By a 3-to-1 margin, North Dakotans refused to allow corporate hog and dairy farming, keeping a blanket ban on corporate ownership adopted in 1932 and intended to help small farmers. The statewide referendum overturned a law passed last year by the Republican-controlled Legislature to allow out-of-state corporations to own hog and dairy farms covering up to one square mile.
“We always believed the people of North Dakota would agree that the family farm structure is best for our state’s economy and our communities,” said president Mark Watne of the North Dakota Farmers Union, which led the campaign against corporate farms. “The results tonight are a strong message the people don’t want corporate farming in North Dakota.
The North Dakota Farm Bureau, the smaller of the two major farm groups in the state, supported the 2015 change in law and filed suit early this month in federal court to overturn the statewide ban altogether as discriminatory. “While other states around us have vibrant livestock industries as a result of having access to the tools associated with a corporate business model, why should North Dakotans be forced to operate at a disadvantage?” said Farm Bureau state president Daryl Lies in announcing the lawsuit.
Defenders of the statewide ban said it protects family-sized farms from the deep pockets of outside investors. Proponents of the exemption for hog and dairy farms said it would broaden the financing available to livestock producers and help them modernize.
A hotbed of populism in the early 1900s, North Dakota is the only state to own a flour mill. Based in Grand Fork, the North Dakota Mill and Elevator is one of the largest mills in the country. The state leads the nation in durum and spring wheat production and vies with Kansas as the No 1 wheat state.
With all of the precincts reporting, the Secretary of State’s office said nearly 76 percent of votes were against corporate hog and dairy farms. The vote was uniformly in favor of the ban, whether in urban or rural counties.
Nine states restrict corporate farming but most have some sort of exception for livestock producers, said Associated Press. The Farmers Union raised $1 million for the campaign to preserve the ban on corporate farms, said AP, as well as leading the petition drive for a referendum on the question.
North Dakota was the first state, in 2012, to add a “right to farm” to the state constitution. Missouri narrowly approved a similar amendment in 2014. Oklahoma has a “right to farm” amendment on the Nov. 8 ballot. Besides protecting the right to engage in farming and ranching practices, the Oklahoma amendment says the legislature cannot take away the right to employ agricultural technology and livestock production without a compelling interest.