DRC Field Organizer Sam Wagner

BISMARCK, N.D. (DRC) – Dakota Resource Council (DRC) will be holding screenings of the Movie Right to Harm And discussing the new livestock law packages that will be put into effect this year in North Dakota.

The first presentation will be on Tuesday, May 23rd in Jamestown at the Reiland Fine Arts Center on the University of Jamestown campus and on Thursday, May 25th at the Barnes County Museum in downtown Valley City (both presentation will start at 7pm.) DRC will also be holding a discussion on how the Anti Corporate farming law will be changed along with a package of livestock bills that passed in the 2023 North Dakota Legislative session.

DRC spokesman Sam Wagner said Right to Harm is an exposé on the public health impact of factory farming across the United States, told through the eyes of residents in five rural communities. When pushed to their limit, these disenfranchised citizens band together to demand justice from their legislators.

He said the Filmmakers Matt Wechsler and Annie Speicher skillfully weave together five stories that span eight states and features the event’s panelist and agricultural economist John Ikerd, who abandoned industry beliefs after a 14-year career as a livestock marketing specialist. After the farm crisis of the 1980s he realized, “The farmers who were in the biggest trouble, were the ones doing the things we so-called experts were telling them to do.” Right to Harm discusses “Right to Farm” laws and their effects on clean air and water of their neighboring communities, while examining the political issues that stand in the way of nationwide reform.

Wagner said DRC wants to spread the message that every community is unique, but many aspects of their encounters with CAFOs are much the same. Communities are being denied their constitutional right to the peaceful enjoyment of their property through a failure of government to protect their basic human right to live in a clean and healthful environment. Rather than accepting its responsibility to protect the constitutional rights of people, our government has granted CAFOs an economic right to pollute the air and water with mountains of animal manure and to threaten the health and quality of life of their neighbors. Other industries that create similar quantities of potentially toxic chemical and biological wastes are regulated as “industry,” not as craftsmen or shopkeepers.

DRC will take some time after the movie to explain how recent law changes will affect your county and what you can do to say no to these operations moving into your neighborhood.