Bill Lee's $25M Tennessee farm preservation push squeaks through key Senate committee
A $25 million bill from Gov. Bill Lee aimed at preserving Tennessee farmland squeaked through its first Senate committee on Wednesday ― a narrow but significant step forward for a proposal that stalled in the same committee last year.
In an effort to counteract Tennessee's rapid farmland loss, Lee's proposal would offer financial incentives for farmers who wish to voluntarily place their land into a privately-managed conservation easement. Tennessee loses about 10 acres of workable farmland every hour.
Members of the Senate Committee on Energy, Agriculture and Natural Resources approved Senate Bill 207 in 5-4 vote, with bipartisan opposition. Sens. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, and Mark Pody, R-Lebanon, joined Sens. Charlane Oliver, D-Nashville, and Heidi Campbell, D-Nashville, in opposing the bill.
While House members easily approved a similar farmland preservation bill last year, the Senate agriculture committee proved insurmountable. Now, despite the narrow committee margin, the path to Senate passage is open.
Former committee Chair Steve Southerland, R-Morristown, who led the Senate panel last year, was replaced in the top post by Sen. Shane Reeves, R-Murfreesboro ― though Senate leaders have declined to say publicly that defeat of the governor's bill was the specific reason for Southerland's ouster.
While the state incentives would not pay nearly what developers can offer farmers to sell outright, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson R-Franklin, said the bill could help make maintaining farmland a more viable financial option as farmers face ever-increasing pressure to sell their land.
'For many of these hardworking Tennessee farm families, money is an issue, and having access to a grant pool that the governor is proposing could make the difference in being economically viable for those families to place their land into a conservancy,' Johnson said.
More: Tennessee farmers continue struggling to keep land intact: 'Can we keep doing this?'
Any property owner can already choose to place a conservation easement on their property. Under Lee's proposal, ownership of the land and related property rights would remain with the land owners, and easements would be managed by private entities such as the Appalachian Highlands Conservancy or the Wolf River Conservancy – not the state.
Presenting the bill, Johnson said since 1997 Tennessee has lost the equivalent of six counties in farmland.
'That's a good thing people are moving here, but we need to be cognizant of the fact that as people move in, farmland gets bought, it gets developed, it gets turned into subdivisions – it gets turned into strip centers,' Johnson said. 'And we should slow that as best we can.'
Johnson did not mention the vast efforts – and funding – state officials have poured into economic development that have contributed to farmland loss.
Sen. Page Walley, R-Savannah, who represents a rural district in southwest Tennessee, called the measure 'a step in the right direction,' but said the state should work to 'get farther upstream' to empower farmers as they make long term decisions about what to do with their land.
'But this isn't the solution in whole,' Walley said. 'I think we are really going to have to do more.'
Vivian Jones covers state government and politics for The Tennessean. Reach her at vjones@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee farm preservation push squeaks through key Senate committee
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