{"id":34492,"date":"2022-04-14T08:08:08","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T12:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=34492"},"modified":"2022-04-14T08:08:11","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T12:08:11","slug":"the-freedom-to-farm-act-is-now-the-law-in-georgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/?p=34492","title":{"rendered":"The Freedom to Farm Act is now the law in Georgia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Gov. <a href=\"\/tag\/Brian-Kemp\">Brian Kemp<\/a> traveled to the South Georgia Farm Belt Wednesday to sign three agricultural bills, including legislation making it harder to file nuisance lawsuits against farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The General Assembly passed the Freedom to Farm Act earlier this month, mostly along party lines, after minority Democrats argued it offers less protection to farmers than the current state law governing nuisance suits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bill gives neighbors bothered by bad smells, dust or noise emanating from a nearby farm two years to file a nuisance suit. Once that statute of limitations expired, any farm operating legally will be protected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"\/2022\/02\/07\/both-kemp-and-perdue-claim-their-free-speech-is-at-risk-in-fundraising-lawsuit\/\" title=\"Both Kemp and Perdue claim their free speech is at risk in fundraising lawsuit\">Kemp<\/a> said protecting farming is more important than ever with war raging in Ukraine, Europe\u2019s breadbasket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis legislation increases and clearly defines protection for both farmers and property owners while still addressing bad actors,\u201d the governor said during a ceremony at the farm of House Agriculture Committee Chairman Robert Dickey, R-Musella, the bill\u2019s chief sponsor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The measure\u2019s opponents said a law passed during the 1980s protects existing farmers indefinitely from nuisances that occur after a new farm begins operating nearby. But under the new <a href=\"\/2022\/01\/01\/here-are-the-new-laws-that-went-into-effect-in-georgia-january-1\/\" title=\"Here are the new laws that went into effect in Georgia January 1\">law<\/a>, those existing farms are only protected for two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Freedom to Farm Act was endorsed by the Georgia Farm Bureau, the Georgia Agribusiness Council, the Georgia Poultry Federation and the Georgia Forestry Association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kemp also signed legislation expanding <a href=\"\/2022\/03\/02\/five-chefs-earn-georgia-grown-distinction\/\" title=\"Five chefs earn Georgia Grown distinction\">Georgia\u2019s elementary agricultural education program and providing Georgia food banks access to grants through the state\u2019s Georgia Grown<\/a> Farm to Food Bank program.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n[mailerlite_form form_id=3]\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gov. Brian Kemp traveled to the South Georgia Farm Belt Wednesday to sign three agricultural bills, including legislation making it harder to file nuisance lawsuits against farmers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[8484,10938],"class_list":["post-34492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-brian-kemp","tag-freedom-to-farm","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thegeorgiasun.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}