Animal rights activists have turned to county fights after gaining no traction in the Legislature for banning concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Last year former-A Adrin Nazarian authored a bill to ban new CAFOs and expansions on existing facilities. But the Assembly Agriculture Committee, led by now-Speaker Robert Rivas, refused to take up the measure. Upset with the decision, an activist from Direct Action Everywhere glued her hand to a table during a committee hearing.
Now the group has banded together with other Bay Area activists to introduce a ballot initiative to ban “factory farms” in Sonoma County—home to many of the state’s organic dairies. The group is urging residents to “take the power back” by directly passing laws.
“If our legislators won’t act to solve the problem, we will,” the groups proclaim on their website.
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Unlike Nazarian’s bill, the ballot proposal would also ban existing medium and large CAFOs, providing a three-year phase-out period. It would task the county agriculture commissioner with implementing the ordinance. Violators would face fines of up to $10,000.
The Sonoma County Farm Bureau is blasting the initiative as outside interests pushing their opinions on local residents and how they should live. The California Farm Bureau is warning it could have national implications.
The groups have until March to collect about 20,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the November 2024 ballot.
