Arkansas Times

Despite governor’s opposition, GOP lawmakers advance bill to loosen hog farming restrictions near Buffalo River

by Phillip Powell
April 7, 2025 9:08 pm

A bill by agriculture industry groups that threatens to undo the ban on industrial hog farming in the Buffalo National River watershed continues to progress through the Arkansas Legislature.

Senate Bill 290 passed the House Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic Development on Monday evening in a nailbiter vote after easily passing the Senate last week. Rep. Roger Lynch (R- Lonoke), the chair of the committee, had to cast the tiebreaking vote. The bill is sponsored by Sen. Blake Johnson (R- Corning) and Rep. DeAnn Vaught (R-Horatio), who are both active members of the Arkansas Farm Bureau.

Now the bill heads to a final vote in the House, even as conservation organizations warn that the bill will make it harder to protect the Buffalo from pollution.

They have an unexpected ally in the fight: Gov Sarah Sanders. Sanders has made tourism and “outdoor recreation” a priority, and the National Park Service says the Buffalo brings in over a million visitors annually to the area. But the committee passed the bill despite testimony from a string of Sanders administration officials urging a “no” vote, including Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward.

Farm industry groups like the Farm Bureau and Arkansas Cattlemen’s Association have been pushing the bill as securing the “right to farm.” Members of both organizations have expressed concern that it’s too easy for state agencies to place moratoriums on farm permits in the state’s watersheds .

“Permanent moratoriums or bans that could impact an entire economic sector, in this case agriculture, our state’s largest industry, should be left to the General Assembly,” Magen Allen, a board member of Arkansas Farm Bureau, said at the hearing. 

The bill would limit the ability of the state Department of Agriculture and the state Department of Energy and Environment to place a moratorium on farming in a watershed. To do so, state agencies would need to propose a rule that would require renewal every four years. Like most state agency rules, it would be subject to approval by the Legislature before going into effect.

But the law would also require the Legislature to reconsider current farming permit moratoriums within 90 days of the bill becoming law in January 2026. Those include bans in the watersheds of Lake Maumelle and the Buffalo River. Opponents of the bill fear that its passage could allow legislators to shoot down the moratorium on industrial hog farming on the Buffalo, which has been in place since 2014.

Hundreds of Arkansans have been emailing their legislators and traveling to the state Capitol to testify against the bill this session. Opponents of the bill are concerned about concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, being permitted near the Buffalo National River watershed. CAFOs can oversaturate waterways with excess nitrogen and phosphorus that can create harmful algae blooms, as well as other chemicals from farm runoff.

In the 2010s, a CAFO called C&H Hog Farm operated in the watershed before being bought out and shut down by the state government after a public pressure campaign against the farm. Currently, there aren’t any hog CAFOs permitted in the Buffalo National River watershed. 

Conservationists may not have much sway in the Legislature, but Gov. Sanders does. Three of her cabinet secretaries showed up Monday night to speak against the bill: Shane Khoury, with the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment; Shea Lewis, with the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism; and Wes Ward, with the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

“We have a unique resource in our Buffalo River. It is the first national river, recognized in 1972, and it is also an extraordinary resource of water and it deserves heightened protection,” Khoury said. “The reasons why we urge you to oppose Senate Bill 290 are fairly simple. First of all, there is an existing process already in place that gives the Legislature full review and approval authority over all rules and regulations. And second, the language that is written is overbroad and will create unintended consequences. And third, the purpose we believe is to eliminate the current moratoriums on the Buffalo River watershed and Lake Maumelle.”

Khoury said the new rules proposed by state regulators, like the moratorium currently in place, would apply only to large hog CAFOs, meaning those operating with 3,000 or more swine weighing less than 55 pounds or 750 or more swine weighing more than 55 pounds. The new rules would keep the ban in place indefinitely. He also said the current moratoriums were approved by the Legislature back in 2014.

Despite the governor’s appointees weighing in, Johnson’s bill won the day.

“Our law in Arkansas, our freedom of farming, is only if we don’t encroach on our neighbors, and that is the best protection you are guaranteed,” Blake Johnson said. “This moratorium is a moratorium that don’t allow for an agricultural producer to apply for a permit. That can be expanded into all bodies of water and all streams in the state. It’s limited right now, but this bill will protect it for the future.” He urged “a good vote for the agricultural producers of Arkansas.”

Several Republican representatives including Matthew Shepherd (R-El Dorado), Steve Unger (R-Tontitown), and Carlton Wing (R-North Little Rock) voted with Democrats against the bill.

The new fight over industrial farming in the Buffalo River watershed began last year when the state Department of Agriculture and state Department of Energy and Environment proposed two rules that would have made the CAFO moratorium permanent. The effort stalled last December, before the legislative session began. Those rules were drafted after a new law transferred permitting authority over large CAFOs to the Department of Agriculture, setting off a need for both agencies to update their rules.

An earlier version of the legislation from Johnson and Vaught stalled out for weeks in the Senate Agriculture committee. Then they filed a new version — SB 290 — which passed the Senate committee last week, and then the full Senate.

Opponents of the bill may have missed their best chance to stop it in the Senate committee. It advanced out of committee on a voice vote last week — but half of the members on that committee voted against it when it came up for a vote in the full Senate on April 3. 

Those senators are Sens. Jonathan Dismang (R-Searcy), Ben Gilmore (R-Crossett), Greg Leding (D-Fayetteville), and Jamie Scott (D-North Little Rock).