The Senate has passed a bill that would allow second cousins to join family farms as part of the state's corporate farming law.
Current law only allows parents, sons, daughters, stepchildren, grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and first cousins to join. Proponents of the bill say it's getting harder and harder to start a farm these days, and expanding the circle to include second cousins still "keeps it in the family." Republican Senator Terry Wanzek said he thinks opening it up to second cousins would not threaten family farms.
"What's happened is, it's only very wealthy individuals who can continue to farm and grow in size, and we're restricting these opportunities. I don't think second cousins are a threat to family farms. It offers a way or a means for younger people to get into agriculture; it's such a capital intensive business. I mean, anybody looking into establishing just a moderate size farm is going to have to invest millions to get it done. There's no way that I could - or a young person today, could start without somebody affiliated in the farming industry that's willing to bring them into the picture. It's almost impossible."
Senators who did not support the bill say this expansion is a "foot in the door" and once that door is open, it can't be closed. Democratic Senator Jim Dotzenrod spoke against the bill. He says voters in North Dakota don't support corporate farming, and won't likely support this expansion.
"It's my view that this is an expansion, and this will set a precedent here. If we approve this, we will be setting a precedent for future expansions of our family farm corporation law. And it will be hard in the future to turn those down. If we grant the expansion at this time, I think we'll find in the future, other attempts in the future to make it larger will be hard to turn down because we've set the precedent here that we're willing to expand it."
The Senate passed the bill on a vote of 35 to 11.