Build the food hubs, cold storage, and procurement preferences that keep Tennessee-grown food in Tennessee, and expand Pick Tennessee branding so shoppers see Tennessee first at the store.
Chapter 12 farm bankruptcies rose 46% nationally in 2025, with the Southeast seeing a 69% increase. Tennessee has rich agricultural land, but we've become too dependent on supply chains that stretch thousands of miles and when those chains break, our communities suffer.
We'll invest in regional food hubs and cold storage to keep Tennessee-grown food in Tennessee. State institutions, including schools, hospitals, and state facilities, will buy Tennessee-grown food first. Pick Tennessee Products already has nearly 3,200 members and growing. We'll scale it into a statewide brand with dedicated marketing and retail partnerships, the way Kentucky Proud achieved 70% to 80% recognition statewide.
We'll also issue tariff buffer grants to help farmers with cover crop diversification and specialty crops that federal aid misses. A state that can feed itself is a state that can survive anything.
Free breakfast and lunch for every kid in Tennessee's highest-need districts, sourced from Tennessee farmers and cooked in upgraded school kitchens.
In March 2025, the federal government cancelled programs that put roughly $20 million into Tennessee schools and Tennessee farms. Meanwhile, nearly one in five Tennessee children live in a food-insecure household.
We'll replace the cancelled federal local food purchasing with a state reimbursement program directed to provide free breakfast and lunch in approximately 40 school districts starting Year 1, covering the state's most distressed counties - roughly 200,000 kids. In addition we'll create kitchen capital grants for schools to give those rural districts the refrigeration and prep equipment to cook from fresh ingredients instead of reheating processed food.
And we'll scale this architecture over time. In year 3 to 4 we'll expand to medium-need districts with the goal of reaching universal statewide breakfast and lunch.
Make land access easier for new Tennessee farmers, with state cost-share for land leases, property-tax relief for small operations, and beginning-farmer lease provisions in conservation easements.
Tennessee loses beginning farmers at high rates. More than half exit agriculture within their first decade. The primary barrier is land access, and the lack of incentive for existing landowners to lease to unproven operators.
We already have the Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program's Beginning Farmer Option for equipment cost-share, UT and Tennessee State University Extension serving all 95 counties, TN Farm Link matching new farmers to available land, and the Farmland Preservation Act's $25 million fund for conservation easements. What we need next is a mechanism that directly incentivizes landowners to lease to beginning farmers.
We'll expand TAEP to include land lease cost-share, lower the Greenbelt Law's acreage minimum from 15 to 5 acres so small operations qualify for property tax relief, and direct Farmland Preservation funds toward easements with beginning farmer lease provisions. We can create more farmland in Tennessee using tools that already work in Tennessee without new taxes or new bureaucracy, simply by expanding and improving programs we already run.
Tennessee farmers can fix their own tractors and combines or hire a local mechanic, with manufacturers required to provide diagnostic tools, parts, and software on fair terms.
When a combine breaks down during harvest, a Tennessee farmer should be able to fix it. Instead, major equipment manufacturers lock diagnostic software, restrict parts access, and void warranties unless repairs go through their authorized dealer network. The nearest authorized dealer may be hours away. The wait can cost a crop.
Colorado became the first state to pass an agricultural right-to-repair law in 2023 with bipartisan support. The equipment market didn't collapse and instead manufacturers adapted, consumers benefited, and independent repair shops stayed in business.
We'll pass a right-to-repair statute requiring manufacturers to provide diagnostic tools, parts, and software on fair and reasonable terms.
Tennessee farmers and forest landowners get paid for practices that build soil carbon, maintain tree cover, and keep nitrogen and phosphorus out of rivers and streams.
Tennessee has about 14 million acres of forestland and almost 11 million acres of farmland. Both are carbon sinks. But right now, landowners get nothing for providing that service. Three programs will change that.
We'll pay farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices like cover cropping, no-till, and rotational grazing, proven practices that build soil carbon while maintaining, and often improving, yields, and connect them to voluntary carbon markets for ongoing revenue. A Forest Carbon Program will pay private landowners to maintain and expand forest cover through conservation easements.
We'll also work with Tennessee to improve water quality. The Tennessee Agricultural Enhancement Program has invested more than $309 million across nearly 98,000 projects since 2005. We'll add nutrient-reduction practices as eligible cost-share categories, including cover crops, saturated buffers, and riparian plantings. Tennessee's own data attributes 85% of nitrogen and 89% of phosphorus loads to nonpoint, precipitation-driven sources. This uses an existing program farmers already trust to cut the pollution flowing into Tennessee's rivers.
Fund crisis services, rural mental health telehealth, and peer support networks for Tennessee farmers, who, according to the National Rural Health Association, die by suicide at up to 3.5 times the rate of the general population.
Tennessee farms are dwindling, down to just over 60,000 farms, and we're projected to lose over a million acres of farmland by 2040. If we want to save these farms, we need to save the farmers first. According to the National Rural Health Association, farmers and ranchers die by suicide at up to 3.5 times the rate of the general population. With farm debt approaching record levels, crop prices down roughly a third since 2022, and 70% of rural counties without a single psychiatrist, stress can turn into despair, pressures that farmers shouldn't have to face alone.
The Tennessee Suicide Prevention Network established a Farmers Task Force in 2018, but we still need real infrastructure: agriculture-specific crisis services, expanded rural mental health through telehealth and targeted recruitment, and peer support networks modeled on programs working in Wisconsin and North Carolina. Reaching out for help isn't weakness, it's a strength. Tennessee needs to make sure that help is actually there when farmers need it.
