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WHEREAS, the Right to Farm Act (Act) provides significant protections to farmers from unreasonable municipal and county regulations, and from unwarranted and nuisance complaints from neighbors and others who may object to generally accepted farming practices; and

WHEREAS, to implement the protections of the Act, agriculture management practices (AMPs) approved by the SADC are needed to provide the basis for evaluating a farming practice to determine whether a farm operation is using generally accepted practices; and

WHEREAS, the agricultural community is supportive of this process and looks forward to the eventual development and adoption of AMPs for all of those activities that need such protection by providing a baseline standard of acceptable agricultural practices and which, because they involve readily quantifiable or identifiable standards, are susceptible to “one size” or “one size range” fits all solutions; and

WHEREAS, a proposed agri-tourism AMP which was recently distributed for review has generated significant discussion and comment which contends that the extensive detail and compliance requirements in the proposal may unintentionally do more harm than good; and

WHEREAS, such detail may create opportunities for persons claiming to have been injured on farms to find myriad reasons to claim that the farming operations are at fault or liable for failure to conform with the detailed provisions of the AMP, and aggressive municipal zoning officers may be empowered to cite farm operations based on the extensive detail included in the AMP; and

WHEREAS, neither of the aforementioned situations would help to achieve the objective of providing Right to Farm protections for agri-tourism; and

WHEREAS, “Agri-tourism” encompasses an exceptionally broad and varied range of activities from wine tasting to hayrides to cornmazes, etc. and it may not be practical to develop a single AMP to address all of these activities; and

WHEREAS, while it is appropriate for the SADC to provide a framework for rigorous review of all activities, including agri-tourism, which merit Right-to-Farm protection, the extensive detail of the proposed Agri-tourism AMP could inadvertently deprive legitimate agri-tourism operations of the protections of the Act; and

WHEREAS, the above-mentioned concerns have been voiced by the Warren County Agriculture Development Board and other interested parties whose comments should be given full consideration by the SADC; and

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the delegates of the 91st State Agricultural Convention assembled in Atlantic City, New Jersey on February 8, 2006 request the SADC to reconsider the proposed agri-tourism agricultural management practice and develop a revised draft for review by the agricultural community.