Benton County, AR Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

The county's "Right to Farm" language sits inside Chapter IV's Development Pattern standards, the same section the Planning Board applies when it reviews commercial, industrial and conditional-use site plans in the unincorporated area. It reads: "Right to Farm. Any industrial and commercial development(s) that could limit the viability of existing agricultural uses is/are discouraged" (§4.2(3)). The ordinance immediately balances that against the reverse case in the next item, "Right to Operate," which discourages residential development that would limit the viability of existing commercial and industrial operations (§4.2(4)), and against "Right to Residential Viability," which requires that commercial and industrial development "not negatively impact existing residential development or such impacts must be mitigated" (§4.2(5)).

None of the three creates an automatic denial or a private right to sue; they're compatibility criteria the Planning Board is directed to weigh, alongside the Board's general authority to condition site plan approvals and record those conditions in a Decision Letter (§2.1.A.ii). A farm owner worried about an adjoining industrial proposal has standing to raise the Right to Farm language at the Planning Board's public hearing, but the ordinance treats it as one discretionary factor in site-plan review rather than a standalone permit-denial trigger.