Georgia governor signs bill protecting farms from suits filed by neighbors, environmental groups
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill Wednesday making it a lot easier for farms to get away with funking up the environment and forcing residents to live with noxious smells or polluted water.
HB 1150, titled “Freedom to Farm,” essentially limits the time in which a neighbor of a farm can sue to two years. Lawsuits could come in the form of noise or smell complaints, or any other problems caused by a farm, industrial processing plant, or slaughterhouse.
The bill amends a previous one that gave residents four years max to sue over issues related to a nearby farm.
The bill additionally blocks any non-neighbors, such as an environmental nonprofit organization, from suing a farm, as reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC).
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Critics of the bill include at least one farmer who said she had no issues with the previous laws.
“We want to be good stewards of the land. And for the most part, especially in Gordon County, that’s been happening,” Charlotte Swancy, a Gordon County farmer said during a hearing for the bill in February. “But in our county, there was a proposal of bringing in a 150 chicken house operation. And under the current bill, we still have protection to litigate against something like that.”
House Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee Chairman Robert Dickey III, one of the bill’s seven all-Republican sponsors, claimed during the hearing in February that the bill was “just trying to give farmers some protection to farm their land like they’ve always done it, when you have some neighbors who might move in and have a little different opinion.”
In a written statement to AJC, April Lipscomb, an attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center, explained why she thought the amended bill would hurt residents living near the farms.
“Under current law, residents who were there first can protect their property rights any time an agricultural nuisance occurs, even if the nuisance occurs 20 years after the agricultural facility began operating,” she wrote. “Under HB 1150, existing residents can only protect their property rights from nuisances created during the first two years of the facility’s operation. That is not a compromise; it’s an assault on property rights.”
Agriculture is Georgia’s leading industry, bringing in more than $74 billion to the state annually and leading the nation with its production of peanuts, eggs, and broilers (chickens), as well as cotton, pecans, blueberries, and more.
The bill was endorsed by the Georgia Farm Bureau, the Georgia Agribusiness Council, the Georgia Poultry Federation, and the Georgia Forestry Association, The Moultrie Observer reports.
Kemp used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to justify why signing this bill was so important.
“As the global marketplace continues to react to Russia’s unprovoked and unjust war in Ukraine—Europe’s breadbasket—the importance of the ag sector here in America, and especially here in Georgia, will only continue to grow. Our farming families are more important than ever, and that’s one of many reasons why it’s so crucial we protect their way of life.”