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Some 75 percent
of North Dakotans who went to the ballot box voted to repeal
Senate Bill 2351, according to preliminary results posted on a
state website.
The law, signed into law in March 2015 by Republican Governor
Jack Dalrymple, exempted dairy and swine production from the
state's Depression-era corporate farming prohibition.
The North Dakota Farmers Union and other groups that collected
signatures to put the referendum on the ballot said family
farmers cannot compete with large agricultural firms with no
ties to the communities where they operate.
"Thank you, North Dakota," the farmers union said on Twitter.
Supporters of the bill argued that dairy and pork operations are
on the decline in the state and cannot survive without
corporations that can finance expensive equipment and compete
regionally, according to the Yes for Dairies & Pork Producers
website.
Corporate and foreign control of U.S. farmland has been a
hot-button issue in several major agricultural states in recent
years as a multi-year commodities boom that began in 2007 has
attracted non-farm investors.
State laws prohibiting corporations and foreign entities from
owning U.S. farmland complicated a $4.7 billion acquisition in
2013 of U.S. pork producer Smithfield Foods by China's Shuanghui
International. The deal ultimately closed.
This February, a U.S. district judge issued an injunction
barring Nebraska officials from enforcing the state's ban on
farmland ownership by corporations.
The referendum was the only measure on the state's primary
ballot, which was dominated by a Republican fight for the
governor's office. In the Republican primary for governor, Doug
Burgum defeated North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem,
results on the state's election website showed.
North Dakota, with about 740,000 residents, has a heavily
agricultural economy, producing cereal grains and oilseeds.
It is one of nine states that have laws limiting corporate
farming, according to the National Agricultural Law Center. The
North Dakota law says farming or ranching companies must have no
more than 15 shareholders or members who must belong to the same
family, to a distance of first cousins.
(Reporting by Fiona Ortiz and Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by
Dan Grebler)
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