When “Free” Isn’t Free: A South Carolina Farmer’s Story and the Hidden Cost of PFAS

This morning, I heard a story that brought me to tears.

It was shared by a South Carolina farmer at a briefing for Senate staff on Capitol Hill—a setting that underscored just how urgently this issue demands federal attention. He was from Society Hill, South Carolina, a small, rural community just two counties away from where I grew up in the Lowcountry. Like many families in our part of the state, his roots in agriculture run deep.

My own earliest years were spent on a soybean farm in Georgetown County, South Carolina. Agriculture is in my blood. On both my mother’s and my father’s sides, our families worked the land in South Carolina from the mid-1700s on. But my family left farming in the 1970s, as it became an increasingly difficult way of life—economically precarious, physically demanding, and ever more uncertain.

But this farmer stayed. He kept trying to make a go of it on the land his family depended on for generations. And now that land may be in jeopardy in the cruelest way imaginable.

For several years, this farmer applied a free soil amendment to his fields. This sewage sludge, or biosolids, was a nutrient-rich waste product from the nearby textile mill. At the time, it seemed like a win-win: nutrients for his soil at no cost, and a local business finding a use for its byproducts. He was also encouraged by local experts and the government to use it. But something didn’t sit right with him. Why, he wondered, would something so useful be given away for free?

Eventually, his instincts told him to stop using it. Thirty years later, those instincts proved heartbreakingly right. It wasn’t “free” after all.

The sludge was contaminated with PFAS—so-called “forever chemicals” that do not break down in the environment and are linked to cancer, immune system damage, and a host of other serious health risks. Today, dangerously high levels of PFAS are found in his drinking water. They are in his own body and the bodies of his family members. He also suspects that PFAS is in his soil, cattle, and crops, but he hasn’t been able to access the testing he needs to find out.

His farm—his livelihood, his identity, his legacy—is now effectively a Superfund site. Imagine what that does to a person. This is someone who chose farming because he wanted to feed his community. He wanted to nourish people. He wanted to contribute something good and honest to the world. Now he lives with the knowledge that what comes off his land may be harmful. Cancer-causing. Unsafe. 

And there is no easy way out. You can’t just pick up a farm and move it. You can’t simply “start over” when the soil itself—the foundation of your entire operation—has been contaminated. This farmer could be left without a viable livelihood, without clear answers, and without the kind of state or federal support system that should exist for situations exactly like this.

His story is not an isolated tragedy. It is a warning. PFAS contamination is emerging as one of the most serious and under-addressed threats to America’s farmland. These chemicals have entered agricultural systems through sewage sludge, industrial runoff, contaminated water, and other sources. Once they are in the soil, they persist indefinitely. They accumulate in crops, in livestock, and in people.

And yet, in most states—including my beloved home state of South Carolina—there is still no comprehensive policy framework to prevent contamination or help for farmers who are already affected.

This farmer didn’t know his water was poisoned for nearly 30 years, and the only support he’s gotten is home water filters from the EPA. He and his wife had to spend $700 each to learn how much PFAS was in their blood. They still don’t know whether there’s PFAS in their soil or the food they produce.

The real question, though, is what they do if they do find additional contamination. South Carolina offers no support to PFAS-impacted farmers, and the federal government has just one program to support these farmers. It’s for dairy farmers, though, so he’s not even eligible. Even getting soil tests was a challenge – he was contacted by university researchers who read an article about him in a newspaper and offered to test his soil. He hasn’t gotten the results yet.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Maine, for example, has taken a leadership role in providing technical and financial assistance to impacted farmers and restricting the use of contaminated sludge. In fact, this same congressional briefing I attended featured a farmer from Maine who had faced contamination yet was able to remain safely in operation thanks to state support. But Maine should not be an outlier. Farmers everywhere deserve the same basic protections and support.

This is why American Farmland Trust, alongside a growing group of partners, is leading the effort to develop federal policies to address PFAS risk and contamination in agricultural land across the nation.

We believe:

• PFAS-impacted farmers must be given the financial, technical, and health support they need to remain in production without endangering themselves or their customers.

• Farmers should never again be unknowingly exposed to toxic chemicals through unregulated biosolids.

• Federal agencies must coordinate across agriculture, environmental protection, and public health to treat this as the systemic challenge it is—not a series of one-off disasters.

At its core, this is an issue of fairness, rural resilience, and food system integrity.

Farmers want to do the right thing. They want to be good stewards of their land. They want to feed their neighbors and our nation with a clear conscience. No one should have to live with the knowledge that their life’s work could harm others.

When I listened to this farmer from Society Hill tell his story, I didn’t just hear a policy failure. I heard a human one. I heard what happens when industry, regulation, and government oversight fall short—and when farmers are left alone in dealing with the consequences of others. We owe him, and thousands of others like him across the country, more than sympathy. We owe them action.

At American Farmland Trust, we are committed to leading that action—standing with farmers whose lives and livelihoods are on the line, pushing for stronger federal safeguards, and supporting investments in innovation. Because protecting farmland isn’t just about acres and yields. It’s about people. It’s about trust. And it’s about ensuring that the land we depend on to feed our future is truly safe to do so.