Stearns County, MN Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Stearns County's Land Use and Zoning Ordinance 439 gives farmers two layers of protection. Section 7.2, titled Agricultural Operations, states that agricultural operations in the county's Agricultural Districts conducted "in compliance with the terms of this Ordinance and other applicable state and federal regulations shall not be deemed a violation of this Ordinance regardless of the fact that there may have been changes in the surrounding character of the area." That is the county's right-to-farm backstop: a farm lawful when established stays lawful even if new rural residential neighbors later object to normal farm noise, dust or odor.

That protection operates inside a three-tier agricultural zoning structure in Section 9, ranked by parcel size (A-160, A-80, A-40 Districts). The A-160 District, the largest-lot tier, exists under Section 9.1.1 "to maintain and conserve agricultural lands which are historically valuable for crop and animal production, pastureland and natural habitat for wildlife" and "highly restricts residential encroachment by restricting the location and density of residential dwellings to one per one hundred sixty (160) acres." Inside A-160, agricultural operations, single-family homes, essential utility services, solar farms and public parks are permitted by right under Section 9.1.2, while animal feedlots, agricultural employee housing, bed-and-breakfast inns, cemeteries and accessory farm buildings are provisional uses under Section 9.1.3 requiring a provisional-use permit reviewed against the general development standards in Sections 6 and 7. Companion districts A-80 and A-40 apply the same permitted/provisional-use framework at smaller minimum acreages under Sections 9.2 and 9.3.