With less than seven weeks to go before the Aug. 5 primary election, some are defining the battle lines over the "right to farm" as corporate agriculture versus the family farmer.
"For the last 20 years, we have not found that the family farmers have gotten anything that really gave them much protection (in the Legislature)," Marion County farmer Lowell Schachtsiek told a rally of approximately 75 people Thursday at the Capitol. "It was always the other side that passed the rules."
The rally attracted people opposed to the proposed Amendment 1 that will be on the August ballot, that lawmakers passed last year.
Former state Sen. Wes Shoemyer, D-Clarence, said the amendment came after lawmakers also allowed foreign corporations to own a small percentage of Missouri farmland.
But after Smithfield Foods was bought by a Chinese company, he said, "The Chinese now own 27 percent of the nation's pork production."
Carolyn Amperand of Columbia, a member of the Sierra Club, said that organization opposes the amendment "because it would establish a legal environment where agribusiness - or, really, any farm or ranching business - could choose to sue in the courts, with a very increased likelihood of success to overturn our existing, or future, laws and regulations."
She noted the state currently has a lawsuit against Tyson Foods for a chemical spill last month in Southwest Missouri, which killed 100,000 fish and caused problems for Monett's wastewater treatment plant.
"Because of existing law - which, in this case, was the Missouri Clean Water law - the state has the legal standing to sue Tyson Foods for compensation for damage to the stream, and to fine them $10,000 a day for the violations and the damage to the stream," Amperand said.
However, she said, the Sierra Club and others believe passing the amendment would allow an agribusiness to overturn a law such as the Missouri Clean Water law, because they could claim it interferes with their right to farm.
Ami Freeburg, communications and outreach manager for the group Cultivate Kansas City, told the rally that the proposed amendment "puts limits on the democratic process that are not needed and that, in fact, would harm both farmers and communities."
Larry Leip, a Jefferson City attorney spoke on behalf of the Missouri Association for Social Welfare, saying local governments need to be able to protect communities with regulations.
"Under this amendment, a corporation could claim a constitutional right to build a confined animal feeding operation in a suburban community," he said. "Even if protective regulations were, ultimately, upheld in court, local governments would face huge court costs. State agencies need to be able to write regulations that protect our health, safety, food purity and other essentials."
Minutes after the rally ended, the group Missouri Farmers Care - which includes the Missouri Farm Bureau and a number of producer groups as well as agribusiness companies and associations - issued a news release noting the Humane Society of the United States is a major backer of the opposition group.
Shoemyer told reporters: "They are involved with this effort to oppose this (amendment)."
However, Missouri Farmers Care said, "HSUS is once again at work in Missouri using a campaign based on scare tactics and misinformation."
Shoemyer, founder and treasurer of the group, Missouri's Food For America, said some farmers and farmers' groups support the "Right to Farm" amendment because "it's got a nice title."
He asked reporters, "How do you explain 10,000 farmers, and tens of thousands of farmers who oppose it, because they also understand that just giving blanket immunity to foreign corporations that will now be deemed a "farmer'? They already have these rights in statutes."
Shoemyer and others argue the amendment, if passed, would prevent people from seeking changes or regulations to protect people's health and safety.
"Our legislators need to be able to make laws that protect the environment, limit the ownership of land by foreign corporations and ensure public safety," Leip told the rally. "With this amendment in the Constitution, these laws could be declared invalid, because they impose a restriction on the right to farm."
In a news release, the amendment's supporters said the amendment "is supported by family farmers, and the associations that are led by family farmers, because it protects all of Missouri agriculture."