Gabon Ambassador tours Wayne Poultry during official visit to Ga.

ATLANTA - Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary W. Black welcomed His Excellency Michael Moussa-Adama, Ambassador of the Gabonese Republic to the U.S., to Georgia this week. The purpose of the visit was to introduce Ambassador Moussa-Adamo to Georgia agricultural production.

One of his stops was Wayne Farms in Pendergrass.

Gabon is a French-speaking country in Western Africa, located near the Equator and along the Atlantic Ocean. The Ambassador is currently seeking partnership opportunities to help build the agricultural industry for his Gabonese people.

"The goal of our meeting this week is to show Ambassador Moussa-Adamo a variety of highlights pertaining to agriculture production in Georgia," Black said. "While agriculture is our state's No. 1 industry, Gabon currently imports 80 percent of food products into their own country. The resources we have here in Georgia, combined with the research areas of the University of Georgia College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences, make this an ideal situation for a potential partnership."

The two day visit began on Wednesday with a state lunch at the Department of Agriculture, featuring food products grown within Georgia. The delegation then traveled to various agriculture sites throughout South and North Georgia on Thursday, where the Ambassador was introduced to horticulture, row crops, forages, water management and poultry production. Along with the Commissioner and Ambassador Moussa-Adamo, a representative from the Gabonese Embassy in Washington D.C. also attended the trip, as well as representatives from the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

In addition to Wayne Farms in Pendergrass, where Moussa-Adama toured the firm's poultry processing plant, the two-day visit included stops at the Sunbelt Ag Expo site in Moultrie and a discussion of cotton, peanuts, corn, soybeans, forages and irrigation systems; a tour of Southern Valley Fruits & Vegetables in Norman Park; and a tour of the University of Georgia Tifton Campus and Experiment Station, where the topics included muscadines, bananas, ornamental horticulture and citrus.