Why Georgia Needs a Study Committee on Food Security, Agriculture, and Student Success

This legislative session, the Georgia House introduced HR 1656, a resolution to create the House Study Committee on School Nutrition, Student Food Security, Georgia Agriculture, and Student Success. The resolution was filed in March and moved through first and second readers, putting this conversation squarely on the legislative table.

I believe that is the right direction — and for communities like Augusta and Richmond County, it is a conversation that needs to go even deeper.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to submit testimony before a food insecurity study committee, and that experience reinforced something I have seen up close for years: food insecurity is never just about food. It is tied to transportation, neighborhood disinvestment, school readiness, local agriculture, workforce access, and whether communities have systems in place to move healthy food where it is needed most.

That is exactly why this issue deserves serious legislative attention.

Here in Richmond County, we have already done real groundwork. In 2022, we helped lay important groundwork around food policy development, helping frame the local conversation around food access, systems-building, and the role public policy can play in supporting healthier communities. We also built practical models through the STOP Mobile Farmers Market, bringing fresh food directly into neighborhoods and showing that food access requires flexibility, trust, and creative infrastructure.

That is why I support the idea behind HR 1656. But I also believe any serious study of student food security should include communities like Augusta that have already been testing solutions on the ground.

The General Assembly is also signaling this priority through the budget. In the House version of HB 974, the FY 2027 budget, lawmakers included increased support for school nutrition-related programs and summer nutrition administration, showing that Georgia already understands the connection between student well-being and access to food.

For me, that is the opportunity: connect the policy conversation to the lived reality.

A real study committee should not be limited to meals served inside school walls. It should examine how student food security, local agriculture, mobile markets, school-based growing spaces, youth opportunity, and neighborhood-based food systems all work together. It should hear from educators, growers, families, community leaders, and public health voices. And it should include mid-sized communities like Augusta, not just rural areas or metro Atlanta.

Richmond County has both the need and the experience to help shape that conversation. We know students do better when basic needs are met. We know neighborhoods are stronger when communities can access healthy food close to home. And we know local partnerships can fill gaps when policy gives them room to work.

That is why I believe Georgia should keep moving in this direction. HR 1656 shows the door is open. The next step is making sure the conversation includes practical models, local voices, and communities like ours that have already begun the work.