DeShawn Blanding

Sustainable Locally Rooted Processing Facilities Using the $40 million Growing Agribusiness Fund established in 2024 as the public investment anchor, we will invest in sustainable, locally rooted processing facilities. By expanding meat processing, packing, lumber mills, and manufacturing closer to where food and trees are grown, we will create jobs, reduce transportation costs, keep more food dollars in South Carolina, and provide farmers with more profitable markets. Priority will go to partnerships between local governments, farmers, cooperatives, and private industry with incentives for facilities that are worker-owned cooperatives and community-governed enterprises, ensuring the wealth they generate stays in local communities, gives workers a direct ownership stake, and creates lasting economic opportunity across rural South Carolina.

Using the $40 million Growing Agribusiness Fund established in 2024 as the public investment anchor, we will invest in sustainable, locally rooted processing facilities. By expanding meat processing, packing, lumber mills, and manufacturing closer to where food and trees are grown, we will create jobs, reduce transportation costs, keep more food dollars in South Carolina, and provide farmers with more profitable markets. Priority will go to partnerships between local governments, farmers, cooperatives, and private industry with incentives for facilities that are worker-owned cooperatives and community-governed enterprises, ensuring the wealth they generate stays in local communities, gives workers a direct ownership stake, and creates lasting economic opportunity across rural South Carolina.

SECURE FARMS. SECURE FOOD.

INCREASE ACCESS. LOWER COSTS.

Agricultural & Bio Manufacturing South Carolina should become a hub for agricultural input and biomanufacturing by attracting and expanding businesses that produce fertilizer, animal feed, seed, irrigation equipment, farm machinery, bio-based products, renewable materials, and other essential agricultural inputs. Strengthening these industries will create good-paying jobs, reduce supply chain disruptions, lower costs for farmers, expand markets for South Carolina-grown crops, and position our state as a leader in the next generation of agricultural innovation.

South Carolina should become a hub for agricultural input and biomanufacturing by attracting and expanding businesses that produce fertilizer, animal feed, seed, irrigation equipment, farm machinery, bio-based products, renewable materials, and other essential agricultural inputs. Strengthening these industries will create good-paying jobs, reduce supply chain disruptions, lower costs for farmers, expand markets for South Carolina-grown crops, and position our state as a leader in the next generation of agricultural innovation.

Create a statewide food safety assistance and cost-share incentives to simplify access to training and audits, expand cooperative certification models, and review state procurement policies that create unnecessary barriers for local growers.

Regional Agricultural Infrastructure & Innovation Network Build a statewide research and innovation network of four Regional Agriculture Innovation Centers through public-private partnerships with local governments, Clemson University, SC State University, and the state’s technical college system. Each center includes shared-use processing facilities, cold storage, aggregation capacity, a business incubation component, and direct connection to Clemson and SC State Extension services, and each center integrates processing, research, entrepreneurship, and workforce development for its regional commodity base.Lowcountry/Coastal Center — Aquaculture, seafood processing, and coastal fisheries. Hub for South Carolina’s growing shrimping, shellfish, and fish farming sectors with shared processing and cold chain infrastructure.Upstate/Western Piedmont Center — Livestock operations, poultry producers, and pasture-based agriculture. Addresses the gap in small- and mid-scale meat processing that forces SC livestock farmers to send animals out of state.Pee Dee/Midlands Center — Commodity growers, fruit and vegetable producers, and specialty crop farmers. Anchored to the Florence State Farmers Market, connecting row crop producers to value-added markets and direct local supply chains.Central Coastal Plain/I-26 Corridor Center — Forestry, milling, and wood products manufacturing. Supports the timber sector, which covers over 60% of SC’s land base, with sustainable forestry innovation and rural manufacturing.

DeShawn L. Blanding is a food and agriculture policy advocate, cooperative business leader, and beginning farmer. His life’s work is committed to building a future where care for land and people are inseparable. He believes that stewardship and service are the examples for others to follow, not extraction and exploitation.

Using the Commissioner’s bully pulpit and relationships with the Legislature to make farmland protection a budget priority year over year.

Use the Growing Agribusiness Fund and public-private partnerships to expand locally rooted meat processing, packing, lumber, manufacturing, and other agricultural processing capacity.

• Campaign would prioritize partnerships involving local governments, farmers, cooperatives, and private industry, including incentives for worker-owned and community-governed facilities.

Create four Regional Agriculture Innovation Centers linking shared processing, cold storage, aggregation, business incubation, research, extension services, and workforce development.

• Proposed centers would specialize by region in aquaculture/seafood, livestock/poultry, crops/specialty agriculture, and forestry/wood products.

Convert State Farmers Markets into local food aggregation hubs with storage, grain handling, processing, and community food-policy coordination.

Attract and expand South Carolina production of fertilizer, feed, seed, irrigation equipment, farm machinery, bio-based products, renewable materials, and other agricultural inputs.

Create a statewide agricultural resilience system with a Farmer Emergency Fund, coordinated disaster response, and pre-disaster farm planning.

Expand rural agricultural broadband, subsidize access to precision-agriculture technologies, and provide digital and precision-farming training through regional innovation centers.

Create a statewide Agricultural Advisory Council that includes both traditional commodity representatives and emerging sectors such as specialty crops, local food systems, aquaculture, and value-added agriculture.

Retool the ACRE Grant Program toward applied agricultural biotechnology, biomanufacturing, precision agriculture, food safety, soil health, conservation, and other emerging technologies.

Create voluntary paid land-lease arrangements with farmers to reserve acreage for community-supported agriculture serving local families, schools, faith communities, and food-insecure households.

Create dedicated grant-navigation services and cost-sharing assistance so small farms, cooperatives, and rural organizations can access agricultural grants, food-safety training, audits, and certification.

Modernize the state's agricultural market-news system with SMS alerts, mobile access, region- and farm-size-specific pricing, specialty-crop data, and extension partnerships.

Expand agricultural education, CTE, dual enrollment, apprenticeships, industry credentials, beginning-farmer mentoring and startup support, and farmer mental-health resources.

Create a Farm Legal Assistance Program and review the laws enforced by the Department of Agriculture to identify outdated, duplicative, or unnecessarily burdensome requirements.

Increase and sustain funding for farmland-conservation easements and combine state, federal, local, and land-trust resources to preserve working farmland.

Create a statewide initiative to help farm families resolve heirs' property title issues and advocate for stronger protections against forced partition sales.

Pilot grants and rent-to-own arrangements that help new, beginning, and veteran farmers gain access to farmland and keep retiring farmers' land in agricultural production.

Publish county-level data on food, fuel, weights-and-measures inspections and complaints and use the results to target inspections and consumer outreach.

Bring commercial EV chargers under state weights-and-measures inspection rules and require consistent accuracy and labeling standards statewide.

Provide compliance assistance to small food businesses, publish county-level food-safety inspection data, and prioritize outreach in communities with limited food access.

Establish clear E15 fuel-labeling and quality standards, expand E15 availability, and promote South Carolina-grown corn as feedstock for in-state ethanol blending.