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 A leading agriculture industry executive urged Georgia lawmakers Monday to consider a constitutional amendment that would let the state government provide direct financial relief to farmers who suffered losses from Hurricane Helene.

The Georgia Constitution includes a gratuities clause that prohibits the state government from giving gifts to individuals without a benefit to taxpayers in return. Historically, state policy makers have supported the clause as promoting fiscal responsibility and preventing corruption.

But the damage wreaked by last month’s storm on Georgia farmers, ranchers, and foresters was so immense that the state needs the authority to provide direct disaster payments to victims, Will Bentley, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council, told members of a Georgia Senate study committee meeting in Cedartown.

Helene caused at least $6.46 billion in losses to Georgia’s agriculture industry, according to estimates from the University of Georgia College of Agriculture & Environmental Science. That included $1.8 billion in direct losses to farms and $1.3 billion in direct forestry losses, Bentley said.

“Farmers need help,” he said. “If there’s ever a time to (abolish or limit the gratuities clause), now would be the time after the biggest ag hit we’ve ever had.”

Bentley said the state needs to act because federal disaster relief tends to be slow in coming. It took two years for federal relief to flow to farmers who sustained losses from Hurricane Michael in 2018, he said.

“If we have a two-year delay this time in recovery dollars from the federal government, we’re going to lose thousands of farms in the state of Georgia,” he said.

Bentley also recommended exempting disaster relief payments from state taxes, as was done in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.

While getting rid of the gratuities clause in Georgia undoubtedly would be controversial, Senate Majority Caucus Chairman Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, said the idea is worth considering.

“If it’s a matter of putting food on the table and helping the No.-1 industry in the state … we need a serious discussion and debate,” he said.

Sen. Billy Hickman, R-Statesboro, chairman of the Senate Study Committee on Preservation of Georgia’s Farmlands, said he plans to hold one more meeting this fall before the panel issues its recommendations for the full Senate to take up during the 2025 General Assembly session starting in January.