On Sept. 13, a recount confirmed the narrow passage of Missouri’s right-to-farm constitutional amendment in the August primary election. While the amendment's language is vague, opponents fear that it will be used to overturn local and state environmental regulations.

The new wave of state right-to-farm laws is meant to stop environmental regulation and animal rights activists and protect industrial-scale agriculture. Across the country, supporters of right-to-farm laws are demanding that there be no restrictions on fertilizer use or animal antibiotics — even when they are used solely for growth stimulation and create human health problems — and no limits on puppy mills or crowding and caging of farm animals. These laws threaten not only the environment but also the continuation of traditional and family farming.

Backed by Big Ag and tea party property rights absolutists, many of these laws are based on language drafted in the 1990s by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a conservative think tank that crafts pro-business bills and pushes their passage in state capitals across the country. With these new right-to-farm efforts, they aim to protect industrial farming and its expansion, including takeovers and transformation of traditional farms.

How do the laws work in practice? In August a pesticide plane mistakenly sprayed dozens of residents in Gold Beach, Oregon. The state imposed fines and suspended the pilot’s license after the pesticide applicator lied to state investigators about what and how it had sprayed. The people who suffered health and property damage say that’s not nearly enough. They filed a legal action to challenge the unconstitutionality of the right-to-farm law (PDF) so they can sue for damages.

Unfortunately, Missouri residents would not be able to even file such a suit. Framing the right to farm as a constitutional amendment makes it different from a regular state law — harder to change and far more powerful in its impact. Missouri and North Dakota are the only states with right-to-farm constitutional amendments.

North Dakota’s 2012 constitutional amendment reads, “No law shall be enacted which abridges the right of farmers and ranchers to employ agricultural technology, modern livestock production and ranching practices.” Neither the state legislature nor any North Dakota county board or zoning commission can pass any law that in any way restricts agricultural technology. That encompasses technology from battery cages for chickens to center point irrigation systems drawing scarce groundwater to aerial drones that monitor farm fields.