W. Brent Jackson

Jackson is the founder of Jackson Farming Company, an agricultural business that grows watermelons, cantaloupes, honeydews, strawberries, pumpkins, squash, slicer cucumbers, sweet potatoes, corn, wheat, soybeans, peanuts, and flue-cured tobacco. Jackson owns two country grain elevators for the purpose of purchasing and storing corn, small grains, and wheat from his farm and area farmers. In 2005, he expanded and built a liquid fertilizer plant, which supplies his farms and area farmers with drip fertilizer.

Jackson is co-chairman of the Senate Appropriations/Base Budget Committee, and the immediate past co-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Natural and Economic Resources and the Senate Agriculture/Environment/Natural Resources Committee. He is also co-chairman of the Joint Environmental Review Commission, Joint Agriculture and Forestry Awareness Study Commission and the Agriculture and Rural Caucus of the North Carolina General Assembly. Additionally, Jackson sits on the Senate Finance Committee, Rules and Operations of the Senate Committee, and Senate State and Local Government Committee. In 2014, he was elected to the Legislative Board of the international organization, State Agriculture and Rural Leaders.[2]

In 2015, Jackson authored an ag-gag bill subsequently made law after the legislature overrode a veto by Governor Pat McCrory. The bill allows for prosecution of individuals who go undercover to expose animal cruelty and other illegal activity in the North Carolina factory animal farming industries.[3]

In May of 2019, a building owned by Jackson Farming Company suffered significant fire damage and was destroyed.[4]