A regulatory sandbox for agriculture
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Hi there,
One of the best ways the state government can spur innovation is to remove regulations and let the market do its job.
In last week’s Locke Notes, we discussed how a regulatory sandbox (which relaxes regulations on novel products and services for a certain time period) can help North Carolinian innovation come to life.
Fortunately, the good news is that North Carolina already has a regulatory sandbox… kind of.
The state’s current regulatory sandbox only covers financial and insurance products. To open up North Carolina’s economy, the state government should expand its regulatory sandbox to cover many more types of products and services.
Chief among those is agriculture, one of North Carolina’s most crucial industries.
North Carolina’s Agricultural Woes
Agriculture in North Carolina faces many challenges: feeding a growing population, protecting farmland threatened by development, and coping with outdated, unhelpful regulations.
State regulations are especially hard on the hog industry. So far, the government has enforced extensive and unfair regulations to curb the spread of waste. These rules placed a moratorium on starting new hog farms or expanding old ones.
As a result, farmers rely on cost-effective but dirty pit lagoon systems to dispose of waste, while more expensive but potentially cleaner innovations ([link removed]) like closed-loop systems or waste-to-energy technologies are neglected.
Meanwhile, carbon emissions regulations hurt farmers ([link removed]) and impose burdensome costs on consumers buying groceries.
North Carolinian farmers do not need more restrictions. Instead, they deserve the opportunity to try new practices.
A Solution: A Sandbox for Agriculture
Reducing regulations on farmers ([link removed]) allows them to experiment with a diversity of approaches. These can result in more environmentally friendly practices, increased success for farmers, and savings for consumers at the grocery store.
Harsh regulations that require carbon-emission compliance to an undue extent or ban new farms won’t lead to a greener, more prosperous North Carolina. In fact, waiving those regulations as part of a regulatory sandbox is what can result in an environmentally safer North Carolina with lower food costs for all.
Esse Quam Videri,
Brooke Medina
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