Arkansas Times
Legislature signs off on rule that bans hog farms near the Buffalo but weakens public notice rules elsewhere
by Phillip PowellJune 20, 2025 12:50 pm
A state legislative committee gave final approval to a moratorium on permits for industrial hog farms in the Buffalo River watershed during a Friday meeting.
The new regulation, which was one of several changes approved by the Arkansas Legislative Council with no debate on Friday, may also make it harder for the public to know about proposed hog farms in other parts of the state by loosening public notice requirements for new permit applications.
State policymakers, farming groups and environmentalists have argued for years over whether to ban industrial hog farms, known as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), in the land surrounding the Buffalo River.* The Buffalo River’s watershed has long been protected by a temporary hog farm permit moratorium implemented by the Arkansas Division of Environmental Quality (ADEQ), but it became a subject of controversy in 2013 after C&H Hog Farm set up in the watershed using a different type of permit. C&H has since closed down.
One of the permits that an industrial hog farm needs to operate is called a liquid animal waste permit, because of the immense amount of animal waste the operations produce. That permit is now provided by the state Department of Agriculture instead of ADEQ because of a law passed by legislators in 2023.
After permitting authority moved to the Department of Agriculture, the state had to implement new rules, which set off a new debate over whether the moratorium in the Buffalo River watershed should be kept in place and made permanent.
That debate culminated in a fight this year between Gov. Sarah Sanders and Republican legislators over a bill that would have threatened the Buffalo moratorium. The bill was ultimately watered down to include protections for the Buffalo.
Environmental groups, such as the Ozark Society, Buffalo River Watershed Alliance, and the Sierra Club, have been pushing for a permanent moratorium on industrial hog farms near the Buffalo River for years. But agriculture industry groups, like the Arkansas Farm Bureau and the Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association, criticized such restrictions as government overreach into private landowners’ ability to use their land how they wish and violating the “right to farm.”
The decision by the Arkansas Legislative Council appears to put the debate over the Buffalo River to bed for the foreseeable future, even while it opens up new questions about the future permitting of industrial hog farms elsewhere in the state.
As the Arkansas Times reported last year, environmentalists are concerned that the new rule does not require the Department of Agriculture to adequately notify the public when an industrial farm permit is being applied for. They fear the lack of a public database and lack of public notification of new permit applications may lead to a proliferation of new industrial farms across the state.
Under the new regulation, the Department of Agriculture only has to put notice of new permit applications on their website, rather than posting notice in a local newspaper and informing various local leaders of the proposal. Public hearings on permit applications will no longer be mandatory.
Swine CAFOs are known to pollute the air and water near them. Discharging large amounts of animal waste from the operations can oversaturate rivers and other bodies of water with phosphorus, nitrogen and chemicals, damaging ecosystems and potentially impacting human health.
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