Berkeley County, SC Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

Section 6.4.3 of the Berkeley County Code of Ordinances is titled "Agricultural nuisance disclaimer" and sits inside Article 6.4, the Flex1 agricultural zoning district. It puts anyone owning, residing on, or otherwise using land in the county's agricultural districts on notice that the property exists for commercial agricultural and forestry production and that they "may be subjected to inconvenience, discomfort, and the possibility of injury to property and health arising from normal and accepted agricultural practices and operations." The section specifically lists noise, odors, dust, the operation of machinery "of any kind, including aircraft," the storage and disposal of manure, the application of fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, clear cutting, and prescribed burning as protected activities that a resident "should be prepared to accept." This functions as the county's local right-to-farm protection: because it is written directly into the zoning code for the district rather than left to a separate nuisance ordinance, it applies automatically to anyone who buys or builds in the Flex1 district (established under § 6.4.1 to preserve agricultural activity as the primary use of rural, unincorporated land) without requiring a farmer to seek a permit or variance to keep operating as before.

The disclaimer does not create new obligations for the farm operator; instead it forecloses nuisance complaints grounded in the ordinary sights, sounds and smells of row-crop, livestock and timber operations that the district was zoned to protect in the first place under § 6.4.1's stated goal of shielding agricultural land "from incompatible land uses and development."