Many of you have asked for ways to help support the preservation of farmland while slowing the rate of regional farmland loss.

Thankfully, there's a bill in the Tennessee legislature that would do both.

It's called the Farmland Preservation Fund.

Last month, Sen. Jack Johnson from Williamson Co. filed SB 207 which:  

Establishes a fund for the development and implementation of programs that benefit Tennesseans by preserving farmland and forestland, including a grant program for conservation easements.

You can read the full text here or below:

In the House, a counterpart bill - HB 1325 - was also filed. Both bills must pass through committees, so the journey-to-legislation has just begun. (On Monday, SB207 was sent to the Senate's Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.) Last year, a similar attempt was made, dying on the vine thanks to misinformation.

Earlier this week, the American Farmland Trust released a four-page policy brief related to this bill. Here's an excerpt:

Thirty-one US states have created something similar, the AFT stated, including these figures:

• An average-sized Tennessee farm runs approximately 170 acres. Between 2017 and 2023, Tennessee lost one average-sized farm every 17 hours.
• Tennessee is the third-most threatened state in the nation for projected farmland loss by 2040.
• It's estimated that Tennessee agriculture contributes more than 380,000 annual jobs and $100 billion to the state economy.

"This bill does not create a new bureaucracy to be managed by TDA but simply creates the fund and establishes a grant program in which farmers work with land trusts to put farmland into conservation easements," writes Jess Wilson of the Southeast Tennessee Young Farmers Coalition (SETNYF).

Again, the AFT:

"That is how these programs work in the many other states that have them and it allows land trusts to do what they do well!" wrote Wilson. "Not only do these funds protect farmland and increase land affordability for farmers in other states, they also tend to boost rural economies in which protected farmland exists."

It's good to listen to Wilson, who calls herself "a policy nerd," and writes a thoughtful, informative addition to the SETNYF newsletter, which you can read here.

She's got a legislative wish-list for 2025.

Finally, most importantly, you can contact your state legislator here.

• This Sunday, we're bringing you the first in a six-part series profiling members of the Southeast Tennessee Young Farmers Coalition.

This one's got both wisdom and heartbreak.

We need your help. Hoping and praying for a good ending to this story. It will take at least one reader out there to step forward.

See you Sunday. Stay dry.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.