Missouri Farm and Food Preservation Act: Protecting family farms?

By: State Rep. Belinda Harris,

D-Hillsboro

Missouri Farm and Food Preservation Act, Senate Bill 364, is being promoted as a bill to protect our family farms but in fact it will do the opposite. Under current laws, third class counties have a right to use health ordinances to protect the health and safety of their communities. SB 364 will take away the control of the local counties to enact health ordinance to protect their communities against the environmental impact of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

The Missouri Department of Agriculture and big farm associations have decided that corporate farms will be the future of farming in Missouri. They feel that the family farms are not in Missouri's agricultural future, and that corporate farms will dominate even though presently there are 106,000 farming operations and only 451 are industrial facilities. Because they have this vision for the future of agriculture in Missouri they have decided that now is the time to open the doors for corporate farms by removing more restrictions.

To promote Senate Bill 364 they are telling farmers the purpose of this legislation is to protect them from government regulations. In truth state law (Chapter 537.295) protects the farmers' right to farm. Only industrial or corporate farms are regulated by the state because of their volume of animals for an example a hog farm would have to have over 17,500 hogs. Another talking point being promoted is to have the same county regulations across the state, but because of varying geological conditions in our counties this is not a good argument.

Other states are finding out that these corporate farms are more of a hindrance than a benefit. States like South Carolina are restricting these operations because of the negative economical and environmental impacts they have on areas that were previously nice rural farming communities. Corporate farms put family farms at a disadvantage, by controlling the markets, by volume buying of farm supplies and by causing the closing of local farm supply stores.

The only way the corporate farms can get overwhelming support for their bill is to scare small farmers into believing that government is attacking their livelihood. No one is attacking the family farmer, except the corporations. The corporations want to take over the control of agricultural activities in Missouri and force others to work for them or go out of business. They are the ones killing the family farms, look how the chicken and hog industry has changed in recent years. If people fall prey to corporate propaganda promoted by the Department of Agriculture and big farm associations, then they will be the ones that will be forced out by industrial agriculture.

The true intentions of this bill is to let corporate farms take over Missouri's agriculture. The purpose of this bill is not to protect the family farm. Do we want Missouri to be a state controlled by corporate farms or do we want the independently owned and operated family farms to prevail?