One of the three Florida Cabinet positions on the ballot this year is commissioner of agriculture, which oversees the state’s $13 billion ag sector — which is worth more than $213 billion considering multiplier effects.
The Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) includes 12 divisions and seven offices involved in regulation and promotion of farm products, establishing rules for the state’s animal, aquaculture, forestry, and produce industries, and licensing producers. It oversees state forests, wildfire response, concealed weapons licensing, and the hemp industry.
The commissioner sits on the Florida Cabinet, which with the governor oversees a range of public agencies.
Republican primary: Wilton Simpson vs. Matt Taylor
Wilton Simpson has held the position four years. At one point, he was considered a potential candidate to succeed Ron DeSantis as governor, and his fundraising haul shows that a lot of other people thought he might be a leading contender.
Simpson has raised more than $30 million from (count them) four political committees, including contributions from some of the state’s biggest corporations and lobbyist groups, such as Florida Crystals Corp., Associated Industries of Florida, and NextEra Energy Capital Holding, a subsidiary of NextEra Energy, parent company of Florida Power & Light.
Simpson, 60, has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, who called him a “true America First Patriot” in a Truth Social post in October. As a teenager, he began working on his father’s egg farm in Trilby, a small rural community in east Pasco County. He later began managing the operation. The farm houses about 1 million chickens, and their eggs are mostly distributed within a 100-mile radius of the farm, Simpson said at The Economic Club of Florida in 2023. He also operates an environmental remediation company.
Simpson had a net worth of $31.5 million as of Dec. 31, according to state disclosure forms.
He did not respond to the Phoenix’s request for an interview about his candidacy.
Simpson’s lone Republican challenger in the Aug. 18 primary is Matt Taylor, also known as “Matt the Welder,” a Plant City native who has been active making social media posts to boost his campaign. Taylor has more than 474,000 followers on Instagram.
He is in fact a welder and tractor mechanic who says the Department of Agriculture has become a “giant bureaucracy” to which he wants to bring accountability.
A strong part of his candidacy is based on concerns about development in the Sunshine State.
He complains Florida Republicans have shifted direct funding away from Florida Forever, the state’s main program for buying land for conservation, and instead have directed taxpayer funds towards the Department of Agriculture’s Rural and Family Lands Protection Program. That program allows agricultural landowners to permanently preserve their land from development but doesn’t require them to allow public access. Under a conservation easement, a private landowner can manage his or her property for timber production, sod, row crops, cattle grazing, hunting or private recreation.
“These easements, when we buy them or when the state buys them, they’re not setting up, like, a park,” Taylor told the Phoenix in phone conversation. “Like 4G Ranch, I think, was just purchased in June of this year up in Pasco. I can’t take my family up there to do any kind of recreation, whether it be hunting, biking, hiking, whatever.”
In that case, 4G Ranch was jointly purchased by the state and Pasco County (as part of its Environmental Lands and Acquisition and Management Program) for $68 million, but the result is that while the 1,893 acres cannot be used for development, it won’t become a recreational park.
Floridians have proven in recent years, he said, that public pressure can stop overreach by developers or, in some cases, state or local government support for proposals that appear to benefit developers.
As examples he cited “Blue Ribbon” legislation that stalled this year in the Florida Legislature; the uprising about placing golf courses and other amenities in state parks during the summer of 2024; and the moratoriums popping up around the state to halt construction of data centers.
One place where public pressure didn’t work was in the City of Fort Meade in Polk County, where local officials recently approved a massive data center. As Taylor notes, now some of those officials are being targeted in a citizen recall effort.
“We’ve hit a time in growth to where folks are starting to realize we don’t have the infrastructure, we don’t have the water, we don’t have all of the things necessary to support the growth, so why are we approving it?” he asked.
Taylor is critical of Simpson’s declaration on his campaign website that he is “Defending the Second Amendment,” noting his support while a state senator in 2018 for the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public High School Safety Act, which among other matters raised the age to purchase a long gun from 18 to 21 years.
“Whatever is politically convenient at the time, that’s what he’s going to go with,” Taylor said. “Why is he saying he’s pro-gun now? Well, he did get about $50,000 from [gun manufacturer] Sig Sauer, so maybe that changed his mind.”
Taylor has raised nearly $269,000 in the race.
Democratic primary: Joey Mendoza Atkins vs. Don Prichard
Don Prichard says he filed to run for the Democratic nomination for agriculture commissioner when he realized no one else had done so, just weeks ahead of the qualifying deadline. He considers the office one of the most important in the state because of the powers vested in it.
The 45-year-old native Floridian’s spent his career in law enforcement, working for the Broward County Sheriff’s Office from age 19 until last year, when he left to become a captain with the Pembroke Park Police Department — a job he still attends to every day while working nights and weekends to get his message out to voters.
When asked why he thinks he should succeed Simpson, he replies that he wouldn’t be a “rubber stamp for the governor.”
“I want to make sure that we represent Floridians, and I believe that the current administration is representing special interests and large corporate groups over Floridians that we have a duty to be responsible for, to protect and to look after,” he said.
One of his top concerns, Prichard said, is regulation of AI data centers, one of the most contentious issues in Florida this year. The Legislature this past session passed a bill (SB 484) that would ensure data center companies pay for their own utilities, and not nearby ratepayers.
The law authorizes water management districts or the Department of Environmental Protection to require large-scale data centers to use reclaimed water as part of any consumptive-use permit approval.
“They’re not looking at long-term effects,” he complained about the Legislature.
“Ensuring that the water that they’re going to have to use — and they’re already in droughts in Central Florida. They’re not coming up with systems that are going to be self-sufficient and that will protect our environment and Floridians, and looking at long-term issues that need to get addressed, and our water table is one of them.
“So, if they’re continuing to use more water or we continue to develop, we have to look at alternatives in how we can preserve our natural aquifers and waterways and still accomplish what we need to accomplish. And I don’t think that legislation really addressed the long-term effects of a data center. It only addressed that they’re not going to pass over the electrical costs to the consumer when they do these data centers.”
Prichard has raised $28,135 in the contest.
Miami trial attorney and former sports agent Joey Mendoza Atkins believes government should be about protecting people over powerful interests, and that’s a major reason why he’s entered the Democratic primary, he said.
Atkins knew the odds against him would be formidable. His campaign website declares his candidacy as “David vs. Goliath.”
He considers his experience working at a legal aid foundation representing migrant farm workers has been essential.
“I think it gave me a first-hand understanding that agriculture isn’t just about crops, it’s about people, it’s about the families who harvest our food,” he said in a phone interview.
“It’s about farmers just trying to stay in business. And I think every Floridian ultimately depends on a safe and affordable food supply. And so, while somebody might have taken that experience from a purely immigration sort of perspective … I take a more holistic approach. So, how … does that actually impact food prices? How does that impact the ability of farmers to stay in business and operate and live the American dream?”
As for the Florida Forever-to-Rural and Family Lands Protection Program shift, on his website Simpson boasts that the program has produced a 243% increase in farmland preserved.
Like Matt the Welder, Atkins isn’t supportive of that change.
“Conservation easements are an important tool in that space in the toolbox,” Atkins said.
“But conservation shouldn’t be measured by the number of acres put into easement. It should be measured by the public benefit that those easements provide. Too often, we celebrate acreage without asking about whether we’re protecting the right lands, improving water quality, supporting family farms, expanding wildlife habitat, or even providing appropriate public access when it makes sense.”
One of the items Simpson advocated for in an agriculture package in 2024 made Florida the first state in the nation to ban lab-grown or “cultivated meat” in 2024.
“I support Florida’s farmers and ranchers, and I understand why many of them are concerned about lab-grown meat,” Atkins said. “It’s quite obvious about cutting into what they do. Agriculture is a foundation of the state’s economy, and we should never put family farmers at a competitive disadvantage. My philosophy is finding creative and dynamic single ways to support them.”
Atkins loaned himself $8,480 for his campaign. From outside sources, he has raised just $1,290.
