Confined animal feeding operations and state-based right to farm laws: Managing twenty-first century agriculture with a twentieth century framework in the case of Wisconsin, United States

Abstract

O ver the last several decades, large, industrial livestock farms have increasingly replaced small, traditional family farms, thereby changing normative agricultural practices and increasing the quantity and concentration of externalities associated with farming (dust, odor, manure runoff, chemical drift, and soil and groundwater contamination). Limited federal regulations exist to protect nearby ecosystems, wildlife, and people from soil, air, and water pollution from industrial farms. Furthermore, many statewide right to farm laws continue to protect industrial farms from private and public nuisance claims associated with environmental degradation. Right to farm laws were first adopted by state legislatures in the 1980s in response to the expansion of peri-urban development and the increased conflict between new suburban residents and existing farmers in the United States (Lapping and Leutwiler 1987). New suburban residents increasingly filed private and public nuisance claims against nearby farmers due to encroachment of agricultural dust, noise, smell, and chemical drift (Lisansky and Clark 1987). The high court costs and desirable real estate offers from developers pressured farmers to discontinue farming, and lawmakers feared the long-term consequences resulting from diminishing agricultural operations (Lisansky and Clark 1987). While every US state adopted their own version of a right to farm law in the…