For nearly 30 years, American Stewards has fought against the use of conservation easements to lure unsuspecting landowners into relinquishing their private property rights.
Last year, we were asked to help fight HB 1890, by Rep. Lamberth, that created the “Farmland Preservation Fund.” The Fund defined “agricultural easements” that were to be used to acquire and preserve farm and forestry land.
We were successful in stopping that bill by explaining how destructive agricultural (conservation) easements were to landowners’ ownership of private property.
However, the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee we worked with last session was stripped of his chairmanship this session by Governor Bill Lee, who supported the Fund last year and again this year.
In May, Governor Lee signed SB 207 creating the Farmland Preservation Act “ensuring farms can be preserved for future generations.”
Governor Lee in his “State of the State” address made the unfounded claim that Tennessee was losing 10 acres of farmland every hour, a similar claim Biden used to enact his 30×30 land grab on his sixth day in office.
Senate Bill 207 puts $25 million into a grant fund handled by the state Department of Agriculture to pay farmers for easements to “protect” their land from development. The funds will be reoccurring with the legislature’s approval.
But, as we all know, once a government creates a spending program, they never go away. Tennessee has created the very program ASL continues to fight against. To learn more, go to our website to read our publication “Conservation Easements or Servitudes,” 13 key points why you should think twice before partaking in a program like Tennessee just created.
