“Grounded in Our Roots, Focused on Our Future”

- DeShawn L. Blanding

Pillar 1: Producers

The Problem

South Carolina’s farmers are constrained not by lack of ambition but by lack of access. Small and beginning producers, young farmers, and historically underserved communities face barriers at every turn — from finding and affording land, to navigating complex federal grant programs, to accessing legal help for heirs’ property issues, to simply getting a fair price for their crop. The average age of a South Carolina farmer is nearly 60. Family farms are disappearing. These problems are solvable with a Commissioner who prioritizes people first.

The Plan

  • The Commissioner administers numerous federal grant streams — Specialty Crop Block Grants, USDA Rural Development funds, and more — that are largely inaccessible to small and beginning farm operations due to complexity.

    • Establish an SC Farm Grants Access and Outreach Program dedicated grants navigators to help individual farmers, cooperatives, and rural organizations identify, apply for, and report on federal and state agricultural grant programs.

    • Create a statewide food safety assistance and USDA Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) cost-share program to simplify access to training and audits, expand cooperative certification models, and review state procurement policies that create unnecessary barriers for local growers. 

  • Launch a comprehensive initiative to open agriculture to new, young, beginning, and veteran farmers:

    • Land Access Grant Program: Pilot grants for rent-to-own leases to transition land to other farmers, clearing heirs’ property titles, and improving soil and water infrastructure for new, beginning, or veteran producers. Heirs’ property — land passed down without a formal will, disproportionately affecting Black rural families — is one of the largest barriers to farm continuity and access to USDA programs. Clearing titles is not just a legal service; it is an agricultural development strategy.

    • State-Sponsored Farm Apprenticeship Program: Structured apprenticeships pairing beginning farmers with experienced operators, building practical skills while providing income during the learning years.

    • Agricultural Enterprise Forgivable Loan Program: Forgivable loans for FFA members’ Supervised Agricultural Experience projects and young farmer startups, modeled on successful state programs in other Southern states.

  • The Commissioner’s existing Market News function — weekly price, volume, and commodity reports published in partnership with USDA — is a critical but underutilized resource, particularly for small and beginning farmers entering commodity markets. Modernize and digitize it into a Farmer Decision Support System by:

    • Delivering market reports via SMS text alerts and a mobile-friendly platform accessible to farmers without reliable broadband.

    • Partnering with Clemson Extension and SC State’s 1890 Extension to translate market data into accessible formats for beginning farmers.

    • Disaggregating reports by region and farm size so small producers can see pricing relevant to their scale.

    • Expanding coverage to include specialty crops, direct market pricing, and local food hub transaction data — not just commodity markets.

  • The Agribusiness Center for Research and Entrepreneurship has proven its value — over $1.25 million awarded to 112 entrepreneurs across every SC county since 2018. Reform and expand it by:

    • Increasing annual grant funding and creating a dedicated track for small and beginning farm operations, particularly those in historically underserved counties.

    • Embedding ACRE grant navigators within each Regional Innovation Center so farmers don’t have to travel to Columbia to access the program.

    • Adding a Cooperative Enterprise Track that funds shared infrastructure ventures — farmer-owned processing co-ops, buying clubs, and aggregation networks — not just individual businesses.

    • Partnering with Clemson and SC State’s Extension programs to ensure outreach reaches producers who have historically not engaged with ACRE and invest in research and development.

  • Establish a Farm Legal Assistance Program in partnership with SC law schools and legal services organizations to help small and beginning farmers navigate regulatory requirements — from heirs’ property title clearing to permit compliance. Pair this with a Regulatory Modernization Review of all 37 laws SCDA enforces, identifying provisions that are outdated, duplicative, or create unnecessary barriers for small farm operations, and committing to legislative modernization proposals in the first two years.

  • Establish a farmer-centered community health initiative to support mental health and suicide prevention services tailored to farming families, facing some of the highest rates of occupational stress and suicide of any profession. A “Know Your Neighbor” outreach program using existing networks such as churches, co-ops, FFA alumni, commodity boards to reduce isolation and connect farmers and rural residents to critical resources.