Collier County, FL Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

Collier's fertilizer ordinance (Ord. No. 2019-18, codified at ch. 54, art. II) regulates commercial and institutional applicators of lawn and landscape fertilizer to protect stormwater, canals and estuaries from nitrogen and phosphorus runoff. Sec. 54-32 bars applying phosphorus without a recent soil test, bars any nitrogen or phosphorus application during a declared Prohibited Application Period (active flood, tropical storm or hurricane watches/warnings, or 60% chance of two inches of rain in 24 hours) or to saturated soil, bars application within ten feet of any waterbody, and bars application to impervious surfaces or required native vegetated buffers.

Sec. 14, from every one of those restrictions, and separately exempts other properties with pastures used for grazing livestock that fall outside the Act's coverage. The same exemption section also carves out bona fide scientific research land, golf courses following the state's 2007 Golf Course BMPs, and specialized turf managers such as athletic-field groundskeepers who follow UF/IFAS fertilization guidance. Because the exemption is written directly into the local ordinance rather than merely restating state law, a Collier farm operator can point to Sec. 54-33(A) as the county's own recognition that the Right to Farm Act controls, without needing a county permit or soil-test paperwork that non-farm applicators must keep on hand.