SB207 creates a Farmland Preservation Fund managed by the Department of Agriculture. It provides $25 million in grants to help landowners—including farmers and forest owners—place their property under permanent conservation easements. These easements ensure the land remains used for agriculture or forestry, and grants are available only to nonprofit easement holders or directly to landowners working with such organizations. Nonprofits that hold easements cannot later sell or release them, and government entities are not eligible for grants.
The Tennessee State House of Representatives passed SB207 on April 16, 2025 by a vote of 84 to 8. We have assigned pluses to the nays because this bill expands government involvement in land use through taxpayer-funded grants, which unjustly pick winners and losers and impose permanent land restrictions. While preserving farmland may sound beneficial, this approach undermines private-property rights—particularly those protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution—by incentivizing landowners to surrender control to nonprofit groups, many of which are aligned with environmentalist agendas, including the United Nations' Agenda 2030. This results in a loss of national sovereignty and cedes control over land use to global interests. Additionally, the bill distorts the free market by using public funds to influence private land decisions, rather than allowing supply, demand, and voluntary agreements to determine land use. It is not the purpose of governments to regulate land conservation or land ownership.
