Clark County, IN Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Rather than a standalone right-to-farm ordinance, Clark County builds its protection for agricultural land into the purpose clause of its zoning code. 21(A) explains that the A1 Agricultural District exists to protect rural areas from urban encroachment until such areas are adaptable to orderly urban expansion, and it caps residential development in the district to houses on large lots that leave room for private septic and well systems, rather than dense subdivisions that would crowd out farm operations. The same subsection states it is the intent of the chapter to allow the continuation of existing agricultural operations and protect the use and value of both agricultural and non-agricultural land within the jurisdiction of the Plan Commission, language that functions as the county's policy basis for keeping farmland zoned for farming rather than rezoning it piecemeal as development approaches.

21(B), which puts agricultural uses, including crop raising and livestock, ahead of single-family dwellings as the district's primary purpose, and in its large minimum lot sizes, 40,000 square feet for a home on a septic system, which discourage subdividing farmland into small residential parcels. C. 36-7-4-608 through -610, with a public hearing and mailed notice to abutting owners, giving existing farm operations formal notice before their agricultural buffer changes.