A legal complaint says the state Farm Bureau cut ties with an agent because they were worried about upsetting Holt.
Image: Tennessee Agriculture Commissioner Andy Holt, with hat, is accused in a lawsuit of pressuring the Tennessee Farm Bureau to cut ties with a long term agent. Photo from a Sept. 5, 2025 forum with Republican candidates in a special election for the 7th Congressional District. Image Credit: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout
***Note from The Tennessee Conservative – this article posted here for informational purposes only.
By Adam Friedman [Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Tennessee’s agriculture commissioner used his position to pressure the Tennessee Farm Bureau to cut ties with an agent after a personal dispute, a lawsuit filed in Weakley County alleges.
Bryant Rhodes, a Weakley County insurance agent, filed the lawsuit on July 15 alleging state Agriculture Commissioner Andy Holt, after an altercation at a land auction, pressured the Farm Bureau to cut ties with him.
“Holt, understanding his influence over (the) Farm Bureau as Commissioner of Agriculture… began to use this false story he created to pressure Farm Bureau into terminating Rhodes,” Ross Webster, Rhodes’s lawyer, alleges in the complaint.
Webster went on to add that as part of the pressure campaign to get Rhodes fired, the Farm Bureau was “already worried about upsetting Holt” because at the time it “would not publicly endorse” U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn for Governor.
The Farm Bureau cut ties with Rhodes shortly after Holt pressured them too, and he has struggled to find work because of the “misinformation campaign.”
Holt did not respond to the Lookout.
Holt was appointed by Gov. Bill Lee as Agriculture Commissioner in October 2025, after serving as the deputy head at the agency the year before. He replaced retiring commissioner Charlie Hatcher, who is running for the Republican nomination to the 5th Congressional District.
Prior to that, Holt served a decade in Tennessee’s state House, where he had a reputation for controversy.
He posted a doctored photo in 2019 on social media insulting a former Republican state House candidate’s physical appearance after the candidate criticized an ally of Holt’s, the Jackson Sun previously reported.
Holt was also accused of dumping more than half a million gallons of hog waste and dead hogs in a creek near his farm and was granted special treatment by state regulators, according to a NewsChannel 5 report in 2015.
Tennessee’s Little Hatch Act law bans executive office officials from using their “official position, authority, or influence to interfere with an election or nomination for office.”
Holt appeared in a photo with Blackburn at a campaign event earlier this year.
The Tennessee Farm Bureau has not endorsed any candidate in the race.
The lawsuit alleges that Holt’s push for Rhodes’ firing started after Rhodes publicly called out Holt over his attempt to drive up the price of land Rhodes was looking to purchase in April 2026. Holt then “chased Rhodes and confronted him, calling him childish and overall behaved in an inappropriate and embarrassing manner towards Rhodes.”
One Response
Andy’s messing up, especially sucking up to Marsha.