of family farming operations across our state.
You feel it when a Georgia farmer can finally invest in new equipment or improved infrastructure, or can pass land on to their children without fear of a crushing tax bill.
That’s what the Working Families Tax Cuts, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” has begun to deliver: certainty, stability and long-overdue support in the federal tax code for rural America.
For years, farmers and ranchers have operated in a climate of uncertainty — facing expiring tax provisions, rising input costs and declining income. Our farmers have been asked to produce more. More cotton, more peanuts, more pecans, more beef, more lamb, more pork — all while using fewer resources.
That cannot continue forever.
Protect family farms and generational farming
Tax season is where a lot of those uncertainties are driven home as farmers work to balance their books. Thankfully, the new policies included in the One Big Beautiful Bill are empowering family farms to stay in business and making the largest investment in American agriculture in over a decade.
The most immediate impact is generational.
By permanently increasing the estate tax exemption, indexing it for inflation and expanding small business deductions, the bill is protecting family farms from being broken apart simply to meet tax obligations and allowing the next generation to reinvest in their farming operation to continue their family legacy.
In Georgia, where 64% of producers are over 55 years old, this is will help ensure thousands of Georgia farms remain family-run operations.
Additionally, protecting American farmland is essential. For American agriculture to succeed, American farmland must remain in production agriculture, and the tax provisions in the bill help ensure that will be the case.
Estimates suggest our state could lose asmany as 800,000 acres, almost 10% of farmland, by 2040. Unfortunately, Georgia’s situation is not unique.
By reducing tax burdens on farmers who sell farmland to other farmers, the One Big Beautiful Bill relieves the pressure to sell to developers and preserves the backbone of rural communities.
But tax certainty alone is not enough — especially after decades of policies that have done our farmers no favors.
Produce our food at home instead of importing it from abroad
In just the four years between 2021 and 2025, farmers faced one of the sharpest rises of input costs in American history, all while commodity prices plummeted to levels not seen since the 1970s and 1980s.
The result was a $40 billion drop in U.S. net farm income — the largest decline on record.
The One Big Beautiful Bill invests more than $60 billion in the farm safety net, aligning crop insurance and safety net programs with the reality of high inflation and increased production costs so producers can access meaningful relief when disaster strikes. It also invests in animal disease prevention — an often overlooked but critical component of food security.
Here in Georgia, the top poultry state in the nation, that means protecting the livelihoods of more than 100,000 Georgians who work in our poultry industry.
Coupled with expanded export promotions and support for specialty crops, we also now have the tools to help close the agricultural trade deficit and meet growing consumer demand. There’s no reason why Americans should import their food when we can grow it right here at home.
In just the first year of President Donald Trump’s administration, the trade deficit has been reduced by more than $20 billion and the One Big Beautiful Bill will accelerate that.
Agriculture has been foundational to our nation
Taken together, the impact for rural America of the bill is both practical and far-reaching. This is more than a policy shift — it is a renewed commitment to our prosperity.
Ultimately, the success of any legislation is not measured in Washington headlines, but in the lives it affects.
It is measured in whether a farmer can hold onto their land, whether a small town can attract new investment and whether the next generation sees a future in agriculture.
These changes in policy deliver what Georgia farmers need for generational success and, working together, we can ensure we address the challenges impacting rural America and farm families across the country.
For 250 years, agriculture has been foundational to our nation’s success. Simply put, agriculture’s success is America’s success, and the policy changes in One Big Beautiful Bill are a big first step toward enabling American agriculture to be successful for generations to come.
Tyler Harper is a seventh-generation farmer, small business owner and Georgia’s 17th Agriculture Commissioner, and he serves on the America First Policy Institute’s Agriculture Commissioners and Secretaries Council.
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