Modern Plant Growth in Georgia State Informative News Article 9-10-21
Athens, GA–– In the year 1980, Georgia state legislators enacted a “right-to-farm” law. These right-to-farm laws passed by the legislature were aimed at minimizing the state’s loss of agricultural and forest land resources across Georgia. These legislators did anticipate the outcome to be favorable at first, however, soon after the enactment of the law and enforcement of it thereafter, results were not achieved as expected. This new “right-to-farm” law made the state work backward, resulting in a 30% loss in overall farming operations in the state and the loss of 32% of the overall farmland in Georgia.
This law has seen criticism from numerous farmers across the State of Georgia, owing to the overall revenue loss for 82% of Georgia farmers. This law does not focus on the improvement of agriculture, but rather the legality of liability for agricultural field operators against public nuisance lawsuits, or individuals affected by the operations of the agricultural field operators. This law was said to pander to agricultural giants in Georgia, receiving ample lobbying when first introduced in the legislature from said giants. Amendments to the law have also been aggregated to the law (or there have been attempts at doing so) in prior years. In 1988, 8 years after the original passage of the law, an amendment was added to the law further extending protection for “agricultural operations.” However, when this law did come to Georgia courts, results were not seen. 16 years after the passage of the amendment in 2004, a case was brought before Georgia courts defining “agricultural operations” for farmers and agricultural producers. The case established eligibility requirements for the law’s “agricultural operations” prerequisite and ruled that the agricultural operations must be a main source of income, not being one for the plaintiffs in the 2004 case. This further complicated the premises of the law and soon led to numerous lawsuits relating to the law, which further narrowed the scope of the law’s applicability in legal circumstances. This law led to the loss of farmland and forest resources for Georgia farmers due to the failure of the law to do what it was intended to do, protect and incentivize agricultural producers. It, contrary to its purpose, did the opposite. Those same producers, farmers, etcetera were hurt by the law after attempting to reap their rightful benefits for the law in court, hurting the legislature’s intentions numerous times after their law was legally interpreted by state courts.
Why did this happen? It is in actuality very clear, even for non-legal experts. The legislature failed to correctly detail and write the law taking real examples into account, thus leading to courts ruling on badly written legislation, these mistakes by the legislature led to a huge loss in the agricultural industry. These continuous mistakes caused by the legislature’s law and failure to currently amend said law have led farmers to continue experiencing the bad fruits of the law. Large agricultural operations, however, have remained adamant in keeping the law as is, being protected by the statutes in the law quite well. It’s essentially a clash between small-business and large-business owners and their respective officials. Georgia has fallen behind on the production of various products as a result of land losses and agricultural disputes, prolonging the issue will likely hurt the Georgian agricultural industry if not resolved soon. At worst, Georgia could lose billions in revenue if badly written laws continue to be implemented in the future. The losses in agriculture will likely lead to losses for the state in the future if it’s not fixed. If the legislature continues to mismanage the agricultural power it has, then eventually that agricultural power will simply deteriorate to a state of permanent decline. Fixing the problem now can help save the industry in the future, if not already lost.