Missouri farmer objects to state protections for concentrated animal feeding operations

A pair of Missouri bills would limit damages property owners can seek against large agricultural facilities, such as concentrated animal feeding operations. That goes too far, one Missouri farmer writes. "According to the wisdom of our elected leaders, if a CAFO damages a neighbor, damages are limited to the sale price of the property," Richard Oswald, president of the Missouri Farmers Union, writes for the Daily Yonder. "Wreck my home and all you have to do is hire an appraiser, get a price and buy me out." Both the state House of Representatives and Senate have passed similar bills, HB 209 and SB 187. The bills arose after 15 residents of northwest Missouri, Oswald's home area, were awarded $11 million in damages in a lawsuit last year against Premium Standard Farms, a CAFO subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, for property damage.

"Don’t get me wrong, I’m a farmer," Oswald writes. "I’ve had fertilizer of the livestock variety on my boots and I’m not allergic to it. It’s just that what’s going on here is an insult to responsible livestock producers wherever they are." He notes some CAFOs are well designed and maintained, but he claims the Missouri bills would take away the incentive to run a good CAFO. Oswald concludes with one question: "Now that Missouri has greased a path for Big Pig pollution that resembles corporate take-all power of eminent domain, and Missouri voters have lost a big slab of their property rights . . . How big can Big Pig in Missouri grow?" (Read more)