Keith Truenow will bring commercial farm background to Senate Agriculture Committee

For Keith Truenow, agriculture is a family affair. Image provided.

Before Keith Truenow ever ran for elected office, he worked on a farm. Now, the Lake Jem Farms founder will run the Florida Senate Agriculture Committee.

Senate President Ben Albritton named Truenow, a newly sworn-in state Senator, to run the important committee, one Albritton once chaired himself.

“Simply put, Truenow is a genuine farmer,” Albritton said. “He’s not just a farm fan, he’s not just a person who likes to say he supports farmers, he is a farmer. He innately knows what farmers deal with and I trust him.”

Truenow, a Tavares Republican, welcomed the assignment.

“It’s my background,” Truenow said. “I look forward to doing what we need to preserve agriculture in this state.”

The former state House member previously served on the Agriculture, Conservation & Resiliency Subcommittee and the Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee. This year, he won a promotion to the Florida Senate.

But his professional background may give him the greatest understanding of agricultural issues in the state. As recounted in the trade publication Sod Solutions Professionals, Truenow grew up on a Webster chicken farm and later worked on a muck farm in Leesburg that later started selling turf grass. After a stint in the U.S. Air Force, Truenow returned to Lake County and took over management of a Zellwood corn farm that he later bought and turned into Lake Jem Farms, a major sod producer and distributor in Central Florida.

While he has since sold controlling interest in that farm, he for years was connected to the agriculture world and knows the challenges it faces on numerous fronts, from citrus greening to development of longtime agricultural lands.

“There’s just a lot of everything — inflation, pressures from development, just an assortment of things happening we have to overcome,” Truenow said.

Notably, a background managing farmland is something he has in common with Albritton, a fourth-generation citrus grower. A large chunk of Albritton’s first major speech after taking over as Senate President in the Organizational Session this week focused as creating a “Rural Renaissance” in Florida, seeking ways to generate economic growth for the industry and save threatened sectors.

“Please join me in the fight to support our Florida farm families, our Florida food supply chain, and to save from extinction our iconic Florida citrus industry,” Albritton said in his speech.

Truenow said Albritton’s interest in agriculture policy creates an opportunity for the Senate to focus energy on critical issues impacting the industry.

“I believe that will be very helpful and the experience he brings to the table and what I bring to the table will be notable,” Truenow said.