Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer last Tuesday signed into law a controversial bill that will amend the state’s regulatory requirements for large-scale poultry operations, local media reported. The bill was dubbed the “Tyson bill,” for its favorability to the large poultry processor which has attempted multiple times to set up a processing plant in the state.
The bill reduces the “setbacks” requirement for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which determines how far a CAFO can be built from another structure, such as a neighboring house. The law previously stated that any farm with over 125,000 birds would need to be set back 4,000 feet from the closest structure. The new law increases that threshold to 333,333 birds, and CAFOs with fewer birds need only be 1,320 feet from a neighboring structure.
Two hearings were held on the bill, in February before the senate agriculture committee and in March before the house agriculture committee. Proponents of the bill argued that it would help attract the poultry industry, expanding agricultural production so Kansas could remain competitive with other farm states. “There is a great opportunity to grow the poultry industry in Kansas,” wrote Rich Felts, president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, in his testimony at the February hearing. “The provisions in SB 405 will help to attract new agricultural business.”
Trisha Purdon, executive director of the Montgomery County Action Council, emphasized the need for new job opportunities in the region, particularly since the 2015 departure of an Amazon distribution center and a Southwire Manufacturing plant cut 1,500 jobs. “The economic impact that Tyson could have on our region and families in our area is staggering,” she wrote in her testimony for the February hearing.
But many opponents of the bill testified at the state senate and house hearings. They expressed concern about the environmental impact on neighbors of the lower setback standards and argued that industrial poultry production would hurt local farmers.
Donn Teske, president of the Kansas Farmers Union, wrote in his testimony for the March hearing that the KFU is “opposed to Kansas bribing industrial [a]g to come into the state like it appears they will be doing with the Tyson plant.”
Zack Pistora, of the Kansas Sierra Club, wrote in his testimony that “chicken barns continually exhaust ammonia, odor, and bacteria-laden manure dust, out their barns, exposing those neighbors downwind to a strong stench as well as health-harming particles and gases.” He said that the Sierra Club chapter determined that the bill’s setback threshold is “too low for a healthy distance” from neighbors.
Other opponents of the bill included the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project, and many residents of Tonganoxie, Lansing, Ottawa, and Sedgwick County. The bill ultimately passed in the senate by 29-10 and in the house by 84-37.
Tyson’s efforts to house its next processing operation in Kansas have been repeatedly thwarted by community organizing. In a high-profile campaign, the residents of Tonganoxie, Kansas, successfully staged a campaign against Tyson’s proposal to build in their town. Several months later, residents of Sedgwick County also successfully held off the plant. A proposal for a Tyson poultry farm was also recently defeated in Maryland.