The other day I noticed a road sign, “Right to Farm Law.” In other words, “Yes, you will be slowed down by tractors and it may smell or be dusty, so RELAX, enjoy the beautiful scenery that our farms preserve and most of all – WE GROW YOUR FOOD! Yes, there will be some inconveniences – Hey, we are nourishing the soil, so the food we grow is packed with nutrition and flavor for YOU! So leave us alone and let us do what we do best, which is grow the food we all eat.”
I think it is so sad that our nation’s farmers, who are vanishing rapidly, are harassed for trying to make a living, which in turn feeds us. It wasn’t always a problem. There was a time when our nation had a high percentage of land in farming compared to the country’s population. In 1940, the population in the United States was 131,820,000 and we had 6,102,000 farms. In 2012, the population had almost tripled to 312,780,968 but farms are vanishing as quickly as our population grows with only 2,109,363 farms left to feed our bulging nation. Sure, we live in a global economy and can get and sell food all around the world. Nevertheless, wouldn’t it be more realistic to buy our food locally, or a least within 500 miles of where it was grown?
There are numerous reasons for the loss of our nation’s farmland. One interesting factor is that although we all need food, it is so damn hard to farm profitably. Nowadays, the land is more valuable as real estate than in production. As a result, more and more city people have migrated to rural areas to pursue their modern American dreams. They seek a peaceful place in the country, away from the noise and crime of cities. Many choose homes in areas that were once farmed thus still bordered by agricultural lands. Although, these individuals chose to move away from their urban lives, many failed to understand what the nature of farming was, often leading to conflict. Can you imagine how surprised these new transplants were to wake up one spring morning to roaring machinery, buzzing flies, and the stench of manure being sprayed on the fields? They were not happy and actually pursued legal means to prevent their neighbors, who perhaps have been farming the land for over five generations to stop.
The lawsuits put an added stress on our nation’s farmers, particularly the small family farms. Hey, farming is tough enough and then you have these transplants suing our farmers who can barely make ends meet. It’s ridiculous! As a result, in the 1970s, each state started to develop their own Right to Farm Laws but unfortunately, most were not passed until the 80s. Regardless, can you imagine how angry these suburbanites became when they learn that they could not do anything about their farming neighbors?
The Right to Farm Laws are not a free pass but they do give farmers a basic “right to farm” without the fear of lawsuits brought by offended neighbors. As one judge remarked while dismissing a lawsuit against a hog farmer, “pork production generates odors which cannot be prevented, and so long as the human race consumes pork, someone must tolerate the smell.” Before the Right to Farm Laws were enacted, courts shut down many farm operations, big and small because it was a nuisance to their neighbors. I am so glad those days are behind us.
We live on a road that is one mile long with less than 10 houses on it. We live on the “populated” side of Podunk; the other side has only three houses and one large farm. No surprise, we are surrounded by farms on all sides. This time of year, it becomes very evident with the spreading of fertilizer – a.k.a. manure. You can say the shit is flying around here. Sure the stench is horrible and we cannot open the window for an almost a week, but it is time limited. In my opinion, the benefits far outweigh the inconveniences and foul odors wafting over to our home.
What do you think? Please share and I will continue to share.
