SAN ANTONIO – Russell Boening stated farming has been at the leading edge of his whole existence.
“I grew up on this farm,” Boening stated. “We’ve done it our entire lives and we’ve been fortunate. We’ve been successful enough through the tough times to still be here.”
Boening is a farmer in Wilson County. He additionally serves as the president of the Texas Farm Bureau. He stated Proposition 1, which handed in the Texas election Tuesday, protects households and farms like his.
“Prop 1 is giving farmers and ranchers the constitutional protection that we need as we go forward to provide food, fiber and fuel for this state and this country,” Boening stated. “We need some protections for agriculture.”
Proposition 1, or HJR 126, proposes a constitutional modification to offer protection to an individual’s proper to interact in the usually authorised farm, ranch, trees manufacturing, horticulture or flora and fauna control practices. This should occur on belongings that the particular person owns or rentals.
The modification would no longer impact the legislature or state companies the proper to keep an eye on practices if they’re deemed unsafe for public well being, there may be risk to animals or vegetation, or there’s a want to maintain or preserve the herbal sources of the state underneath the Texas Constitution.
Texas already has a right-to-farm statute in the regulation.
Boening, an recommend for the proposition, stated this offers further fortify to meals safety in a state this is briefly rising.
“There’s still going to be protections,” Boening stated. “Prop 1 protects that right in the future that we’ll be able to feed ourselves and be able to take care of our consumers.”
But no longer everyone seems to be in fortify of this proposition.
Judith McGeary, govt director for Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, stated her workforce takes fear in the coverage of small farms via this proposition.
“It takes what is a real problem, which is overregulation of small farms on without very good reasons and uses it to create a really blank check so that cities and communities cannot address some very real problems that occur with the mega operations,” McGeary stated.
The alliance is a countrywide group based totally in Texas that bolsters fortify for unbiased farms.
“There are already situations happening where neighbors, including small farmer neighbors, are being harmed by large operations, manure, lagoons or overuse of toxic chemicals,” McGeary stated. “It prevents community and even our state legislature from addressing these issues down the line.”
This is only one of 13 constitutional amendments that handed in Tuesday’s election. One proposition didn’t pass.
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