House committee advances bill to create Tennessee Farmland Preservation Fund after hours of testimony

House Bill 1325, the Tennessee Farmland Preservation Fund, was advanced out of the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee after extended testimony from farmers, foresters and a representative of the governor's office.

The bill would create a grant-based program to help landowners place voluntary conservation easements on agricultural and forested property, and authorize the Tennessee Department of Agriculture to administer a Farmland Preservation Trust to fund those easements.

Supporters said the measure would help Tennessee families keep working farms and forestland in production. "This bill will lessen that burden for folks that need it the most," said Anna Kern, identifying herself as "an eighth generation farm inheritor and a conservation advocate," describing her family's 1,000-acre operation and saying conservation easements helped preserve land and farm operations through generations. Emily Stefanik, a conservation project manager and Tennessee Forestry Association member, told committee members that fragmentation from development is a growing challenge for forest land owners and that state investment could support generational ownership of timber and forest products. Sam Kennedy, a multi-generation producer and Murray County Farm Bureau board member, said he supports giving the Department of Agriculture a specific mission to study and initiate farmland-preservation programs.

Alex Lewis of Governor Bill Lee's office said program design would vary by property and that payments would normally compensate landowners for the difference between a property's highest-and-best-market value and its use value with an easement. "The money in this program will pass to Tennessee landowners," Lewis said, adding the administration envisions payments to farmers and forest owners, not operating grants to nonprofits.

Committee members asked repeated questions about prioritization, geographic distribution and how payment levels would be set. Representative Brenda Fritz asked for a concrete example of likely payments for a 100-acre tract at $10,000 per acre; witnesses and the governor's office repeated that values and compensation would depend on site-specific appraisals and market conditions. Representative Lynn Hart and others pressed about who would be eligible, how the program would treat family farms, whether the program could be used to displace local planning decisions, and whether easements would be permanent. Lewis, representing the administration, said participation would be voluntary and that the easements proposed are permanent, though enforcement and any judicial remedies would remain available under existing law.

The committee adopted an amendment from subcommittee and then passed the bill on a recorded vote of 13 ayes and 3 nays. The bill now moves to the Finance, Ways and Means Committee.

Supporters said HB 1325 is intended to reduce the legal and transaction costs that make conservation easements impractical for many farmers, while opponents said the bill leaves too many program details to future rulemaking and questioned whether state funds should be used in this way.

Votes and next steps: The committee approved HB 1325 as amended by voice and roll call; it will be considered next by the Finance, Ways and Means Committee.