(Des Moines) On June 5th, both the Iowa House and Iowa Senate completed legislative consideration and passed Senate File 2413; the IDALS and Agriculture Protection Bill.
Iowa House District 21 Representative Tom Moore said because of constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic effect upon the Iowa General Assembly, this legislation was significantly pruned down to cover just infectious animal health regulatory considerations, a more specified and organized state effort to prevent and eradicate feral swine and new enhanced penalty food operation trespass provisions.
“The animal infectious disease code provisions changes seek to enable IDALS to better cope with potential foreign animal disease outbreaks (such as African Swine Fever, High Pathogenic Avian Influenzas, or Foot & Mouth diseases) that require immediate quarantine and eradication of exposed animals,” explained Moore.
These provisions will allow the department to take and dispose of diseased animals in an expeditious manner, including animals that may be abandoned by owners in such exigent circumstances, to prevent or control the transmission of infectious or contagious disease among any population or species of animals.
The bill also adds a new provision to the animal disease aspect of the legislation concerning destruction of feral swine which could be carriers and spreaders of a number of diseases that can by catastrophic to farm raised swine.
“This provision prohibits a person from releasing swine to become feral and legally authorize the ability of both private persons and units of government to immediately destroy feral swine on public or a private person’s own property,” said Moore.
The third aspect of the legislation creates a new Code section that establishes a new offense of ‘Food Operation Trespass’ which includes specified food animals, food animal processing and production premises and specifies enhanced penalties for such offenses.
“The legislation defined the trespass as occurring when a person enters upon or remains on property of a food operation without the consent of a person who has real or apparent authority to allow the person to enter or remain on the property,” stated Moore.
The provisions explicitly specifies when trespass has not occurred such as a person entering a right-of-way, if the person has not been notified or requested by posted signage or other means to abstain from entering onto the right-of-way or to vacate the right-of-way; a person having lawful authority to enter onto the property of the food operation, including but not limited to a federal, state, or local government official; a person who is given express permission by the owner of the food operation to enter onto or remain on the property of the food operation and a person employed by a food operation while acting in the course of employment.
