Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation - Zoning Ordinances

Zoning Ordinances

State planning laws and local zoning ordinances represent the main policy tools for regulating land use. Many states have adopted legislation that specifically exempt CAFOs (and other agricultural entities) from zoning regulations. The promulgation of so-called "right to farm" statutes have provided, in some instances, a shield from liability for CAFOs (and other potential nuisances in agricultural). More specifically, the right-to-farm statutes seek to "limit the circumstances under which agricultural operations can be deemed nuisances."

The history of these agricultural exemptions dates back to the 1950s. Right-to-farm statutes expanded in the 1970s when state legislatures became increasingly sensitive to the loss of rural farmland to urban expansion. The statutes were enacted at a time when CAFOs and "modern confinement operations did not factor into legislator's perceptions of the beneficiaries of generosity" of such statutes. Forty-three (43) states now have some sort of statutory protection for farmers from nuisance. Some of these states (such as Iowa, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Tennessee, and Kansas) also provide specific protection to animal feeding operations (AFOs) and CAFOs. Right-to-farm statutes vary in form. Some states, for instance, require agricultural operation be located "within an acknowledged and approved agricultural district" in order to receive protection; other states do not.

Opponents of CAFOs have challenged right-to-farm statutes in court, and the constitutionality of such statutes is not entirely clear. The Iowa Supreme Court, for instance, struck down a right-to-farm statute as a "taking" (in violation of the 5th and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution) because the statute stripped neighboring landowners of property rights without compensation.