Agriculture

From tomatoes in the east to cotton in the west, Tennessee has a rich and diverse agricultural industry that is vital to the Volunteer State’s economy. Senator Blackburn has worked to protect our farmers from harmful regulations that impact their land use and water rights as well as their bottom line. Farmers are the best stewards of their land and should be the ones to determine how they farm it — not bureaucrats in Washington.

What Senator Blackburn Is Doing to Support Farmers

Senator Blackburn understands that Tennessee’s rural communities are the heart of the state’s agriculture businesses. As such, we should not have laws in place that hinder economic development in these areas, which is why she introduced the Paving the Way for Rural Communities Act to remove outdated, burdensome regulatory hurdles from rural areas and provide much needed relief to those who do not have the means to pay for unnecessary compliance costs.

Communist China is working hard to infiltrate every major U.S. sector, and the agricultural industry is no exception. Over the past few years, the United States has experienced a rapid increase in foreign investment in the agricultural sector from Communist China. To combat this, Senator Blackburn introduced the bipartisan Foreign Adversary Risk Management (FARM) Act to bolster America’s agricultural industry and help protect against improper foreign investment. She also introduced the Prohibition of Agricultural Land for Foreign Adversaries Act to protect American land and institutions from adversarial exploitation. This effort builds on the Trump administration’s executive action barring farmland sales to buyers linked to China and other foreign adversaries.

Senator Blackburn knows that farmers are the backbone of the Volunteer State. Many small Tennessee dairies have struggled to remain open as the state has lost about 300 dairy farms. To allow these businesses to diversify and expand their market competitiveness, Senator Blackburn introduced the bipartisan Dairy Business Innovation Act. This legislation would help more American dairy farmers and processors add value to their businesses, including creating new products, expanding their markets, and modernizing their production facilities.