Banning Corporate Farms - Southampton Township, PA
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The links below to the Anti-Corporate Farming model ordinance was drafted for Southampton Township, Pennsylvania by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Shippensburg, PA. The ordinance is modeled after the language of the constitutional amendments passed in Nebraska and South Dakota that ban corporate farms in those states. Similar laws have passed in Thompson Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania and Wells Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania. According to the Program on Corporations, Law and Democracy (POCLAD), as of late 2004, 78 Pennsylvania townships have passed laws banning corporate involvement in agriculture. Several townships have passed laws stripping corporations of constitutional protections and powers.
There are several exceptions to the ban: Family farm corporations, cooperatives and nonprofit corporations are exempted. Existing corporate farms are "grandfathered" under the ordinance.
The Fund also added a provision dealing with citizen suits - which enables any resident of the Township to sue for enforcement in the event that the Township does not pursue enforcement.
More Information:
- Full Text of Southampton, PA Anti-Corporate Farming Ordinance
- Southampton Township, PA Home Page
- Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund - has a FAQ on the Southampton Anti- Corporate Farming Ordinance
- Anti-Corporate Farming Laws Benefit Rural Communities - Friends of the Constitution, February 2002
The results of this analysis indicate that, in general, agriculture dependent counties in states with anti-corporate farming laws fared better (less families in poverty, lower unemployment and higher percentages of farms realizing cash gains) than agriculture dependent counties in states without such laws. - Anti-Corporate Farming Laws in the Heartland - the Law, History, and Facts on the Anti-Corporate Farming Laws in Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Minnesota Kansas, Missouri, and Iowa, by Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, 1997
- Corporate Agribusiness Research Project
- Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund
- Familyfarmer.org
- Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC)
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Comments
mass corporate farming is not good
Today and tomorrow there will be continuing debates on rather family or corporate farming is better although here and now I give my opinion. Now let’s examine the different features that family and corporate farming both offer. For example family farming starts with love and tenderness, corporate starts with money and mass production. Even though we live in a country that calls for mass production is that really what we need? Ask yourself this, would you rather have a steroid or mass fertilized peace of meat or fruit? Or would you rather have and all natural home grown peace of meat or fruit that you know doesn’t effect your children and or yourself
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