Several national and local advocacy groups are calling on North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to veto a bill that would greatly restrict the public’s ability to sue large-scale animal farms over negative health and environmental effects. The state general assembly passed the bill on Friday.
The bill, dubbed the Farm Act, would require plaintiffs in farm-nuisance lawsuits to demonstrate that the farm in question is not adhering to “generally accepted and routinely utilized” agricultural practices. Advocates have argued that the bill’s language accepts as industry standard controversial practices like waste lagoons and spraying that many communities have argued presents a risk to human health and the environment.
Right-to-farm laws exist in every state, and generally protect farmers from so-called nuisance lawsuits that would target the routine smells and sounds of farming. In recent years, the agriculture industry has used right-to-farm laws as a protection against challenges to pollution-intensive farming methods like confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. The agriculture industry has typically supported and lobbied for expansions to right-to-farm laws, such as the Farm Act.
Several North Carolina advocacy groups, including the Rural Empowerment Association for Community Help and the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, wrote a letter to Gov. Cooper asking him to veto the bill. “S711 is bad policy, jeopardizes the health and property of vulnerable neighbors, and exposes state government to potentially enormous liabilities,” the letter reads. “Neighbors of industrial animal agriculture operations have had to bear unreasonable burdens for two decades. It is time for a solution that moves past the ever-failing technology of sprayfields, to a future that allows residents and farms to coexist. Stripping neighbors of their civil rights and access to justice is not a legitimate or honorable solution.”
A coalition of national environmental, agricultural, and justice groups, including Public Justice, Food & Water Watch, and the Socially Responsible Agricultural Project, also issued a statement urging a veto. “The proponents of this bill have tried to mislead politicians and the public into thinking it is a referendum on support for North Carolina’s agricultural industry. That’s not true,” the organizations wrote. “This bill is not about pulling back the welcome mat for those who are good neighbors; it is about providing legal immunity to those who are robbing their neighbors of the right to enjoy the open air, clean water and beautiful land that we value in North Carolina.”
Last year, the state Senate overrode Gov. Cooper’s veto of a law that restricts what types of damages plaintiffs can sue for when challenging a neighboring farm operation. As a result of that law, plaintiffs can now only sue for property value loss, and not also for quality-of-life damages.
Both last year’s and this year’s restrictions on nuisance suits follow a series of claims brought by neighbors of Murphy-Brown hog farms in Duplin County. The plaintiffs in those cases, the majority of whom are black, have argued that poor waste management on the farms has damaged their quality of life, and caused negative health effects, property loss, and water and air pollution. In April, a jury awarded the plaintiffs $50 million in damages, an amount that was later reduced in accordance with state law.
Murphy-Brown is owned by Smithfield, which was bought by the Chinese company WH Group in 2014. Smithfield is the largest pork producer in the country, and WH Group is the largest pork producer in the world.
The governor has 10 days— until June 25 — to veto the bill.