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Agriculture is certainly important to our state. It comprises about one third of our overall economy, and our agrarian roots run deep. Since the days when cotton was king, and it was picked by the hands of enslaved people, farming has been central to the lives and livelihoods of Georgians. While the amount of land under cultivation continues to decline, agriculture is still expanding in importance, and it’s the single biggest industry in the state.
There is no doubt that Georgia farmers face a range of difficulties. Many farms operate on a slim profit margin, and most farms today are capital intensive, usually financed by large loans. Farming is vulnerable to the weather, labor shortages, and global competition. Black farmers have for decades faced crushing discrimination that has contributed to the loss of Black owned farmlands. A Political Peach article from last summer highlights this problem.
Currently House Bill 1150 is moving through the Georgia Legislature. It has passed the House and is on the agenda for a Senate agriculture committee hearing this afternoon. Dubbed the “Freedom to Farm” bill, it is more accurately described as a bill to protect the rights of Georgia farmers from being sued for creating nuisances. The bill is strongly supported by both the Georgia Farm Bureau and the Georgia Poultry Federation. But whom is this bill really protecting? And from what exactly is the bill protecting them?
Georgia’s current right to farm law was adopted in 1989 and has seemed to work pretty well without a rash of nuisance lawsuits against farmers. Under the current law, farm nuisance litigation depends on who was there first. If you are a chicken farmer and someone buys a house near you, they cannot ever sue for nuisance, as long as you are complying with other zoning and environmental regulations. If you significantly enlarge your chicken operation, then the new neighbor may be able to successfully sue for any new nuisance that might result.
The current law also protects existing property owners, farmers or not. If you are a property owner, and a chicken farmer moves nearby and becomes a nuisance within one year, you currently have four years to file a lawsuit for nuisance.
Additionally, if a chicken farmer moves in next to you with six chicken houses, and three years later, expands to 60 chicken houses and the smells become a nuisance, the date the farm began operation does not reset to the newer date of the expanded operations. The original property owner has no right to file a lawsuit based on the new expansion.
HB 1150 sponsored by peach farmer Rep.Robert Dickey, R-Musella and chair of the House Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee is short and confusing. According to testimony by Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, HB 1150 takes away the protection that existing farmers now have when a new neighbor moves in. It also shortens the time period from four years to one within which the existing property owner may file a nuisance lawsuit after a new farm moves in.
The bill alters existing law regarding changed conditions. According to the Georgia Water Coalition, the new bill gives immunity to newly arriving large feedlots, slaughterhouses, and processing plants from charges of nuisance; this immunity did not exist under the current law.
Apparently this bill is designed to make it easier for a particular type of agriculture–large scale concentrated animal feeding operations or CAFOs to operate in Georgia. These CAFOs create huge amounts of animal waste that are stored in holding ponds that smell bad, sometimes overflow with heavy rains or floods, and can leach into groundwater and contaminate nearby wells. Workers in CAFOs experience a high rate of respiratory illnesses, as do some nearby residents. Federal regulations including those from the Clean Water Act exist to protect people and the environment; but they are inadequate and sometimes loosely enforced for CAFOs.
Another problem with CAFOs is that they tend to degrade the economic health of the communities where they exist. Such large operations also tend to remove a higher percentage of money from rural communities than when farms are locally owned; local farmers tend to circulate money within their community. Also, proximity to CAFOs tend to lower property values for neighboring landowners.
CAFOs in North Carolina were mostly hog farms, and were the impetus for a lawsuit against Smithfield Foods. It resulted in a 2018 jury award of $474 million to six neighbors for unreasonable nuisances they suffered from odors, flies and rumbling trucks. This huge award sent chills through the CAFO industry and started efforts around the country to restrict nuisance claims against CAFOs. Georgia does not have many large hog farms, but we do have large chicken and cattle operations that meet the definition of CAFOs and can create similar nuisances for adjoining property owners.
In fact, Freedom to Farm bills around the country seem to promote CAFOs as superior to all other land use, and to bypass the common understanding of a nuisance. Apparently, this is the intent of the current changes to our Right to Farm law.
Despite protestations and denials by supporters of this bill, HB 1150 is a bad deal for Georgia. It is a poorly crafted, confusing bill that will certainly lead to litigation. We need to honor and encourage existing farmers that live in Georgia and care about this state. We do not need large corporate, absentee landowners, running small farmers and rural residents off their land, reducing property values, and taking profits out of state to pay top executives and their stockholders. We need policies that will preserve and diversify our farm industry, strengthen our rural communities and towns, provide good paying jobs, and protect our health and our beautiful environment. Policies to make it easier for CAFOs to set up shop here, are not what we need. This bill needs to go off to the compost bin!
Take Action Today: Voice your opposition to this bill and send a message to the Lt. Governor and your Georgia Senator with this easy action alert.
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