Florida’s Agriculture Commissioner oversees the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which supports and promotes Florida agriculture, protects the environment, safeguards consumers, and ensures the safety and wholesomeness of food. The incumbent, Republican Wilton Simpson, is seeking re-election, and will face Democrat Joey Mendoza Atkins in the general election, after the two won their respective party primaries in August.
News4JAX sent a questionnaire to each candidate asking about their background and their views on several issues. Scroll down to read the responses of those seeking your vote in their own words.
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Note: Responses are sorted alphabetically by party and are presented exactly as submitted, with no editing by News4JAX staff.
| DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE |
Joey Mendoza Atkins
Occupation: Miami and Tampa trial attorney with experience in Legal Aid for farmworkers and DACA recipients, family law, and business litigation. Policy experience with UN Global Compact, which works with CEOs and businesses to adopt sustainable and socially responsible policies, including on labour, the environment and anti-corruption.
Age: 41
Family: My mom, Erika, and her husband, Gary, live in Loxahatchee, Palm Beach County close to where I grew up. She is a real estate agent and firearms specialist and trainer, while Gary is a veteran and retired law-enforcement. I have three older step siblings and a younger sister in Dunnellon, Marion County, and two adopted shelter dogs - Maria and Eleanor.
Education: M.A. at the Milano School of Policy, Management and Environment, New School NY.
J.D. and Certificate of International Law at the University of Toledo College of Law, Ohio.
B.A. Cum Laude (Major in Political Science, Minor in Criminal Justice), Florida Atlantic University.
Political experience: Democratic Nominee for CD 26 in 2024, a R+41.8 deep red seat. The district stretched across the Everglades and included Everglades City, Immokalee, and Ave Maria, alongside parts of Collier and Monroe counties. Active with the Miami-Dade Democrats last year when we flipped the Miami Mayor’s Office for the first time in nearly 30 years in a stunning upset.
What do you see as the top three issues in this race, and how do you plan to address them?
I believe the top three issues are: 1) To protect and preserve our water and farmland from the data centers and overdevelopment that hike our energy bills and destroy our water quality. 2) To make Florida more affordable by fighting for Florida consumers against the Tariff Tax and support farmers, families and small businesses who have been hardest hit, including with the Tariff Checks that were promised. 3) To modernize guest worker programs to help farmers address labor shortages, cut costs for small businesses, and lower our grocery prices.
How can you help voters in a way that others running for this office cannot?
My work providing legal aid to farm workers gives me unique insights and experience directly supporting the workers that pick our produce, to help Florida farmers and ranchers address labor shortages and lower food prices. This is in stark contrast to my primary opponent and the incumbent, who both support expanding E-Verify to hurt small businesses which will also pass costs onto consumers, and have been willing pawns in the federal weaponization of FL local law enforcement to force them to integrate with ICE while the national government agency was killing American citizens. Another issue I will fight for Florida families on, that Simpson and Prichard will not, is stopping Flock surveillance cameras as an invasion of privacy and illegal data collection. I will also fight to stop AI data centers in Florida and push for cannabis legalization to support our veterans and help tackle the opioid crisis. All of this is in direct contrast with Wilt Simpson, who endorsed Data Center Donalds, and Donald Prichard, who is on the record pushing for increased surveillance of US citizens (including being investigated by Broward Sheriff’s Office for alleged comments praising the S.S – a paramilitary organization in Nazi Germany led by Heinrich Himmler – while using surveillance technology to “track” a Congresswoman in South Florida).
What would you hope to be remembered for accomplishing after serving in this office?
Making farming and food affordable again, protecting and preserving our natural resources for future generations, and reinvigorating our ag industry by restoring integrity and transparency, and rooting out the corruption and fraud that has seen our cost of living soar. Food is too damn expensive. Yet farmers aren’t the ones getting rich: The monopolies in the middle are squeezing family farms, price gouging working families, and rigging the system from the field to the grocery store. We can lower food prices, pay farmers fairly, and make food affordable again if we stop Wilt’s corruption. During Wilt’s tenure as Chairman of the Florida Senate and then in charge of the state government’s fraud watchdog, home insurance rates and rents have skyrocketed to the worst in the country, and FL is a national epicenter for healthcare fraud. Wilt is weak and corrupt, and will never stand up to the special interests trying to overdevelop our state, build hyperscale data centers and drive up our costs. He’s of course endorsed by Senator Rick Scott, another multimillionaire medicare fraudster who voted for healthcare cuts that will force rural hospitals to close, and recently said that paying higher gas prices was “worth it” for endless wars.
Campaign website: www.joeyforflorida.com
Campaign social media: Facebook | X | Instagram | YouTube
| REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE |
Wilton Simpson
The Republican incumbent has not responded to email and telephone invitations to complete the News4JAX candidate questionnaire. If responses are received, they will be promptly posted in this space.
Campaign website: wiltonsimpson.com
Campaign social media: Facebook | X
A write-in candidate, Kyle KC Gibson, qualified for the general election. The names of write-in candidates do not appear on the ballot, though there will be a line for a write-in.