{"id":151142,"date":"2026-02-11T04:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T04:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/151142\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T04:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T04:01:11","slug":"florida-senate-removes-controversial-farm-bill-provision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/151142\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Senate removes controversial farm bill provision"},"content":{"rendered":"

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – A Florida Senate committee unanimously removed a controversial provision Tuesday from the state\u2019s farm bill<\/a> that would have broadened disparagement lawsuits across the agricultural industry.<\/p>\n

The Senate Rules Committee<\/a> voted to strip the expanded non-disparagement clause that would have extended legal protections to any agricultural product or equipment. People from across the state filled the committee room as opponents argued the provision would restrict free speech.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would\u2019ve absolutely intimidated free speech here in the state of Florida,\u201d said Daniel Andrews, founder of Captains for Clean Water.<\/a><\/p>\n

The bill now maintains Florida\u2019s current non-disparagement framework, which applies only to perishable agriculture products and sets a lower legal standard than defamation lawsuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou cannot lie about somebody and not expect there to be any consequences. That\u2019s the law. What we didn\u2019t want was someone to feel they couldn\u2019t tell the truth,\u201d said Sen. Jonathan Martin, R-Fort Myers.<\/p>\n

Andrews said the expanded clause would have created a flood of litigation against agricultural critics.<\/p>\n

Florida Politics<\/p>\n

\u201cA mother knows the food she\u2019s putting into her kids\u2019 mouths. If it\u2019s hurting them, she doesn\u2019t need to have the science,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cI\u2019m most concerned about what\u2019s in our food supply. I want the ability, just as an American citizen to be able to speak up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Keith Truenow<\/a>, R-Tavares, who is sponsoring the bill, opposed removing the expanded provision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI ask you to not approve the amendment to the amendment,\u201d Truenow said during the committee meeting.<\/p>\n

Truenow argued the expanded non-disparagement clause would provide practical benefits for farmers and has proven effective under the current law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it worked for the last 30 plus years,\u201d Truenow said. \u201cWe want to see Florida agriculture for the next 100 years to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate President Ben Albritton said the farm bill continues to evolve.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will say the ag bill is a work in progress,\u201d Albritton said.<\/p>\n

Andrews warned the fight over expanded disparagement protections may not be over.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re remaining vigilant. There were comments about tilling this back up next year. I think we need to realize this is not the end of the road,\u201d Andrews said.<\/p>\n

The controversial provision remains in the House version<\/a> of the farm bill but is expected to be removed before that chamber votes. The Senate bill now moves toward final passage without the non-disparagement clause.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Gray Florida Capital Bureau) – A Florida Senate committee unanimously removed a controversial provision Tuesday from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[72998,72995,1442,72148,12891,28,62550,7951,72999,65258,57103,72996,72997,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-151142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-agricultural-free-speech","tag-agriculture-bill","tag-cody-butler","tag-farm-bill","tag-fdacs","tag-florida","tag-florida-agriculture-legislation","tag-florida-department-of-agriculture-and-consumer-services","tag-florida-farm-bill-disparagement","tag-maha","tag-make-america-healthy-again","tag-non-disparagement-lawsuit","tag-senate-rules-committee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}