The proposed right-to-farm amendment to Oklahoma’s constitution “was a little bit of a gamble and the gamble didn’t pay off” in the view of agribusiness professor Derrell Peel of Oklahoma State University, says AgWeb. Voters rejected the amendment by a 3-to-2 margin in a rebuff of the farm and ranch sector last week.
Mike Spradling, former president of the Oklahoma Farm Bureau, said the amendment was an attempt “to take an offensive move against measures that could threaten our way of life.” Spradling and rancher Watson Langford said the amendment overstepped the limits of what voters would accept. The target was supposed to be animal-rights activists and anti-GMO campaigners. Opponents said it would exempt farming from state oversight by barring new laws on agriculture unless there was a compelling reason for them.
“Right-to-farm was an attempt to win the war in one fell swoop and now we’ll go into a lot of smaller battles instead,” Peel told AgWeb.