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This entry was published on 2014-09-22
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SECTION 3
Declaration of policy and purposes
Agriculture & Markets (AGM) CHAPTER 69, ARTICLE 1
§ 3. Declaration of policy and purposes. The agricultural industry is
basic to the life of our state. It vitally concerns and affects the
welfare, health, economic well-being and productive and industrial
capabilities of all our people. It is the policy and duty of the state
to promote, foster, and encourage the agricultural industry, with proper
standards of living for those engaged therein; to design and establish
long-range programs for its stabilization and profitable operation; to
increase through education, research, regulation, and scientific means,
the quantity, quality, and efficiency of its production; to improve its
marketing system; to encourage adequate and skilled assistance for
agricultural enterprises; to maintain at fair prices uncontrolled by
speculation the instrumentalities and products of agriculture; to remove
unnecessary or unfair costs and obstacles in the transportation,
storage, processing, distribution, marketing, and sale of agricultural
products; to prevent frauds in the traffic therein; to promote an
expanded demand for the state's agricultural products and the
intelligent uses thereof by consumers as pure and wholesome food; to
protect the public health and to eliminate the evils of
under-nourishment; to encourage the selection and consumption of food
according to sound dietary and nutritional principles; to improve our
citizens' overall health and to combat the increasing incidence of adult
and childhood obesity; and to make our people conscious of the bond of
mutual self-interest between our urban and our rural populations.

Accordingly, all laws enacted concerning the agricultural industry and
its allied subjects, whether included in this chapter or not, are to be
deemed an exercise of the police power of the state and a discharge of
its obligations for the promotion of the general welfare through
state-wide laws and regulations, local initiative and government,
cooperative action between groups and localities, home-rule measures,
individual enterprise, civic consciousness, and appropriate coordination
with the federal government and as between educational research
institutions within the state.

Such laws and all governmental measures adopted pursuant thereto
should receive a liberal interpretation and application in furtherance
of the aforesaid policy and purposes.