Blunt: State government should decide rules for farms

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The state could have the last word in deciding the number and types of plants and animals farmers can raise.

Those types of issues now often are decided at the local level, while the state oversight focuses more on water and air pollution.

But with more than 30 local health and zoning ordinances targeting large livestock farms they blame for odors, dirty water and falling property values, some of the state's largest farming groups are fighting back.

On their side is Gov. Matt Blunt, who in his State of the State speech a few days ago decried "unreasonable ordinances" designed to drive farmers out of business.

Blunt endorsed a Senate proposal that supporters say clears the regulatory air. The bill limiting local ordinances that regulate farms also would bar trespassing lawsuits against agricultural businesses.

Supporters of the legislation contend the local ordinances have been prompted by phantom concerns and have balkanized Missouri's rules for farming.

"What we're seeing is a real hodgepodge of varying regulations beginning to crop up around the state, and it really limits and restricts agriculture, limits and restricts rural economic growth. And that really affects people who are going into farming," said Don Nikodim, an executive for the Missouri Pork Association.

An executive for the Missouri Association of Counties said local officials are willing to cede some control. But "a total pre-emption is just something we cannot accept," executive director Dick Burke said.

If the state is to assume greater oversight over farms, a broader agricultural industry standard is needed that rewards farms that don't cause problems, he said.

The agriculture bill's limits on local governments has drawn the most attention, but it is a section that expands legal protections for farms that at least one lawyer said is the most notable.

Steve Matthews, a professor in the agricultural economics department at the University of Missouri-Columbia, said the additional lawsuit restrictions could group ethanol and biodiesel plants with traditional farms.

Current law bars lawsuits against agricultural producers and processors for most nuisance lawsuits. The bill would expand the prohibition to also cover trespass suits.

The combined effect of these two changes, Matthews said, is to make it harder for civil suits alleging air pollution violations -- both for farms and biofuel plants.

In other words, the owner of a huge hog or poultry farm could not be sued by a neighbor alleging the odor is a nuisance. But right now, there is nothing to block a trespassing suit from the same neighbor who can measure the number of particles in the air attributable to the farm.

"It would close the door to saying the odor trespassed -- it wasn't invited and it caused harm," Matthews said.

Missouri Farm Bureau President Charlie Kruse said protecting farmers from lawsuits is a key part of the bill. He said the future of Missouri agriculture is being threatened and the only way to attract people to agriculture is to give them safeguards that they won't end up in court.

"We're talking about building a greater firewall of protection for farmers in this state -- both for row crop and animal farmers -- from having lawsuits filed against them," Kruse said.

Local regulations on farms and agriculture techniques are not new issues for lawmakers.

Last year, the leaders of the House and Senate agriculture committees agreed to wait a year before trying to tackle local health ordinances. A separate bill last year that would have limited local regulation of genetically modified seeds was approved by a Senate committee but was never voted on by the full House or Senate.

And in 2005, a bill that would have limited local health ordinances targeting concentrated animal feeding operations cleared the Senate but died in the House.

While state lawmakers have proposed ways to expand the state's influence in farming regulations, local officials said there needs to be some local control.

Tom Beamer, the mayor of Arrow Rock, has fought a well publicized battle against a proposed hog farm expansion near the tiny, town located on a bluff above the Missouri River.

Beamer said tourism and the town's historic sites are the only industry it has and that a large animal-feeding operation would be devastating. He said it is these kinds of factors that only local governments can consider.

"Without any county planning and zoning, then there's nothing you can do to stop it," he said. "A farmer could put a nuclear reactor in his field and you couldn't stop him. You might as well not have a county commission because everything is being decided by the state."

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Farming ordinances is SB364

On the Net:

Legislature: http://www.moga.mo.gov

Locations of animal feeding operations:

http://www.dnr.mo.gov/env/wpp/cafo/cafos8x11.pdf