Host: Dr. Ping Yu, UGA Department of Horticulture Guest: Lanie Riner, Executive Director, Georgia Green Industry Association; Owner, Thunderwood Farms Producer: Rich Braman, UGA Center for Urban Agriculture Episode: S02E01 — Blooms and Beyond, Season 2 Duration: 50:15 Air Date: Sunday, May 31st, 2026
Welcome to Season Two
Ping Yu: Hello everyone, welcome to the Blooms and Beyond podcast, a podcast that uncovers plant history, culture, and management through the lens of science. I’m your host, Ping. How’s everyone doing today? I’m doing great because I have my dear, dear friend, Lanie Riner joining me today to talk about one of my favorite organizations. And I know she has so many good stories to share today. So I don’t want to steal any more thunder from our speaker today. Let’s just jump right into it. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Lanie. I hope you enjoy it.
Meeting Lanie Riner
Ping Yu: So hey, Lanie, welcome to the podcast. But first, let’s start off with the introduction. Can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Lanie Riner: I’m the Executive Director of the Georgia Green Industry Association and owner of Thunderwood Farms. Thunderwood Farms, we are greenhouse growers, so very much ornamental horticulture. But my main job is GGIA, and there we work on advocacy and education and networking and communication for Georgia’s green industry. And my main area of focus, of course, is advocacy.
Ping Yu: Yeah. So, well, I still remember the first time we met. It was during my interview for my current job. And I remember there was one moment it just clicked because we were talking about plants and you start to share information — the Ginkgo biloba tree that you had in your backyard. And this year, I still got a picture from you showing the beauty, the full color of that. So I still remember that. But what first sparked your interest in horticulture in general? Do you grow up as a plant kid? Can you share us a little bit of your horticulture background and your horticulture journey?
Lanie Riner: Absolutely. So yes, I was a little farm kid. And my grandmother, my grandfather, they didn’t know the difference between their vegetable garden and their flower garden. They planted all the things together everywhere. And even at my house as a little kid with my parents, there were flowers and vegetables and all the things. But there were just no limits. Playing in the dirt, planting things. We wanted to mix things together that were fine. Food and flowers, they all went together. So from a very early age, I had the planting bug.
And then when I grew up and going off to college, I was like, well, I probably won’t do this. And I was in landscape architect program. First, I was in pharmacy and I found out I was kind of scared of sick people. [laughs] But then I went to Landscape Architects at the north end of UGA campus. And it didn’t feel quite right. And ended up back in horticulture down in Miller Plant Sciences and earned my degree there and knew this was the industry for me.
Ping Yu: Well, that’s very neat because, well, I laughed when you said you were — you don’t like sick people from the pharmacy perspective. That’s fair. Who does? But what is your favorite plant growing up?
Lanie Riner: I’ve had a lot of favorite plants over the years from being little all the way to opening a greenhouse and even now. This is a hard question, but I will tell you, there are two plants that impress me a lot. Asclepias is always just so impressive to me. The flower structure is just so complex. And when you start looking at all the different species and then just from the environmental standpoint, the insects that rely on that as breeding ground and food source.
But the other one that I just love is Baptisia. And again, it’s another feeder plant, but the flowers are just unique and the thing is so showy and it just grows up out of the ground so aggressively and so beautiful. And I just have a really great appreciation for both of those plants.
Ping Yu: Yeah. And if you walk around any of those plants, you will say — well, especially when they bloom, you’re going to say all those pollinators. It’s just a different thing with other plants that may not have that much showy plants and are attracting that many pollinators.
The Georgia Green Industry Association
Ping Yu: Can you give us a little bit of the overview of GGIA? What is the mission and who do you serve? And if possible, can you tell us the history of GGIA?
Lanie Riner: GGIA is the state — we’re a 501c6 trade association. And we represent ornamental and environmental horticulture here in the state. The organization has been around since 1990. It was formed from two other existing organizations. Georgia Nursery Men’s Association, which dates back to the 1930s, and then the Georgia Association of Landscape Professionals, which was coming on in the 70s and 80s. The two industries realized how much they relied on each other. And in 1990, they pulled the trigger and merged the two organizations into GGIA.
So we serve the industry and that is wholesale growers, retail, greenhouse growers, landscape contractors, irrigation, allied products and sales, and all of floriculture. So we have six divisions. That’s not the order that they all came together, but that’s our industry. And of course, anything that comes with that. So if you think about public gardens or golf courses or any of those industries that, you know, they’re not just adjacent, but they actually rely on and are part of our industry, they are also part of our group.
Ping Yu: Yeah. Can you also tell us a little bit of backstory or background with how you started working with GGIA? Were you familiar with this organization or were you a part of that organization before you take on your current role?
Lanie Riner: My first time I learned about GGIA, I was a college kid at UGA, and Dr. Smalley was like, there’s this trade show, and y’all are going to go help load in, and if you don’t show up, you’re gonna get a bad grade.
Ping Yu: That’s something that’s definitely something I would say. [laughs]
Lanie Riner: Yes. So my very first interactions, we were unloading for our big trade show. And back then it was in January, it was Wintergreen. And it was just a wonderful experience. It confirmed what I already knew, that there was a thriving industry and that there was a place for me there.
And then, you know, after graduating from college, I went to work and I didn’t have as much interaction with GGIA. But when we opened our farm, we ran into an issue before we ever got the doors open here in our county, Meriwether County. We had farmland. Like I said, as I mentioned, I grew up — we farmed all sorts of things. When I was a very little girl, we were peach farmers and then cattle. And so when I wanted to put greenhouses, I went to planning and zoning to get everything done. And they were like, that’s not agriculture. You can’t do that. That land’s zoned agriculture. Y’all just need to put that farm back into peaches. And I was like, no, it is agriculture.
And so, yeah, I called the GGIA offices for help because I knew our industry was agriculture. And honestly, GGIA was able to help me right then before we were even members. And we knew exactly what we needed to do to communicate with our county, and help them understand that our sector, the green industry, is also agriculture as well. And after that, I knew, I was like, okay, well, I have to be part of this to give back because we literally would have never been able to even get our greenhouse permits to get built had GGIA not been there to assist.
Ping Yu: Oh, that’s very neat connection over there because I was going to ask you a follow-up question. What opportunity actually brought you on board for GGIA for your current role?
Lanie Riner: Well, that would be — we can blame another UGA professor for this. Dr. Paul Thomas drug me in and was like, we need some help on our education committee. Laney, would you please come and help? And so I came in as just a committee member. We joined GGIA, of course, after they helped me. But I came in as a committee member, and then a committee member to a board member to division president, and then I was working through executive leadership when our former executive director moved to a new position. And just at that time, I’ve been working on the advocacy side for GGIA and for our industry for a lot of years. And I was like, you know, they may find somebody better, but I really feel like I could help in that area. So I applied for the job and I’m really glad that they hired me.
Ping Yu: Yeah, I think the industry is very happy to have you, considering how much you have accomplished over the years. I mean, I’ve been here only three and a half years, and I know how much you have contributed and achieved. But what are some of the key programs or services that GGIA currently provides to our stakeholders?
Lanie Riner: So the main thing that most of our members are members for is the advocacy piece. And that’s at state, local and federal levels. And we have just recently — and I think this will probably come out a little bit later. It won’t be new news by the time the podcast is presented. But we just recently partnered with the Georgia Agribusiness Council to do our lobbying at state. And that is so I can be freed up to focus on some of the federal issues that we’ve been dealing with, like emerging pests and heat rule and other regulation that can be overwhelming for all of us.
But aside from the advocacy, we do our huge Southeast Green Conference, which is a great opportunity for networking for all of our members. It is in June. And then we, of course, we have three days of education there. We’re really excited. We’re going back to Athens this year. So there’s going to be some great opportunities that we have not had in Duluth with tours and that kind of stuff. So I’m really excited about everything that’s coming there. We’ve done some other education, Wintergreen on the Road, and we’re currently working on reformatting that to see if we can get that where it’s available to a broader audience. And then there’s an awards program, scholarship programs for our next generation of horticulturists. We are also — we’ve got some other news. I’m just not ready to share yet, but we’re working on it, hoping that we can help fund some research and some of the other things that really help our industry thrive.
Ping Yu: Yeah. Cause I know that the trade show kind of changed over the years and our Southeast Green used to be in the winter. So we are glad that it’s been moved to June because more growers, more of our stakeholders are able to come. And also I’m very happy that we’re moving to Athens because Duluth is not a perfect spot for a tree city like this.
Lanie Riner: Yes, it is. It is fabulous with all the trees and the plants and everything. And, you know, Duluth is a wonderful city. It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t have that horticultural connection that Athens really has and has developed over a lot of years. And I think a big part of that is the university being there. So we’re really excited. It really kind of feels like a little bit of a homecoming. This show used to be in Athens a long time ago. So we’re really excited to be going back. We’ll go where the exhibitors want to go.
Ping Yu: That’s a great answer.
Programs, Initiatives, and Industry Impact
Ping Yu: I know that you have done a lot of good programs and initiatives and trying to spread the impact to our industry. And can you highlight any specific programs or initiatives that have had some impact in the last few years, especially after you started? Because you started five years ago, right? It’s a rough time.
Lanie Riner: Yes. So I officially started in June of 2020. But being the vice chairwoman of the organization on July 1st of 2020, I should have been starting as chairwoman of the organization rather than executive director. But I was vice chair in February of 2020, just before the shutdown. And of course, with our former executive director moving, none of us knew anything that was coming was coming.
And so myself and our current chairman at that time, Jeremy Oxford, we were just very blessed that we were in a position to step up and advocate for the industry. He and I both put in a lot of hours working to make sure that our industry was deemed essential, that we could stay on the road, stay working. And it ended up being so many sectors of agriculture struggled through that first year. Our industry did not. In all the years that I’ve been in our industry, I’d never had a spring where every weekend was pretty. But that year that we were all shut down, it’s like it rained every Tuesday or Wednesday, and we had beautiful weekends, and the weather cooperated, and no late frosts. So it was just — it ended up actually being a really good year for our industry. And it was, I think it was good because with so many people being shut down, not being able to participate in their normal things, being able to get out in their yard and reconnect with nature and maybe reconnect with their interest in our industry. I know it’s a good outlet for a lot of people.
So that was one big piece like right out of the gate. But I think probably one of the ones that I’m most proud of was the Freedom to Farm. And it wasn’t our legislation. It wasn’t something solely for our industry. It is something that impacts the entire agricultural industry all across the state. Every single sector is impacted by that. And we’ve had some rules on the books since the 1980s, but there was a changing conditions clause in there, which put all of our farms at threat. And I was able to write a letter to get in front of the legislators during session at critical times. And we had some help with it from the Agribusiness Council and Georgia Farm Bureau in getting that letter to the right people at the right time. But just specifically outlining how this would impact our industry.
So many of our growers are located near urban areas. They’ve been there for 30 or 40 or 50 or more years. And town has grown to them. You know, a changing conditions clause — you can’t just pick up a nursery and all the infrastructure and everything that is there and relocate just because town grew to you. So getting that additional protection in there so that our folks who have been there for decades and decades could continue to farm and grow the plants and all the benefits that they bring. That was just a really wonderful moment to get to have a part in that and be able to explain clearly to maybe a lot of legislators that maybe did not understand.
Ping Yu: I think that’s very important to our industry in general specifically because I have seen — I have visited many growers and have heard complaining from them. Because when they were there 40 years ago, 30 years ago, there’s nothing there, just their farm. And they were doing that for years and years. And all of a sudden, because the population has skyrocketed, and they are looking for places to do their residential.
Lanie Riner: Well, and I think a lot of it’s just misunderstanding as well. You know, people who work in this industry realize the impact that their work has. They know that the trees that they plant help with heat, and they know that it keeps city streets cooler, and they know that it helps with water runoff, and they know all of the environmental benefits. But I don’t think that it’s something that your average person who’s not working in that area — they’re not going to realize everything that that landscape and that plant is actually doing to make the city as a whole livable and wonderful for everyone.
Yeah, it’s a tremendous impact and the role that our industry serves — I always say, and I borrowed it from our predecessors, so it’s a little GGIA saying: we put nature back in place. But it’s exactly what we do. Our industry is where people and nature intersect. And the work that we do makes that a fun experience for kids playing soccer or adults playing golf. And it makes it a healthy experience. Just having good landscape that protects and offsets the heat or the cold or rain or all the other environmental factors that could come at you. Yeah, it’s a wonderful sector of agriculture to be part of.
Ping Yu: Yeah, I know there are many programs that you guys are doing. But how do you measure the success of a program? Because we normally would come back and take a reflection and say, what did we do right? How can we improve so that we can constantly get better and better, right?
Lanie Riner: Yeah, absolutely. So we want our education — GGIA, we’ve done so many things with any organization being this old, but the programming that we put forward from an educational standpoint, we really do want it to be relevant to this moment. We all have to have pesticide credits for our licensing. Whether that’s — and it’s a different license for landscape than it is for the growers, but it’s all managed through the Department of Ag and the University of Georgia. And so we want to provide great opportunities for that licensure, for our arborists, because that’s a big part of our industry as well. Give opportunities for credits there where possible, irrigation — all of those things. We want to be professional.
And emerging pests seem to be just a never-ending cycle. So this past summer, the two-spot cotton leafhopper — and of course, people are like, oh, well, that’s cotton. That’s not us. But cotton is in the Malvaceae family. There’s an awful lot of hibiscus that gets moved around. And we are part of that. It has an impact on that. And we’ve also found out that pest — it’s on tomatoes and peppers and other solanaceous crops. It was originally in Georgia found on okra, which is another malvaceous crop. Not exactly — it wasn’t found on cotton. It was found on okra to begin with. And, you know, ornamental — we want to be good stewards to all of our industry. It’s making sure that our growers have what they need to move plants safely from an education standpoint. I know right now we’re working through compliance agreements to make sure that our plants can keep moving responsibly, because we do want to be good stewards and make sure that we’re not creating issues for others and spreading pests or any of those things. But our growers need that education. So even if it didn’t break even or make a profit, sometimes it’s timely and it’s needed at that moment.
Ping Yu: Yeah, because sometimes you would just do it if it’s something right — you no matter what, you have to do it. Absolutely.
The Support Growers Need
Ping Yu: So what type of support — if it’s financial, educational, or technical — what kind of support are growers in Georgia most frequently seeking from GGIA?
Lanie Riner: A lot of it is the advocacy stuff. The regulations over the last few — and it’s just exponential since I’ve entered the industry to now. The amount of regulation that our growers are under and our landscape contractors are under — it comes from every side.
So most recently, I have been working on OSHA heat rule since 2021. It started in 2021 and we just gotten through the post-hearing comments. We’ve been giving feedback the entire time. When they proposed the rule, we gave comments at that time. Everything got put on hold with the change in administrations federally, and then they picked it back up. I personally testified on behalf of the industry. I wouldn’t have been able to testify well without the help of the University of Georgia Extension and Dr. Campbell working to get some of the real impact numbers from heat and to translate that into dollars. Not just the temperatures, but translating that into dollars in a scientific and sound way. And then the post-hearing comments that were just due at the end of October. So we’re still working through that process.
A lot of these regulations, they take a very long time. I will tell you, if that heat rule were to go through the way it was originally proposed, it would be catastrophic for our industry. None of our people would be able to truly follow that regulation, and that opens them up to fines and everything else from OSHA. And it’s just not a fair assessment. If they can’t follow the rule.
Ping Yu: Exactly. I know what you’re talking about.
The Art of Advocacy
Ping Yu: But speaking of the advocacy, because last year I went to Washington, D.C., did my first time advocacy. And I was nerve-wracking because it’s my first time. But since you have done so many times and with so many successful accomplishments, what do you think will make it a good advocacy elevator pitch? Like, how do you prepare to do that? Because a lot of times, even for me, first time doing it, I was like, oh, what should I say? What message do I need to deliver? And things like that. Do you have any thoughts or opinion or suggestion on that?
Lanie Riner: I do. I know the answer. In our society, throughout every society, we learn through storytelling. And it doesn’t matter — it doesn’t see any nationality. It doesn’t matter what it is. We all learn through storytelling. So when you go to talk to a legislator or a regulator, whatever the point is that you are trying to make, it needs to be a true story. That’s the first thing. And it needs to — it’s even better if it’s your story. So being able to connect that real impact to you personally and how it impacts you as their constituent or you as a part of this industry. That message is going to come through a thousand times louder than, you know, here are some facts and figures.
Now, they need those facts and figures, and there needs to be a piece of paper that you leave behind with them, but that story is what they’re going to remember. When that comes up for that vote, they’re going to remember that story and you telling them that real impact. That’s what’s going to be on play in their head, not that piece of paper with those numbers. So anytime you’re going to talk to someone, really thinking through: one, what message you’re trying to get across; two, how that connects to you in real life; and three, what story you can help them remember that by. That is the way to do it. And it gets easier. Once you’ve got some practice and you have a few successes, it gets easier. But it is nerve-wracking. You’re right. And I’m so proud that you went and did it anyway, because we need people to show up and tell their stories.
Building Relationships with Legislators
Ping Yu: Yeah, speaking of that — what do you do as organization and chair of the organization to maintain the relationship or establish the relationship between our industry and legislators?
Lanie Riner: So glad you asked me this. We lean into who we are. So I inherited a great program. It is the GGIA Capital Day. And we go in February and we don’t have talking points — unless we do have talking points. But we don’t go for that. We go to give away plants and help people know who we are. And it is a wonderful time at the Capitol. It is during session. And a lot of the agricultural commodities do this. There’s peanut butter and jelly day from the Peanut Commission. The Cattlemen have state biscuit day. And GGIA has their Capitol day where we give away plants.
And one of the favorite things that I’ve been told about this — Chairman Robert Dickey called me and I’d asked for his help in making sure that we were all organized a few years back. And he said, Laney, don’t y’all ever stop doing this. It’s important. And for those of you that know, Chairman Dickey is a peach farmer. And he said, all of us come up there and we represent our different commodities. But yours is the only industry that it is not eaten up at the end of the day. Literally. And I was thinking about it — he’s right. Every other sector of ag, they bring food, which is wonderful because people need to eat. But ours is still sitting there at the end of the day and next week. And if you ever get to go on a Capital day, sometimes you’ll go into offices and there’s plants — a lot of plants from years past where these plants are still there and they’re excited to see us.
And building off of that, we have begun to do a holiday plant drop, which is really for the legislative assistants when everything is a little bit more quiet around. And we are also doing some tours, some legislative tours at the county level. And that way we can help some of our county folks. And we invite the state and the federal folks to those tours as well. It’s really a great opportunity for us to show firsthand what our industry does.
Communication and Community
Ping Yu: Do you foster communication among growers across the state? Because I have been to some of the nursery visits with you. But besides that, how do you communicate with our stakeholders?
Lanie Riner: So the trade show is one big way that we communicate, but of course, there are things — I mean, last night, I was getting ready to go to the basketball — my child’s basketball game — when the message about a new emerging pest came in. We use social media, but really for direct contact with our growers, email is the quickest and most efficient way. So we have an e-blast system that we use. And if I know they need it, as soon as it comes through, I forward them to them because they will answer the email from me, even if they don’t read that e-blast, especially when we’re talking about emerging pests or some of the other things that are just high impact in that moment.
The two-spot cotton leafhopper in particular, with quarantines beginning to pop up, that could create some real issues for our folks. I’m so grateful for our partnership with the University of Georgia and helping us know what we need to do to treat for those pests. But I’m also grateful for our partnership with the Georgia Department of Agriculture in helping us make sure that we’re following the guidelines and doing what we need to do to keep our plants moving, especially when you start talking about a quarantine pest or something like that. Anything that we can do to get that message out quickly and efficiently — when it needs to go, it’s going to go. But the e-blast is really probably the quickest and most efficient way for us to get information to a large number of people.
Ping Yu: Yeah, and I want to mention that during emergency circumstances such as Hurricane Helene or other type of events like that, you guys did a great job by calling them if they still have the power, if not email. But we’ll find a way to check on you to make sure you are good and make sure if you need anything, we’ll try to help you out. And that’s what I got from you guys because I think that’s very important, especially during those devastating times.
Lanie Riner: I’m always so humbled by how generous our industry members are with each other. And I myself — our farm suffered a devastating tornado that took down everything in 2017. And I cannot tell you how many people came to help us get back on our — and I can’t tell you how many of our folks came to help us get back on our feet and stuck with us until we were. And it was the same thing during Hurricane Helene. Our GGIA chairman at that time went and got a generator from someone else and took it to another farm. Their power was restored and he went and got it, drove through all of that to get it to them. And our rising treasurer was calling everywhere, sourcing generators to try to get to our folks. And it was just — I’m just always so humbled. Another one of our growers who had generators, they had them strapped on tractor trailers and ready to go to other farms that needed them. And I’m just always so humbled by how this industry sticks up for each other and takes care of each other.
And GGIA, we serve as a connector in that capacity, but it is not us that is doing it. It is our members helping each other. And that’s one of the things that is so special about this industry and this trade association — they really do work together to take care of everyone. Yeah, it’s a wonderful thing to be a part of.
Ping Yu: It is. And it is a people, right? We work together and make this thriving industry.
Challenges Facing the Industry
Ping Yu: But what are the biggest challenges that our growers facing today and how GGIA is addressing them?
Lanie Riner: Well, succession planning is one. That’s a hard one. And I think we’re seeing that in a lot of sectors of agriculture. It is harder and harder for people who are wanting to enter the industry, especially on the production side, to get a foothold. And it’s cost prohibitive in a lot of ways. The succession planning part — you’ve got growers who maybe their children did not pick up the industry. And so how to transition that farm to move forward into the next generation if it’s not a transfer from family member to family member. So that is one challenge. And I think we’re all still struggling with that, but it’s something that we’re certainly trying to figure out. We’ve seen some very creative solutions that have come through for some of our growers, and I’m so proud for them. And then we’ve had others who have ended up selling, and that’s a little bit sadder outcome, but it ended up for their family — I mean, they’re okay. But it’s hard for me as the executive director to see acreage go out of production. It just makes me sad.
Ping Yu: I totally get it. Because a lot of those family-owned nurseries, it’s for generations. And some of them, if it’s for more than two generations, they got a legacy to it already. And then it’s hard to see them disappear for good.
Lanie Riner: Other than that, I think regulation and labor. I’ll go ahead and say the big ones. Regulation, labor, and water. Those are always going to be three huge challenges.
Labor is a federal issue in a lot of ways. We rely on the H-2A and H-2B programs, which are federal programs. And GGIA spends a lot of time working on H-2A and H-2B labor.
The other regulatory issues that really we struggle with have been federal. Waters of the U.S. — WOTUS. It has been back and forth since 2008, and the Supreme Court has ruled in between, and they have ruled again, and the definition keeps changing, and it’s been picked up again. Just most recently, like less than two weeks ago, by the Trump administration. And so water remains one of those things — it’s just a hard thing. Because especially interstate waters, it’s not a state issue. It is a federal issue. But water can also be a state issue. In times of drought, our growers are protected and are able to grow. But if water is cut off in Atlanta, as it was in 2007, you’ll have a lot of growers go out of business because people can’t water. So just good stewardship and making sure that our industry’s voice is represented properly.
Plants are incredibly resilient. And once they’re established, they don’t need the level of water that sometimes people give them. We live in Georgia, and it’s right at 50 inches of rain a year, and that’s an incredible amount. But then when it gets dry, it gets really dry. So labor, water — those things are always going to cause us challenges. And it’s something that we’re constantly working on.
University and Extension Partnerships
Ping Yu: How do you collaborate with universities, extension agents or industry partners? We briefly touched base on some of those, but can you elaborate a little bit? Sending texts at 5:30 in the afternoon. [laughs]
Lanie Riner: That’s what happened yesterday. No, we could not advocate for our industry at all without our university partners and extension. Extension provides that unbiased scientific support. It’s not an opinion. It is unbiased scientific reasoning and support for our position. And if the science does not back it up, well, we’re on our own with our position.
But the partnership really is critical. I don’t see anyone in our industry — we all lean into the science that exists to make sure that our plants are grown healthy and quickly and efficiently, that we can ship them from place to place. We could not do it without — like, you as our state specialist for nursery and greenhouse, Dr. Joseph with our state entomologist, Dr. Campbell our state economist, the other Dr. Campbell with her extension appointment in consumer horticulture and market trends, our new pathologist — his name has escaped me. It was Dr. Williams-Woodward for many, many years. But he is new in that role. We could not do it without those partnerships and to help us problem solve. A lot of times, we don’t know what we’re dealing with, or we may be able to treat something, but maybe it’s not really scalable, or maybe something that we’re doing is causing the problem. And just without those partnerships from the university, our industry would not be where it is.
Vision for the Future
Ping Yu: Here is the fun part, because I know you have big vision. That’s why I say you’re an inspiring women leader in horticulture. You got big vision for GGIA. Can you tell us what is your vision for GGIA in the next three to five years?
Lanie Riner: I would love to see our industry better united. It’s something we’ve always leaned into partnerships and we value that, but really bringing that full circle and just a really united industry with one voice that represents from an advocacy standpoint — that is a tremendous strength. From a size and scale, I don’t think that people really realize the size of the industry, the scope, the economic impact. And when things come up, they don’t always realize the impact to different sectors of the industry as well. So that united voice is really something that we will continue to work towards.
Other things that I would love to see for our industry and for our trade association is to be able to make some headway on some of these really big issues. And that is going to take work. It’s going to take advocacy. It’s going to take member engagement. And it’s going to take working together and partnering in a lot of different arenas to get everyone rowing together in the same direction. But it is not something that I’m scared of. It is something that I lean into partnerships. We are stronger together. It feels like a cliché after so much that we’ve gone through, but it was true before COVID. It was true during COVID, and it’s true now. We are stronger when we work together.
Growing the Next Generation
Lanie Riner: Fort Valley, Georgia. And it is a program that we have had since 1991. And it’s the GGIA Junior Certified Plant Professional. The Georgia Certified Plant Professional was GGIA’s program until we transitioned it to UGA so it could be state recognized. So that program is managed by UGA now. So it does have that state recognition. But we still maintain the junior certification and we installed a plant ID trail for students from all over the state to be able to come, learn their plants, take the test, and gain interest and skills that are relevant in our industry. And those are the type of things that I hope to see for our industry.
Young people — and we know we have to get them in middle school or high school. Like, if it’s college, a lot of times it’s too late. They’re on a path that they can’t transition over to if they find it late. So being able to cultivate that interest early and gain interest — them being able to see that there is a viable pathway.
There is an extremely wonderful young lady that I have met through FFA, and she is a senior in high school this year. And I met her as a freshman, and she was competing in the state floriculture competition. And I got the opportunity to ask her what she wanted to be — was she going to enter this industry after she graduated? And she said, I’m going to be an agricultural attorney. She said, but I hope that I’m able to help horticulture and all of these other sectors of agriculture that I’ve learned about through that work. And so even though she will not be working directly in this industry, I have no doubt that her work is going to impact us. And as a senior, I have no doubt that she is going to get to where she is going because I saw her a couple of weeks ago at our ribbon cutting and she is still planning to be an agricultural attorney.
Ping Yu: That’s great. We want those kids.
Lanie Riner: We do. The vision for our industry is help growing the next generation of horticulturists and help growing our industry where we are right now in all stages. So I know that was a long answer to that because it’s a big industry and that’s a big answer.
Ping Yu: It’s a good answer. We always would want to have the next generation to get involved. Because we’re cultivating our future by engaging them.
Getting Involved with GGIA
Ping Yu: So if any of the volunteers or growers or even students or extension agents wants to get involved in GGIA, where should they get started?
Lanie Riner: We’ll find a spot wherever they want to be. This is what I love about this organization. You can — if you’re not into the advocacy piece, that’s okay. We need help with education. We need help with these little events that we are doing. We need help with all of these things. If you are interested in helping with student development, we’ll connect you with our partners with FFA, and there’s opportunities to judge students. Our central region and north region and south region FFA region teachers — they are horticulture teachers who teach all of the ag teachers in their region and run those contests. They are always looking for help.
I got a great opportunity in October to go and judge at nationals in Indiana. And I’m just going to tell you, it blew me away to see. So if someone wanted to get involved in that area, there’s an opportunity. If they’re really interested in trade show or education or advocacy or helping with these events, there is something for everyone. And just reach out. We’ll be so glad to help connect and get you plugged in where you feel comfortable — in another area in a few years and we’ll move you over there.
Ping Yu: Yeah. And now GGIA has a website and you can find more information there. And I’ll definitely put the link in the show notes so people can go and check after they pull it up.
Lanie Riner: Oh, and one last plug for Southeast Green. Can we put both of the websites?
Ping Yu: Of course. I can do that. Thank you. Well, I thank you, Lanie, for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me. And like I said, I think we will do good things and make the whole industry better all together. So thank you.
Closing
Ping Yu: And as always, go check out the show notes to learn more about this topic and other topics we featured on the show at bandbpod.com. Thank you for listening. Till the next time, stay healthy and go plants!
Transcript produced for Blooms and Beyond / UGA Center for Urban Agriculture