Right-to-farm laws

The laws are aimed to minimize the threat to normal farming practices from nuisance litigation and prohibitive state and local government regulation.

They are intended to bolster the legitimacy of agricultural concerns, defend farmers against undue outside interference, and minimize or resolve public and private land use conflicts.

In a broader sense the notion originally referred to relief from all kinds of undue interference, usually involving legal interpretations focused on nuisance issues such as noise, odors, environmental, visual, farm technology, etc.

A public nuisance impairs the health, safety, morals, and comfort of the general community without necessarily harming particular property rights in any way.

Government officials may intervene and enact such laws for resource preservation or municipal management purposes, but states and their respective localities are usually left to their own devices.

The concern was that as farmland was converted to suburban developments, the new residents would bring lawsuits against the pre-existing farms complaining about agricultural noise, dust, and other nuisances.

[10] These diverse actors result in a high degree of variability in terms of defining what is protected under respective right to farm laws.