TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Florida Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson is “hopeful” for the passage of a comprehensive “farm bill” that would ban fluoride in public drinking water, prohibit ESG banking practices for farmers, and expand youth agriculture education programs across the state.
On Florida’s Voice Radio with Drew Steele, Simpson said he is “hopeful” that the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services “Farm bill” will pass through the House later this week and make it to the governor’s desk.
Among multiple other measures, the bill, which passed the full Senate floorThursday, will prohibit the addition of non-water quality additives, such as fluoride, to the public water supply.
“Water is for hydration, not medication,” Simpson said.
Simpson said “liberals made such an attack on [the legislation] over fluoride.”
“[Liberals are] acting like we’re committing some big crime of removing it. We’re medicating people to half people in the state of Florida,” Simpson said.
The bill also protects farmers and ranchers from financial discrimination based on environmental, social and governance, or ESG, scores.
“We found six of the largest banks in Florida are all still using ESG practices. They’re telling us they’re not, but if you go get their manuals and their lending practices, they clearly are,” Simpson said. “So we’re banning it. We will start fining people as soon as this bill gets signed if they’re using ESG practices to basically put our farmers out of business.”
Another part of the legislation is the expansion of Future Farmers of America, or FFA, programs in Florida schools. A three-year pilot program has already doubled student participation from 30,000 to over 60,000, according to Simpson
“We’re making it a permanent solution in the farm bill, because we would love to push that number up to 100,000. We would be the largest state in the union of FFA members,” Simpson said.
The bill includes provisions requiring schools to count FFA activities as excused absences and allows agricultural facilities to be built on school grounds regardless of local zoning restrictions.
“We’ve been told by school boards around the state, ‘oh, we can’t build agriculture facilities at our schools because the zoning is not right for it,’” Simpson said. “We’re saying in our farm bill this year, you can build agricultural facilities at the school, they’re exempt from zoning laws.”
The SB 700 passed 27-9 on Thursday. The House bill, HB 651, must now pass the House before it would go to the governor’s desk.
Original article online at: https://flvoicenews.com/wilton-simpson-is-hopeful-farm-bill-will-head-to-governors-desk-water-is-for-hydration-not-medication/