Danny Lee Ford II Enters Race for S.C. Commissioner of Agriculture

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Danny Lee Ford II of Pendleton, son of legendary Clemson football coach Danny Ford, entered the race for the South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture on Monday with a campaign kickoff in Anderson at the Upstate Livestock Auction. Ford, who has worked alongside his father in hemp and row-crop farming and raising cattle in Upstate South Carolina, has been an outspoken critic of regulatory shifts he argues have whipsawed small growers.

As the race for South Carolina agriculture commissioner takes shape, Ford is posititioning himself as both a local son of the Upstate and a working farmer who knows what regulatory shifts look like from the ground level for all of the state’s farmers.

Ford grew up on the family farm in the Bishop Branch community outside Pendleton, a spread he describes as sitting “right in the middle of Anderson–Pendleton, Clemson and Easley.”

The son of legendary Clemson football coach Danny Ford, he has worked alongside his father in hemp and row-crop farming, raising cattle and has been outspoken about how rapidly changing rules can destabilize small and midsize operations. In the commissioner’s race, he says his goal is to be an advocate for those producers, pushing for more predictable regulation, better support for emerging crops, and policies that keep family farms viable for another generation. He also wants to see partnerships which bring more of the food from South Carolina farms in publc school cafeterias.

His father, legendary former Clemson football coach and upstate cattle farmer Danny Ford says he’s “all in” on his son’s bid for South Carolina commissioner of agriculture.

“I’ll back him 110% and hopefully he’ll get a chance to do a good job,” said the elder Ford

Father Ford said farmers “struggle like the devil,” fighting weather and thin margins in what he called “a bigger gamble than going to Las Vegas,” and he argued they need broad public support because “there’s not enough of them to elect you” on their own. “We can’t live without them,” he added. “We’ve got to have their food production—the cattle, the hogs, the sheep, the goats, the vegetables.”

He also made a case for turnover in statewide office.

“New ideas are needed like anything,” Ford said. “You don’t need the same people forever, because you get stagnated.”

Ford, who grew up with what he jokingly calls “a chicken yard” more than a full farm, has spent his post-coaching years working cattle and says the job still appeals because of the hard work and renewal it demands.

“I’ve always liked cattle. I love the spring and the fall, the new calves being born and jumping around. I really enjoy the new life and new beginning—and hate the ending of it.”

Danny Lee Ford II of Pendleton, son of legendary Clemson football coach Danny Ford, chose a fitting stage to enter statewide politics: the Upstate Livestock Auction in Anderson, where he kicked off his campaign for South Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture at noon on Monday, surrounded by the cattle and producers he says he hopes to represent.

Ford has worked alongside his father in hemp and row-crop farming and in raising cattle in the Upstate, and he has been an outspoken critic of what he calls regulatory “whipsaws” that leave small growers exposed. He is trying to position himself as both a local son and a working farmer, someone who has watched those shifts not from Columbia but “from the ground level” on family operations across the state.

He grew up on the family farm in the Bishop Branch community outside Pendleton, a place he likes to describe as sitting “right in the middle of Anderson–Pendleton, Clemson and Easley,” defined as much by nearby town names as by property lines. Alongside his father, he has watched how “rapidly changing rules” can destabilize small and midsize operations, and he says his goal in the commissioner’s race is to act as an advocate for those producers—pressing for more predictable regulation, better support for emerging crops, and policies that keep family farms viable for another generation. He also talks about wanting partnerships that would bring more food from South Carolina farms into public school cafeterias, tightening the loop between local fields and student lunch trays.

His father, now better known in some circles as an Upstate cattle farmer than as the coach who once stalked the sidelines at Clemson, says he is “all in” on the bid. “I’ll back him 110% and hopefully he’ll get a chance to do a good job,” the elder Ford said.

Danny Ford Sr. has his own theory of the political math in an agricultural race. Farmers, he notes, “struggle like the devil,” fighting weather and thin margins in what he calls “a bigger gamble than going to Las Vegas,” and there are simply not enough of them “to elect you” on their own. “We can’t live without them,” he added. “We’ve got to have their food production—the cattle, the hogs, the sheep, the goats, the vegetables.”

He also makes a broader case for rotation in office, not unlike the rotation of crops he now tends. “New ideas are needed like anything,” he said. “You don’t need the same people forever, because you get stagnated.”

Ford likes to joke that he did not grow up on a grand spread so much as “a chicken yard,” with birds in the backyard, a cow down by the well, and a garden that came back every year. In his post-coaching life, he has leaned fully into cattle, a job he says still appeals because of the hard work and the sense of renewal it offers. “I’ve always liked cattle,” he said. “I love the spring and the fall, the new calves being born and jumping around. I really enjoy the new life and new beginning—and hate the ending of it.”

South Carolina’s race for agriculture commissioner now features four Republican hopefuls, with a mix of establishment backing, farm pedigree, and name recognition on the ballot.

Cody Simpson, a fifth-generation Clarendon County farmer and former agriculture adviser to Gov. Henry McMaster, entered the race last week after both McMaster and President Donald Trump urged him to run and endorsed him in advance. He joins Fred West of Batesburg-Leesville, a former Amick Farms vice president and current director of market development at the state Department of Agriculture, who entered the race last year with the endorsement of retiring Commissioner Hugh Weathers. Also running is Jeremy Cannon of Turbeville, a fourth-generation Clarendon County farmer whose campaign stresses the pressures on rural producers and the loss of farmland to development.

The winner will succeed Weathers, who is retiring after nearly 22 years leading the Department of Agriculture, an agency with roughly 250 employees responsible for promoting agribusiness, ensuring food safety, and, since 2024, inspecting restaurants, cafeterias, and other food-service operations statewide.