Cumberland County, NC Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

g requires that all final plats or deeds for subdivisions located within the designated Farmland Protection Area contain a disclosure notice warning buyers that the property or neighboring property may be subject to inconvenience, discomfort, and possible injury to property and health from normal and accepted farming and agricultural practices, expressly naming noise, odors, dust, machinery operation, manure storage and disposal, and the application of fertilizers, soil amendments, herbicides and pesticides. h defines the Farmland Protection Area itself as an area the Board of Commissioners has defined and adopted, shown on the county's Land Use Plan Map, covering the remainder of the county outside the Urban Services Area, for the purpose of protecting the agricultural industry, rural character, and farmland preservation.

The disclosure requirement traces to ordinances adopted October 25, 1983 and September 24, 1985 and was carried forward in the 1996 subdivision ordinance amendment. Because the notice must appear on the recorded plat or deed itself, it runs with the land: any later buyer researching title in the Farmland Protection Area is on record notice of the county's policy that ordinary farm operations there are not treated as an actionable nuisance simply for producing noise, odor, dust, or agrichemical drift.