By Charles Lardner
Municipal
laws restricting the ability of farmers to control their businesses are
a growing problem in Pennsylvania, state lawmakers say.
More
than 60 municipalities in 50 counties have passed ordinances regulating
farming practices and the size of farms. In some cases, those laws
prevent farmers from adjusting to changes in the marketplace or
addressing family needs.
State
lawmakers are once again poised to pass legislation giving farmers a
measure of protection from such ordinances, and this time, the
legislation – House Bill 1646, the “Plan for the Protection of
Agriculture, Communities and the Rural Environment,” known as ACRE –
has Gov. Ed Rendell’s support.
Last
year, legislators passed H.B. 1222, which would have given farmers
affordable and timely legal recourse against municipalities that pass
ordinances prohibiting certain farming practices. The governor vetoed
the bill because, while he supports the right of farmers to challenge
unfair ordinances, he wanted the legislation to address the concerns of
local governments about proper manure management and excessive nutrient
runoff from farms, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo said.
ACRE,
which was introduced Monday and already has 63 cosponsors, including
Lancaster County Reps. Dave Hickernell, Gib C. Armstrong, Tom Creighton
and Scott Boyd, was developed in conjunction with the state Department
of Agriculture and addresses those concerns, Ardo said.
“(Rendell)
said in his veto message of 1222 that he fully supported the goals of
the original legislation, but he felt it failed to address the
nutrient-management issues, and more than anything, that’s what
motivated his veto,” Ardo said. “The governor feels that (ACRE) is more
comprehensive and more progressive than 1222. It covers area that were
previously left to chance.”
Hickernell,
an Elizabethtown Republican who sits on the House agriculture
committee, and state Sen. Noah Wenger, a Stevens Republican and vice
chair of the Senate agriculture committee, say they would have
preferred Rendell to have signed H.B. 1222.
Hickernell
and Wenger say ordinances restricting farming aren’t yet a problem in
Lancaster County, but they are a problem in other parts of the state
that once were very rural and are now becoming increasingly populated,
as Lancaster County is.
When
the growing desire for homes in a country setting began pushing housing
developments up against agriculture operations, residents started to
complain about the smells and noise associated with farming, prompting
municipal officials to pass restrictive ordinances, the lawmakers say.
Many
of the ordinances that gave rise to ACRE, impact small family farms
that don’t generate enough money to comply with new regulations.
Secretary
of Agriculture Dennis Wolff said there are documented cases of such
ordinances preventing farmers from expanding their operations in order
to bring children into the business.
Hickernell said he believes ACRE could prevent those scenarios.
“We’ve
got to make sure we protect the ability of the farmer to do what he
does best, which is to provide food for those of us who don’t farm; and
to allow him to expand, obviously within reason, so he can stay on the
farm,” Hickernell said. “I’ve often heard people say that the best way
to preserve the farmer, and that’s what this is all about.”
The
only recourse farmers now have in dealing with oppressive ordinances,
Wenger and Hickernell said, is to challenge them in court, which is a
long and expensive process. Seeing such lawsuits through to their
conclusion could put farmers out of business and endanger farmland,
they said.
ACRE
would create an Office of Ordinance Review within the State
Conservation Commission and a separate five-member Agricultural Review
Board with the power to hear challenges to municipal ordinances.
The process would work as follows:
- A farmer would file an ordinance dispute with the Office of Ordinance Review.
- The office would examine the ordinance and could strike down the law
if it determines the municipality has exceeded it authority.
- A municipality could appeal the office’s decision to the to the Agricultural Review Board.
- Appeals of board decisions would go to Commonwealth Court, and the
attorney general would enforce the court’s final decision.
The
Agricultural Review Board would consist of the secretaries of
agriculture, environmental protection and community and economic
development, plus two members appointed by the governor and confirmed
by the Senate, one of whom would have to be a dean or faculty member of
a college of agriculture at a state-related university.
Environmental
groups including Penn Future and Penn Environment oppose ACRE for the
same reasons the opposed H.B. 1222. They say it prevents municipalities
from banning “factory farms.”
Penn
Future, which supported Rendell’s directive to the Agriculture
Department to review the problems with H.B. 1222 and recommend a
compromise, blasted ACRE as soon as it was unveiled, saying it gives
large agribusinesses with deep pockets a backdoor veto over ordinances
and zoning restrictions the don’t like.
David
Masur of Penn Environment echoed Penn Future’s concerns. Also, Masur
said, if family farms like those in Lancaster County are to survive,
they must be protected from factory farms. The Agricultural Review
Board, which likely would be dominated by those favoring large
corporate “mega-farms,” won’t be inclined to consider family farms in
their decisions, Masur said.
“It
will put Big Brother and more bureaucracy on the backs of local
communities that want to have a say on what kind of agriculture they
want to promote in their communities, such as family farms versus
agribusiness,” Masur said.
But
Hickernell says the issue has been well-vetted and researched and the
charge that this is a move to protect and bolster huge agribusiness is
false.
Actually,
he said, ACRE enhances the state state laws controlling nutrients and
manure use on farms and includes 24 new regulations for commercial
animal-feeding operations.
As
a result, ACRE has bipartisan support, and the chances are good that
the bill will be vetoed out of the agriculture committee during it June
14 meeting, Hickernell said.
Whether it will be approved by the full House and moved to the Senate, however, is not as certain.
I wouldn’t want to speculate beyond the committee vote, but right now it looks pretty positive,” Hickernell said.
