Farm Privacy Protection

The new farm privacy protection bill about to be signed into law in Iowa makes it an aggravated misdemeanor on first offense to obtain access to a farm or ranch by false pretenses such as hiding your true identify with a fraudulent name and resume, or lying about why you want to work on a certain farm or ranch; do it a second time, it becomes a class D felony. There are similar bills pending in at least ten other states. While most farmers and ranchers are encouraged and uplifted by this bill, animal rights activists are crying foul and insisting they will go right on trespassing, and committing fraud to gain access to farms. What animal activists don’t seem to understand is that no one in animal agriculture condones the mistreatment of animals. In fact, farmers and ranchers, and those that represent them, are often the first to criticize and report the misconduct of those rare few. There’s no doubt this new law and those likely to follow in other states will be challenged, and the legal scrutiny at that time for both sides will more than likely be intense. The vast majority of farmers and ranchers have nothing to fear from such scrutiny. Can the animal rights activists say the same?