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

Rather than adopting a standalone right-to-farm ordinance, Georgetown County built its farm protection directly into the animal-noise clause of its noise control section, Code § 13.8-2(c)(10). That clause otherwise makes it a violation to possess or harbor an animal or bird that frequently or continually howls, barks, meows or squawks across a property line or inside a noise-sensitive zone, but the county expressly carves out 'bona fide agricultural operations' from that prohibition, citing South Carolina's Right to Farm Act, S.C. Code 1976 § 46-45-60, and tying the definition of a qualifying operation to § 46-45-20 of the same act.

The exemption only protects agricultural activities 'conducted in compliance with state law and regulations,' so an operation would need to meet the state statute's own definition of a bona fide farm to rely on the county's carve-out; the county code does not restate that definition itself, leaving it to the state act. The same subsection separately exempts public zoos from the animal-noise rule. Because this exemption is written into the county's noise ordinance rather than a freestanding chapter, it reaches only noise complaints under Code § 13.8-2; a farm-nuisance claim based on odor, dust, runoff or another theory would be evaluated separately under whatever provision governs that complaint. The protection applies only in unincorporated Georgetown County, where agricultural land remains outside the City of Georgetown, Pawleys Island and Andrews town limits.