GOLDEN CITY, Mo. — Darvin Bentlage pitches hay to his cattle most every day.

On Wednesday, at Jefferson City, he was pitching something different — his take on legislation that he believes will restrict small farmers seeking damages from corporate farming operations.

Bentlage seeks stronger oversight of concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, which house thousands of pigs or chickens in a single building. He took to the Capitol to talk about House Bill 209, sponsored by Rep. Casey Guernsey, R-Bethany, and Senate Bill 187, sponsored by Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah.

“If either of these bills pass, the last protection a family farmer has against these corporate farms will be lost,’’ said Bentlage. “Missouri will be wide open to CAFOs. They will be able to go wherever they want to go and do whatever they want to do.’’

Both legislators represent districts in northwest Missouri where hog CAFOs are operated by Smithfield Foods or its subsidiary, Premium Standard Farms.

The bills, which have passed in their respective chambers, would restrict the rights of citizens to seek compensation for damages caused by CAFOs. If the bills become law, a CAFO that is successfully sued by a neighbor or others over harm they have suffered would only have to pay the “fair market value’’ of any devaluation of their property. CAFOs could not face any other damages.

Sen. Lager and Rep. Guernsey, in telephone interviews, said the legislation is needed to protect corporate farms, and some family farms, from “nuisance” lawsuits that they claim have cost companies millions of dollars. Their fear, they say, is that big agricultural corporations that are doing business in Missouri will leave because their profit margins will be higher in adjoining states where the filing of multiple nuisance lawsuits are not permitted.

Local lawsuit

In recent years, Premium Standard Farms and other hog operations have been successfully sued for millions of dollars by Charlie Speer, a Kansas City lawyer. Speer said he typically represents established farmers who claim their quality of life has been damaged by the air and water emissions from CAFOs that have set up nearby.

Speer is currently representing Bentlage and 15 other plaintiffs — all residents of Barton County — in a lawsuit against hog growers associated with two companies, Synergy and Kenoma, and the companies themselves.

The property owners are alleging that odors stemming from the hog CAFOs have deprived them of their ability to enjoy their homes and have caused “substantial damage” to their quality of life. The lawsuit is to be heard late next month before a jury at Clinton in Henry County.

The hog growers and companies are represented by Eldon McAfee, Snyergy’s attorney, who said he has found the company “to be conscientious about environmental compliance and respecting the rights of neighbors.”

Lager said, “Out-of-state trial lawyers are suing family farmers that have insurance. They always sue them on temporary nuisance. Missouri is one of the only states that has agricultural operations as a temporary nuisance. That means they can sue them, wait a year or two, and sue them again.’’

The ability to file an unlimited number of nuisance lawsuits, he said, makes it difficult for hog producers to get insurance. He said Premium Standard Farms has 225 to 250 such lawsuits pending against it now.

Cash cows

Lager concedes that hogs stink and that property owners affected by the odor have a right to sue “but only for the fair market value of their property.’’ By being able to file multiple nuisance suits, the affected property owner can win more than twice the fair market value of his property. The hog farm, he said, becomes “a perpetual cash cow’’ for the plaintiff.

Such lawsuits cost hog companies an additional $4 a head to produce when compared with other states where the lawsuits are not so frequent, he said.

The hog companies provide 3,000 jobs and a $50 million payroll in northwest Missouri, he said. The companies also pay local crop farmers a premium for the corn they produce to feed the hogs.

“These farms have a tremendous economic impact on that area, but they can’t keep taking these lawsuits. They have said they are leaving and the communities are in an uproar about that,’’ he said.

Lager, last month, faced some blow-back from 100 or so angry constituents at a town hall meeting in Savannah where a 9,500-head hog CAFO is planned two miles outside of the town. They said his bill would create private rights of condemnation for hog corporations.

Guernsey said, “By not defining what a permanent nuisance is, as all of our surrounding states have done, it has opened a door for trial attorneys to target agriculture in Missouri with temporary nuisance lawsuits. We want to close that loophole.’’

City juries?

Both Guernsey and Lager also said the large suits that Speer has won have been in Jackson County. In 2007, a jury unanimously awarded $6.5 million to a group of plaintiffs in one instance. In 2010, another jury unanimously awarded $11 million. A third case was settled out of court in Cedar County for $1.1 million. The jury cases, the legislators said, were decided by city dwellers.

Said Guernsey: “A jury is supposed to determine what happens in their community. The juries that are deciding these cases are not in the community that gets to decide the issue. The plaintiffs know they would lose if they were to go before a rural jury. That’s why they are removed to Jackson County.

“Suburban people don’t come close to understanding the complex issues of farming. They are the ones who are deciding to give $11 million to Charlie Speer.’’

Wrong guess

Speer, however, said last week: “Smithfield guessed wrong in its litigation strategy. They brought in some fancy lawyers from back East from a Richmond (Va.) law firm and spent about $10 million on their case and lost bad.

“We had to prove to the juries that these companies can abate the odor nuisance by using what I call ‘no tech, low tech or high tech’ approaches. The theory is that the odor can be abated, but the companies are not choosing to spend the money or do the work.

“If you can abate it, you should. Instead, they blow it off. That means your neighbor can sue you again until you figure it out. You want people to be good neighbors. That’s what these jury verdicts were about.”

Speer said the residents of Richland Township in Barton County could have a strong hand to play because the residents there voted by an 81 percent margin that they did not want hog CAFOs in their communities. He said a jury, whether it’s in a rural or suburban area, will relate to that. (A judge threw out that vote because of a legal challenge by the hog companies.)

Bentlage said, “These cases are being judged by a jury of our peers. They are losing. There’s a good reason why they’re losing these cases. The people who run these farms don’t live there, but they want pigs to be our neighbors — 24/7, 365 days a year.’’

While in Jefferson City, Bentlage said, “I touched base with five or six representatives and senators. I visited 25 different offices and voiced our views to their legislative liaisons. I gave them the points they are not hearing from the corporate farm lobbyists who are there every day of the week.

“I told them that Missouri has the weakest CAFO rules in the nation and that the DNR (Missouri Department of Natural Resources) is so weakened it has no funding to do enforcement. I told them that if a farmer like me can’t sue for nuisance, Missouri will be wide open to CAFOs.’’

The bills are opposed by the Missouri Farmers Union and the Missouri Rural Crisis Center. They are supported by the Missouri Farm Bureau.

Tim Gibbons, with the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, said, “The bills limit the liability of these operations so much that they will be able to put them right next to your house. These lawsuits are an incentive for these corporate operations to attempt to be good neighbors. These bills will take away the incentive to be good neighbors.

“It’s straight on a property rights issue. To limit the protection of traditional family farmers against out-of-state agribusiness corporations is immoral.’’

Leslie Holloway, spokeswoman for the Missouri Farm Bureau, said, “We are supporting those bills because farmers and ranchers are facing the increasing threat of nuisance litigation. Out-of-state attorneys are finding it’s lucrative to sue the same operation more than once, generating substantial court awards.’’

Holloway said the legislation is narrow in that it does not limit CAFO operators from being sued for health or environmental damages. She said it addresses the difference between a temporary and a permanent nuisance.

“These lawsuits started with hog operations, but now these lawsuits are being filed against other operations that are not as large,’’ she said.

The Missouri Farm Bureau provides insurance to farming operations and has paid claims in connection with the nuisance lawsuits that have been filed. Holloway said the bills could “theoretically reduce’’ future damages faced by the Missouri Farm Bureau.

CAFO expansions

Between Jan. 1, 2009, and March 1, 2011, the water-protection division of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources issued 18 permits. Four of those were for new CAFOs; the rest were expansions.

Leading the list was McDonald County, with two new chicken CAFOs and four expansions. The projects will house a total of 1,016,000 broilers.

Next on the list was Newton County with one new chicken CAFO and three expansions. The projects will house 798,000 broilers.

In Barry County, two expansions added 486,000 broilers.

The six remaining projects were for new swine operations and expansions in Knox, Scotland, Chariton and Audrain counties in the northern and northwestern parts of Missouri.

Money trail

State Rep. Casey Guernsey, R-Bethany, and state Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah, received thousands of dollars each in campaign contributions from Smithfield Foods in advance of the 2010 elections, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission.