Protecting farming, not just the land

 

by Lou Sessinger, Intelligencer, September 9, 2007

 

The odds are pretty good that most of us in Bucks and Montgomery counties are living in homes that are situated on land that not too long ago was a farm field.

 

And many of us like where we live and hope that at least some of the area's once predominantly rural character will remain undeveloped.

We've been willing to pay for that hope.

 

In November, Bucks County voters will decide whether the county should borrow $87 million to fund a second open-space preservation program. Approval would cost the average county household $10 to $31 a year over 20 years.

 

Voters in 1997 approved a $59 million bond referendum for open space. As of July 2006, the Bucks County Open Space Program has completed 257 projects totaling 12,030 acres.

 

Much of the money is devoted to farmland preservation.

 

Along those same lines, officials in rural Haycock in Upper Bucks are doing their part to preserve farms in their municipality.

The township and 28 property owners have created a 1,029-acre area where agriculture is encouraged and protected.

 

The so-called agricultural security area places the 28 properties in line to be protected from development under the county preservation program.

Farmers in the security area also are granted an extra layer of protection from any “nuisance laws” that might at some time in the future be aimed at hampering the operation of their farms.

 

Although I can't remember a specific case around here, I've heard of cases elsewhere in which suburban and agricultural cultures have clashed.

 

What usually happens is people move into a new, pricey housing development in the country to escape urban and suburban sprawl, then soon end up declaring war on their farmer neighbors, who were there long before the suburbanites arrived.

 

The newcomers complain about farmers driving tractors, balers, harvesters and other equipment in their fields at night or early in the morning. They don't like the unfamiliar odor of manure spread on fields to enrich the soil. Tilling might kick up some dust. The proximity of livestock makes them nervous.

 

They don't like these features of everyday rural life. They deem them nuisances that degrade the quality of their lives and their right to enjoy their properties.

 

So they try to pressure their local government to enact laws against these “farming nuisances” or try to bring suit against the farmers themselves.

 

You have to wonder why these kinds of people moved to the country in the first place if all they really wanted to do was make the country just like the places they fled.

 

Maybe the reason I haven't heard about cases like these around here is due to the fact that Pennsylvania has had a so-called Right to Farm Law for decades.

 

The law states: “It is the declared policy of the Commonwealth to conserve and protect and encourage the development and improvement of its agricultural land for the production of food and other agricultural products. When nonagricultural land uses extend into agricultural areas, agricultural operations often become the subject of nuisance suits and ordinances. As a result, agricultural operations are sometimes forced to cease operations. Many others are discouraged from making investments in farm improvements.

It is the purpose of this act to reduce the loss to the Commonwealth of its agricultural resources by limiting the circumstances under which agricultural resources may be the subject matter of nuisance suits and ordinances.”

 

Pennsylvania's Right to Farm law isn't an absolute protection against nuisance suits. Farmers may still be sued for some nuisance activities, according to one interpretation of it, “but the RTF law is a defense if the agricultural operation has been operating lawfully without a complaint for one year or more prior to the time when the operation is claimed to be a nuisance, or the agricultural operation has adopted and is operating in compliance with an approved nutrient management plan.”

 

So in other words, if a neighboring farm is polluting your well, you might have a legitimate case. But if you merely don't like the sound of tractors or the smell of manure, you probably don't.

 

The state law already offers some protections to its valued farmers.

The folks in Haycock are just taking an extra step to protect their farmers just in case things change somewhere down the road.

 

Article's URL: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/137-09092007-1404704.html