Q. What is the Anti-Corporate Farming Ordinance?

The Anti-Corporate Farming Ordinance is an Ordinance intended to protect family farms and the natural environment by prohibiting agribusiness corporations from owning farmland or engaging in farming within a Township. As of April, 2002, the Ordinance had been adopted unanimously by ten Township governments in Bedford, Fulton, Cumberland, Bradford, and Indiana Counties. It is currently under review by at least twelve other Townships in four other Counties.

Q. Why Does the Ordinance Focus on Corporations?

The corporatization of farming within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has adversely impacted Pennsylvania’s farming families several ways. First, increased corporate ownership of farms and farmland places agribusiness corporations in direct economic competition with family farms. When farm prices are driven down by the mass production of corporate farms, family farmers are forced to go into debt or sell their farms. This has contributed to the massive loss of 300,000 farmers in the United States since 1979. Second, corporate farms are more likely to adversely impact a community or neighborhood because corporations are limited liability entities, and recovering damages from them is more difficult than recovering damages from a neighboring landowner. In addition, as an absentee owner, corporations have less reason to respect communities and more reason to cause environmental contamination. Communities around Pennsylvania have learned the hard way that corporate farmers do not make good neighbors.

Q. Aren’t There Easier Ways to Ensure Protection of Wells and Stop Potential Pollution from Corporate Farms?

No. Unfortunately, the Nutrient Management Act (which regulates manure management and storage activities) contained an express preemption clause that prevents Township governments from regulating manure handling, storage, and management. In addition, in May of 2000, the State legislature adopted Senate Bill 300 (SB300) which now makes it difficult for Township governments to separately zone for corporate farms. Thus, all areas zoned for traditional agricultural activities must allow corporate-owned and operated animal factories. Precisely because most environmental and economic damage is more apt to be caused by corporate-owned industrial style agricultural facilities, the Southampton Ordinance focuses on the core of the problem. Far from being an abstract or roundabout way to deal with the potential for well and groundwater contamination, the Ordinance ensures that only family farms or family farm corporations will operate within the Township. It thus provides more blanket protection for residents than individual, case-by-case, or “spot-fire” regulatory approaches to protecting water supplies and the environment.

Q. Have Anti-Corporate Farming Laws Been Adopted by Other States?

Yes. Statewide anti-corporate farming laws are currently on the books in nine Midwestern States, which collectively produce over 30% of the United State’s agricultural output. Although these statutes and constitutional amendments vary by State, they usually have several elements in common. Anti-corporate farming laws were originally adopted in Oklahoma in 1907, and most recently adopted by referendum in South Dakota in 1998. The South Dakota referendum, upon which the Southampton Ordinance was modeled, passed by over 60% of the farming population.

Q. Have those Laws Been Successful in Protecting the Family Farm?

Yes. In those States which have adopted the strictest anti-corporate farming statutes, smaller size farms have rebounded from a decade of decline. In addition, data from those States shows that the average acreage per farm has dropped, showing a movement towards smaller farms and away from industrial corporate agricultural production.

Q. Why Should Pennsylvania Citizens be Concerned About Corporate Farming?

There have been several horror stories over the past two years concerning large, corporate hog and poultry factory farms in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Maryland. These large confinement facilities raise thousands and tens of thousands of hogs and chickens in large barns. The hogs and chickens produce manure in large quantities which is then stored in manure lagoons or other storage facilities. Several years ago, the Pennsylvania legislature adopted the Nutrient Management Act, which was intended to regulate these facilities. However, communities across the State have complained that the Act is too lenient, and that the County Conservation Districts have relinquished enforcement of the Act. Preventing corporate ownership of these animal factories is essential to the prevention of future problems with these facilities. In April of 2002, a large manure spill in Fulton County sent thousands of gallons of liquid manure into a tributary of Brush Creek. The facility was controlled by an agribusiness corporation. This occurrence will become common as agribusiness corporations increasingly exercise control over farms in the Commonwealth. In addition, a recent study completed by the Franklin County Coalition revealed that over 80% of the Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO’s) in Franklin County are owned by either out-of-County or out-of-State absentee corporations. Expecting absentee corporations, run by Boards of Directors hundreds and thousands of miles away from the facility, to be good neighbors to Franklin Countians, is an untenable and dangerous proposition.

Q. Is the Anti-Corporate Farming Ordinance Constitutional?

Yes. The language used in the anti-corporate farming Ordinance was borrowed almost entirely from the South Dakota anti-corporate farming law that was passed via referendum in 1998. Anti-corporate farming statutes and referenda have been taken to court numerous times over the past decade by farming corporations. These challenges have been brought in State Supreme Courts, as well as federal courts. The United States Supreme Court has upheld the laws against a constitutional challenge in 1945, and has allowed a lower court ruling to stand in 1991, which upheld the constitutionality and legality of the laws. The basic thrust of much of the reasoning of the courts relied on the minimal judicial review of the legislative action taken to adopt the statutes. Under that review, the courts have held that the corporation’s legal structure - encompassing limited liability and allowing absentee ownership of farms - provided the legal foundation for the passage of the statutes. The same legal standard would be employed by Pennsylvania Courts faced with a challenge to the Ordinance since federal constitutional standards would be employed to determine the constitutionality of the Ordinance.