Howard County, IN Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

Howard County Code § 97.03, adopted by Ord. 2025 BCCO-13 on April 21, 2025, declares abandoned vehicles, garbage and junk to be public nuisances enforceable by the county's Compliance Official, but subsection (J)(3) lists five categories the chapter does not reach. Two exemptions track Indiana's right-to-farm framework directly: agricultural and industrial operations described in I.C. 32-30-6-9, and forestry operations described in I.C. 32-30-6-11. Indiana Code 32-30-6 is the state's agricultural nuisance statute, which generally shields an established agricultural or forestry operation from nuisance suits once it has run for more than a year without a substantial change, and Howard County's own ordinance text builds that same shield into its local nuisance chapter rather than leaving it to be litigated case by case.

A fourth exemption reaches further: real property on which agricultural crops, including hay and pasture, are cultivated, as described in I.C. 36-7-10.1-3(a), sits outside the chapter's reach even where the cultivation itself is not an established 'operation.' A separate exemption removes destruction of detrimental plants under I.C. 15-16-8, and a final one exempts county municipal corporations, governmental units, departments and school corporations from being cited under this chapter. Because these exemptions sit inside the chapter's own applicability clause rather than a cross-reference to a separate ordinance, a farm operator facing a nuisance complaint about equipment, debris or vegetation tied to a qualifying agricultural or forestry use can point directly to § 97.03(J)(3) to show the county's own code places the activity outside the Compliance Official's jurisdiction.