{"id":214485,"date":"2026-04-01T13:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/214485\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T13:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T13:03:09","slug":"with-its-new-farm-bill-floridas-climate-fight-just-hit-a-tractor-sized-roadblock-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/214485\/","title":{"rendered":"With its new farm bill, Florida\u2019s climate fight just hit a tractor-sized roadblock"},"content":{"rendered":"

This story was originally published by Grist<\/a>. Sign up for Grist\u2019s weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By Ayurella Horn-Muller<\/a><\/p>\n

Against the backdrop of a looming global energy crisis, rising food insecurity, and the increased frequency and intensity of heat, hurricanes and floods fueled by global warming, Florida\u2019s governing bodies have had a consequential, but unsurprisingly counterproductive, month.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of March, the state legislature passed a bill blocking local governments from adopting or enforcing \u201cnet-zero\u201d policies. The bill, which was sent to Ron DeSantis\u2019 desk, is expected to be signed by the governor in the coming days and would impact commitments made by more than a dozen cities from Tallahassee to South Miami to lower emissions and energy costs.<\/p>\n

\"A\u00a0The Florida Farm Bill bans cities and counties throughout the state from outlawing gas- and diesel-powered tools, such as leaf blowers. (Stock image)<\/p>\n

Then, last week, DeSantis signed Senate Bill 290, or the \u201cFlorida Farm Bill<\/a>,\u201d into law. The bill passed with a 94-10 vote in the House and a unanimous vote by the Senate. Among the biggest climate rollbacks of the new legislation, which goes into effect July 1, is the provision that now preemptively bans cities and counties throughout the state from outlawing gas- and diesel-powered tools, such as tractors, lawn mowers and leaf blowers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to use different stuff, fine, it\u2019s a free country,\u201d DeSantis said before signing the bill in Sebring, Florida. \u201cBut I like the gas-powered better. I just think it\u2019s more reliable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Brooke Alexander-Goss, the organizing manager at Sierra Club\u2019s Florida chapter, there are at most seven municipalities in Florida that actually have bans against gas-powered lawn tools, like leaf blowers and chainsaws; no municipalities in the state have prohibited the big gas- and diesel-powered machines that farmers use on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re pinpointing something very, very specific, and it\u2019s not even something we\u2019ve seen or heard of,\u201d Alexander-Goss said. \u201cIt\u2019s just another example of the legislature overstepping and wanting to take over local control, which obviously opens the door for more of that in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farmers and ranchers in the state are celebrating<\/a> the way the new law bolsters an industry in decline. Florida\u2019s $387 billion agricultural sector is facing a serious downturn, driven in no small part by climate change.<\/p>\n

Extreme weather has become a major economic strain in recent years for farmers and ranchers statewide. More extreme heat and insufficient rainfall<\/a> have contributed to significant losses in citrus acreage<\/a>, back-to-back hurricanes have decimated the production of animal goods and row crops<\/a>, and the unusual cold temperatures that hit the state last month cost the entire industry upwards of $3 billion<\/a>. Major storms have also driven up farm insurance rates, while federal tariffs, trade disruptions and immigration enforcement have increased input, fertilizer, and labor costs. And yet agriculture itself remains a big contributor to planetary warming. Sugarcane production in Florida\u2019s Everglades agricultural area alone has been found to be <\/a>responsible for more than 7.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year \u2014\u00a0the bulk<\/a> of the state\u2019s agricultural emissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new law locks the state\u2019s farmers into that cycle of reliance on fossil fuels \u2014 and in a state where greenhouse gas emissions surged by 30% between 1990 and 2022<\/a>, no less.\u00a0Environmental groups are, naturally, lamenting the bill\u2019s passage for its climate setbacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis proves that, again, the legislature is not taking climate change seriously,\u201d said Alexander-Goss.<\/p>\n

\"CattleThe Florida Farm Bill includes a provision that allows the state to open land designated for conservation for commercial farm use. (iStock image)<\/p>\n

The \u201cFlorida Farm Bill\u201d also includes a provision that allows the state to open land designated for conservation for commercial farm use. Under this policy, lands acquired for conservation purposes since 2024 can be reclassified if deemed suitable for agriculture by state agencies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The legislation \u201crepresents a troubling shift away from the state\u2019s long-standing commitment to land conservation at a time when we should be doubling down on climate resilience,\u201d said Javier Estevez, political and legislative director at the Florida chapter of the Sierra Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While the law requires an easement, or an agreement between governments and landowners to determine land use, as an attempt to limit the scale of development, Estevez says it still removes these lands from public ownership and weakens long-term ecological protections. Farming can increase water pollution, disrupt habitats, and stress fragile ecosystems that conservation programs were designed to protect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBy allowing certain conservation lands to be declared \u2018surplus\u2019 and sold for agricultural use, this law undermines the fundamental promise that protected lands stay protected,\u201d said Estevez.<\/p>\n

According to DeSantis<\/a>, the farm bill \u201cshows that we have a strong commitment to not just agriculture, but our rural communities writ large.\u201d But the package largely sidesteps farm country\u2019s economic strife<\/a>. Other parts of the law include citizenship requirements for disaster loans, a new program designed to boost locally-grown seed varieties and permanently authorizing a program that directs farm-fresh food to food banks.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the law comes at a time of heightened tension between what Florida state policymakers want and what cities and counties are trying to achieve in the name of climate action, food production and public health. One thing that the law doesn\u2019t do for the agricultural industry is indicative of that growing political tension.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of the bill proposed to expand Florida\u2019s food disparagement law, often called a \u201cveggie-libel\u201d law, which gives individuals and companies the ability to sue for claims that disparage perishable agricultural products \u2014 by saying, for instance, that a product is unsafe for consumption. The new provision aimed to expand that authority to include all agricultural products and practices and would have allowed companies to recover attorney\u2019s fees if they won a defamation suit.<\/p>\n

In January, Kelly Ryerson, a leading Make America Healthy Again advocate and founder of the website Glyphosate Facts<\/a>, launched a full-scale campaign against the measure, on the basis that it would violate free speech and inhibit MAHA\u2019s main priority of improving public health by cleaning up the food system. Ryerson and other MAHA advocates took to social media, email, and phone blitzes to reach Florida lawmakers and voice their opposition to the measure. She even teamed up with environmental advocacy groups to make their case before policymakers at the state capitol.<\/p>\n

Sugarcane is one of Florida\u2019s biggest agricultural products and its growers routinely burn their fields<\/a>, a practice that has been linked to<\/a> premature death, respiratory distress, and other dangerous health conditions in low-income communities of color<\/a>. The measure drew particularly fierce backlash from the many critics of these controversial practices<\/a> because it would have expanded the \u201cveggie-libel\u201d law to include sugar manufacturers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Florida, Ryerson said, is \u201ca really large stronghold\u201d for MAHA, a powerful national movement<\/a> that helped Trump win a second term and is now showing some dissatisfaction with the administration<\/a>. She said there is \u201can interesting conflict\u201d between health advocates and an agricultural industry she sees as \u201ccontributing to the toxicity of the food supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senate stripped the provision from the bill last month. But Ryerson remains dismayed over the state\u2019s decision to allow some conservation lands to be sold for farming. MAHA advocates would rather \u201cpermanently protect those lands for clean water, wildlife, and future generations,\u201d she said, \u201cnot to have them auctioned off for commercial agricultural production, which will certainly pollute with toxic chemicals and fertilizers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move \u201cbetrays Florida voters,\u201d Ryerson said.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in Grist<\/a> at https:\/\/grist.org\/food-and-agriculture\/with-its-new-farm-bill-floridas-climate-fight-just-hit-a-roadblock\/<\/a>. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org<\/a>. Banner photo:\u00a0A tractor spreads fertilizer on a field (iStock image).<\/p>\n

Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here<\/a>. To support The Invading Sea, click here<\/a> to make a donation. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist\u2019s weekly newsletter here. By Ayurella Horn-Muller Against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[43377,1901,28,62551,30,100,29,97843,28752,80187,97844,412,91606],"class_list":{"0":"post-214485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-conservation-easement","9":"tag-conservation-land","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-farm-bill","12":"tag-florida-headlines","13":"tag-florida-legislature","14":"tag-florida-news","15":"tag-gas-powered-landscaping-equipment","16":"tag-greenhouse-gas-emissions","17":"tag-leaf-blowers","18":"tag-net-zero-policies","19":"tag-ron-desantis","20":"tag-sb-290"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214485","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=214485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}