Rutherford, TN, officials want to preserve farmland: 'We have been overtaken by the growth'

Farmers and officials such as Pettus Read hope fast-growing Rutherford County can preserve historic farmland, as well as other fast-growing counties around the state.

"Agriculture has been my life since I was a kid," said Read, a Rutherford County Commissioner who's chairman of the county's Regional Planning Commission.

Read resides on 40 acres of the remaining 170-acre farm that belonged to his maternal grandparents on the far southwest side of Rutherford.

The back of his hay farm has a view of a tall wooded hill known as the Versailles Knob. The Tennessee government owns the 40-acre hilltop to protect rare endangered mustered plants in the Versailles community, where Native American tribes were known to hunt and gather at a fort on the knob, said Read.

He's found arrowheads on those hunting grounds, a small token of its rich history.

Rutherford lost 22,044 acres of farmland between 2014 and 2023, according to recent studies from the University of Tennessee Center of Farm Management and American Farmland Trust.

Rutherford, Sevier and Williamson are the top three counties losing the most farmland in a state that's ranked third in the nation for loss of farmland, according to the studies.

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Read and other county officials want a new comprehensive plan and are crafting one to preserve historic farmland and prevent higher density development in the rural areas.

“I think we have been overtaken by the growth," said Read, who's retired from a a 44-year career with the Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation in Columbia, Tenn. that included being a writer and director of communications for the organization.

The "PlanRutherford" Steering Committee, working on the comprehensive plan, will meet at 2:30 p.m. June 26 in Room 205 of the Rutherford County Courthouse in the center of the downtown Public Square in Murfreesboro.

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Rutherford is losing farmland while topping all TN counties in growth

The loss of farmland coincides with Rutherford adding 6,419 residents in 2023 to reach a population of 367,101. The gain of people topped the state's 95 counties, according to a University of Tennessee study from the Boyd Center for Business and Economic Research.

The study also showed Rutherford's 1.8% population increase in 2023 slowed from the county's 2.7% growth rate in 2022 with 9,500 more people. The 2023 gain of residents fell below a 2% growth rate for the first time since 2010 during the Great Recession.

"In fact, just three times since 1980 has the county experienced a growth rate below that mark," the study said.

Rutherford from 2010 to 2023 added 104,497 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

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Tennessee is projected to lose a million acres of farmland

The American Farmland Trust study, "Farms Under Threat Tennessee," examines expected trends from 2016 to 2040.

“If recent trends continue, 1,014,600 acres of Tennessee’s farmland will be paved over, fragmented, or converted to uses that jeopardize agriculture," the study says.

Tennessee ranks behind Texas, with a projected loss of nearly 2.2 million acres of farmland or ranchland from 2016 to 2040. North Carolina has the second most projected loss of farmland at nearly 1.2 million acres.

The American Farmland Trust studies for each state recommends a "Better Built Cities" approach with compact residential and commercial development in urban areas instead of “poorly planned development and low-density residential sprawl” that rapidly replaces farmland and ranchland.

The Better Built Cities approach, according to the "Farms Under Threat Tennessee" study," can save 844,500 acres of farmland, 7,100 farms, $223 million in farm output and 12,200 agricultural jobs based on county averages from Census of Agriculture in 2017.

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Future Ford Blue Oval factory will mean loss of West Tennessee farmland

West Tennessee counties between Jackson and Memphis will see significant growth and loss of farmland when the Ford Blue Oval factory opens to build automobiles off Interstate 40 in Haywood County, said Kevin Ferguson, an extension specialist and coordinator for the University of Tennessee Center of Farm Management.

The large Blue Oval development also will attract supply businesses for the factory and a lot of employees to the area who will need more housing that will be built on farmland, Ferguson said.

Ferguson expects many people pursuing jobs tied to the Blue Oval project will move to the Jackson area because the city offers schools and places to eat and other amenities.

The University of Tennessee Center of Farm Management also has tracked how much of Rutherford's farmland has been converted to residential and commercial development the past 10 years, said Ferguson, who has an office at the county's Lane Agri-Park in Murfreesboro.

He also lives in Rutherford on the other side of the Versailles Knob from Read's farm.

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Proposed policies seek to slow the loss of farmland

Ferguson said there have been proposed policies at the county and state levels seeking to slow down the rate of lost farmland, such as through the purchase of agricultural conservation easements.

The Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation, for example, backed a proposed $25 million investment recommended by Gov. Bill Lee in February to establish a farmland conservation fund to support farmers through voluntary conservation programs "to slow the dramatic loss of farm and forest land," Eric Mayberry, the farm bureau's president, said in statement on the organization's website.

The proposed legislative bill had strong support from the Tennessee House of Representatives but stalled in the Senate, the farm bureau reported in April.

Ferguson expects the farm bureau to support revised legislation on a farmland conservation fund being proposed by the governor again in 2025.

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Rutherford official opposes 'sprawl development'

Policies on farmland at the Rutherford County level await the crafting of a new comprehensive plan.

The PlanRutherford Steering Committee, Rutherford County Regional Planning Commission and elected Rutherford County Commission will be holding a yet-scheduled joint meeting in early July, said Doug Demosi, the county's planning director.

The PlanRutherford Steering Committee has met five times to work on the document. Planning officials also organized several community meetings in 2022 and 2023 to hear what residents and business owners have to say about crafting a new comprehensive plan.

County Commission chairman Jeff Phillips said he expects to hear more public input on a plan with improved development standards in the rural and suburban areas outside of the Rutherford's cities of Murfreesboro, Smyrna, La Vergne and Eagleville.

"We really need to make sure that people are heard, and the wishes of the citizens of Rutherford County are followed up," Phillips said. He also has served on the county's regional planning commission for 30 of the past 34 years, including 16 years as chairman.

Phillips said the wishes of the people are more important than out-of-county developers and home builders who want no limits on lot sizes for homes.

"Special-interest groups are not concerned about Rutherford County and the long-term effects of what I would call sprawl of development," said Phillips, a Murfreesboro resident who grew up in a rural part of Rutherford in the La Vergne area prior to growth.

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The new comprehensive plan will replace a previous one crafted in 2010 that Phillips said was "watered down."

"Our long-term plan should take a look at where we've been and especially where we are and what we want to look like 20 years from now, 30 years from now or 40 years from now," Phillips said.

The county for decades has had an outdated approach that zoned all land outside the cities residential. The new comprehensive plan should include agriculture zoning, Phillips said.

"We need to protect what’s left of our farmland," Phillips said.

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'Protect the beauty of Rutherford County'

Fellow Commissioner Read said most of what's left of Rutherford farmland is on the outer edges of the county and away from the urban areas.

“We have got to be careful and take care of what we’ve got," said Read, adding the county has been losing about 2,000 acres of farmland per year.

Much of Rutherford's former prime farmland off Interstate 24 in the middle of the county is all gone, Read said.

Although the county can't adopt a moratorium to stop development as some people want, Rutherford officials can craft policies that will require builders to protect neighbors from water runoff in rural areas with many sink holes, Read said.

"We just can’t go in there and build every little space into a house," Read said.

The pending comprehensive plan also should "protect the beauty of Rutherford County" because that's "what a lot of people come down for," said Read, noting that the log house where he was born, built in the early 1800s, still exists.

The plan should create areas that preserve farmland for people who want to farm, Read said.

"If people want to live in a rural area, we'll try to keep some of it rural," Read said.

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Reach reporter Scott Broden with news tips or questions by emailing him at sbroden@dnj.com. To support his work with The Daily News Journal, sign up for a digital subscription.

Lost Rutherford County farmland acres 2014-2023

• Agricultural to residential: 9,818.3

• Agricultural to commercial: 603.2

• Agricultural to other: 4,864.9

• Farm to residential: 323.4

• Farm to commercial: 5,415.4

• Farm to other: 1,018.7

• Total: 22,044

Source: University of Tennessee Center of Farm Management

This article originally appeared on Murfreesboro Daily News Journal: Fast-growing Rutherford, TN, officials hope to reduce loss of farmland