West Jordan, UT Right to Farm: Farm Nuisance Protection (2026)

' The ordinance defines 'active agricultural/ranch operations' to include, without limitation, 'sights, sounds, odors, and dust inherent to raising crops, livestock, and livestock products,' meaning a farm or ranch that predates the residential or commercial development around it cannot be forced to answer a nuisance complaint over ordinary, expected farm conditions like animal odor, equipment noise or field dust. The same subsection folds in a weed carve-out: 'included in this exemption are weeds growing in areas of cultivated farm properties which cannot be economically utilized for crop production,' relieving working farmland of the twelve-inch weed limit in section 5-3-1A9a for the parts of the property that farming does not economically justify clearing.

The protection is tied to continuity, not to zoning alone: it covers operations that have run without interruption since before the surrounding area changed to its current residential or commercial character, so a farm established after nearby development occurred, or one that lapsed and restarted, would not automatically qualify. Section 5-3-2C provides a related, narrower protection for active ditch banks used to irrigate such land.