If your organization would like to be added to this letter as an official signatory please fill out this survey.

Why this petition matters:

On June 27th, right as hundreds of thousands of people across the country were celebrating the last few days of Pride month, Tractor Supply announced in a news release that it would eliminate its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) roles; retire its current DEI goals; and no longer submit data to the Human Rights Campaign, which scores companies on factors like workforce protections and inclusive benefits. Tractor Supply is also getting rid of its carbon-emissions goals and ending participation in all LGBTQ+ Pride events.

This quick and thoughtless act harms not only the 50,000 employees who work at the 2,250 stores across the country who depended on anti-discrimination internal protections within the DEI sectors, but also the thousands of customers across the country who feel betrayed and erased by these recent actions. This is a sharp turnaround from previous policies, in which the company argued that the business community needed to lead the charge in tackling tough issues such as climate change and equity. Not even a year ago, in their 2023 annual report, Tractor Supply argued that failure to meet its own emissions goals (of cutting emissions 50% in six years and achieving net zero emissions by 2040) would hurt not only its own financial performance but also “employee morale, customer and stock holder support.” Before facing conservative pushback, Hal Lawton (their CEO) said these priorities “made great business sense for Tractor Supply.” 

Tractor Supply has abruptly retreated from long standing values and goals, based on just three weeks of limited social media pressure from a small sector of their customer base. Because of this abrupt action, Tractor Supply is abandoning a far larger portion of its customer base than it seems to realize. In 2020, nearly a quarter of people living in rural America were people of color, and this population in the median rural county rose 3.5 percent between 2010 and 2020, according to research from Brookings. In a similar trend, a 2019 study by the Movement Advancement Project, found that nearly 5% of rural communities identify as LGBTQ+. That means over 3 million individuals whose lives in rural communities are put at risk by the narrative that they are not integral pieces of a thriving rural lifestyle and that their priorities are not also rural priorities. 

Tractor Supply is not the only retailer to announce a change like this. We are living through unprecedented amounts of anti-trans legislation being passed, upticks in racially motivated violence throughout the country, and the denial of decades of climate science. Corporations continue to shirk responsibility in the face of climate change impacts that are devastating not only to farmers and rural communities but to everyone. This is not just about Tractor Supply but also about demonstrating that we can and will organize our voices to serve our communities in the face of erasures and threats to our thriving.

We are these concerned customers. We represent the large and growing number of rural farmers, farm-workers, ranchers, gardeners, and allies who support the rights and protections of Black, Indigenous and people of color and LGBTQ+ people within the agricultural sector and those who live in rural communities. 

We are Black and Brown and LGBTQ+ rural community members, who now do not feel we can align our dollars with a company that has such blatant disrespect for our rights and humanity. If Tractor Supply was actually “passionate about being good neighbors in our hometowns" then why have they declared we are not their neighbors?

Because Tractor Supply has walked away from long standing policies and company values based on a short, heated social media campaign, we believe their CEO is not qualified to lead the company.

The growing list of petition signatories demonstrates that the recent actions of Tractor Supply have serious consequences for its customer base.

By signing this petition, we, the undersigned demand the following actions:

1. The resignation of Tractor Supply CEO, Hal Lawton.
2. The reinstatement of all of the DEI roles and policies and carbon emissions policies for all 2,250 Tractor Supply stores across the country.

Further, we will:

1. Boycott all purchases at Tractor Supply until the roles and policies are reinstated.
2. Sell all held stock in Tractor Supply and remain divested until the roles and policies are reinstated.

 

If your organization would like to be added to this letter as an official signatory please fill out this survey.

Question & Press contact: TractorSupplyCampaign@gmail.com

 

Signatories as of 10/1/24:

Rock Steady Farm

Rise & Root Farm

Soul Fire Farm 

Queer Farmer Network

Truelove Seeds

Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust

HEAL (Health, Environment, Agriculture, Labor) Food Alliance

Catalyst Collaborative Farm

Our Core

FarmSchool NYC

Out in the Open

Phillies Bridge Farm Project

They Keep Bees

Random Harvest Market, Cafe & Community Space

Husky Meadows Farm

Black Farmers United- NYS

Hudson Valley Seed Co

NH Queer Farmer Network

NHPANTHERS

River Queen Greens

Moon Farm

Choy Division

Root Mass Farm

Northeast Organic Farming Association of New Hampshire (NOFA-NH)

Blackbird’s Daughter Botanicals

Hand Hollow Farm

rootsaboveground

Wild Arc Farm

Roxbury Farm CSA

Beauty Blooms Farm

The Bittersweet-Milkweed Collaborative

Rocky Acres Community Farm

Magnetic Fields Farm LLC

Fareground Community Kitchen

Cotyledon Farm

Migliorelli Family LLC/Four Corners Community Farm

Cheshire Garden

The Valley! The Mountains!

The Refuge Jamestown

Open Woods Farm

Cara’s Animal House

Joon Gardens

Yesod Farm + Kitchen

Not Our Farm

Kunsi Keya Tamakoce

Stony Kill Foundation (at Stony Kill Farm Environmental Education Center)

Giant Journey Farm

Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT)

NESAWG