The Effects of Urbanization on the Siting and Expansion of Livestock Facilities in Illinois Under Proposed Legislation: A Spatial Analysis

Across the country, setback restrictions that require livestock facilities to be located away from neighboring residences and populated areas are making the siting or expansion of operations a growing challenge for livestock producers. In this study, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology was utilized to examine the impact of increasingly restrictive legislation on the availability of land for the siting or expansion of confined livestock operations. Georeferenced data from two southern Illinois counties were analyzed to quantify the effects of a proposed amendment to the Illinois Livestock Management Facilities Act that would increase the setback distances required between confined livestock operations and populated areas. The results of this study demonstrate that increases in setback distances can greatly reduce the availability of rural land for the siting of livestock facilities, even in rural counties with low population densities. In Franklin County, Illinois, a proposed 3.2-km setback distance would remove 70% of rural land from availability for livestock facilities siting. This loss would be experienced even though only 4.2% of the county is urbanized. Results also suggest that the land-use impacts from siting legislation may be reduced when urban development is clustered rather than scattered across the landscape.