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Dear NonDoc editors,
Right to Farm (State Question 777) has nothing to with family farming or rights. It’s boilerplate legislation written by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to protect multi-national, large-scale animal factories from reasonable regulation and, ultimately, legal action by family farmers and other neighbors.
The question is: What problem does Right to Farm solve? Who wants to farm and can’t do it?
Nobody.
Right to Farm deregulates agribusiness and moves corporate farming beyond the reach of the law. Forever. Nothing would stop corporate factories from driving even more family farmers out of business with lower prices and turning them into serfs working their own land for the corporations rather than themselves.
If we’re not concerned about how the animals are mistreated in those monstrous concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) with 30,000 hogs or 100,000 chickens — or the hormones and antibiotics in CAFO meat — then we should worry about the destruction of water quality and quantity, property values, and the health of our families.
