Farm Jobs in Tennessee

Discover agricultural careers in Tennessee where 77,300 farms (#8 nationally) span three distinct geographic regions—Appalachian mountain counties producing cattle, tobacco, and vegetables in East Tennessee; rolling Nashville Basin and Highland Rim growing Tennessee Walking Horses, nursery crops, and wheat in Middle Tennessee; and fertile Mississippi Delta flatlands yielding cotton, soybeans, and corn in West Tennessee—generating $74.8 billion in agricultural economic impact across 10.8 million acres (41% of state land, average farm size 170 acres operated by family farmers). Tennessee leads unique agricultural niches including McMinnville as "Nursery Capital of the World" (300-400 nurseries producing 19 million containers annually, $400 million economic impact, 55,000 acres across five counties, within one-day shipping to 80% of people east of Mississippi), Tennessee Walking Horse heritage as only state to lend its name to a world-famous horse breed (600,000+ registered since 1935, official state horse, $41 million annual National Celebration revenue in Shelbyville "Walking Horse Capital of the World"), and agricultural diversity enabling production from mountain burley tobacco to delta upland cotton across elevation ranging 178 feet (Mississippi River) to 6,643 feet (Clingmans Dome). The state's top commodities include soybeans ($991 million, 75.6 million bushels from 1.80 million acres, #1 Tennessee crop and top agricultural export at $489 million), cattle and calves ($877 million, 1.60 million head including 835,000 beef cows with beef cattle produced in every Tennessee county supporting primarily cow-calf operations), broilers ($794 million including Tyson Foods' $425 million Humboldt facility—first new Tyson poultry plant in 25 years with 370,000 square feet processing capacity), and nursery/greenhouse crops ($285-300 million, #14 nationally, $6.4 billion total economic impact across 36,000+ certified acres on 570 farms cultivating 300+ species of woody ornamentals). Additional Tennessee agricultural strengths include #9 national ranking in cotton production (#3 in cotton exports making it #1 Tennessee agricultural export commodity), #2 nationally in meat goat inventory, top 5 nationally for fresh market tomatoes (Grainger County "tomato capital" plus Washington, Unicoi, Lauderdale counties) and snap beans, dairy operations generating $4.3 billion economic impact with 20,000+ jobs from 130 farms producing 494 million pounds milk (Loudon County leads state), tobacco grown in 66 of 95 counties (~$80 million value including burley in all 66 counties and dark fired tobacco in 8 counties), and equine industry ranking 6th largest in United States using 3+ million acres farmland for horse-related activities.