The Senate has given final approval to a bill that amends North Dakota's "anti-corporate farming law."
The bill creates an exemption for corporations to be allowed to run dairy and swine operations in the state. Park River Senator Joe Miller says the House sent the bill back to the Senate with several amendments that make the bill "tighter." He says the amendments define an animal feeding operation as having at least 50 head of cattle, or 500 hogs. The amendments also allow for the state health department to be involved in the zoning of the operations, and allows the agriculture commissioner to adopt rules to make sure the operations are legitimate. Miller says the amended bill will be a good move for North Dakota.
"This is an important bill. It's going to hopefully stave off that problem that we've seen, that decline in our dairy and swine industry. We can't promise it will work, but I am hopeful it will work. At this point we need to do something and this is the main obstacle I see that we have in North Dakota as to why we have this decline. And I really believe that by advancing this bill and signing it into law we're going to usher in a new age of agriculture and we're going to see an increase in the dairy and swine and livestock industries in North Dakota. And that's going to help every farmer in this state."
The bill was passed on a vote of 29 to 16. It will now go to Governor Dalrymple for his signature. The North Dakota Farmers Union has asked Dalrymple to veto it.
