(1) The Director of Agriculture shall establish a process, including criteria and standards, to recognize and assist efforts of counties to maintain or expand their livestock sector. A county that meets the criteria may apply to the director to be designated a livestock friendly county. A county may remove itself from the process at any time. Such criteria and standards may include, but are not limited to, the following factors: Consideration of the diversity of activities currently underway or being initiated by counties; a formal expression of interest by a county board, by a duly enacted resolution following a public hearing, in developing the livestock production and processing sectors of such county’s economy; an assurance that such county intends to work with all other governmental jurisdictions within its boundaries in implementing livestock development within the county; flexible and individual treatment allowing each county to design its own development program according to its own timetable; and a commitment to compliance with the Livestock Waste Management Act.

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(2) The designation of any county or counties as a livestock friendly county shall not be an indication nor shall it suggest that any county that does not seek or obtain such a designation is not friendly to livestock production.

(3) In order to assist any county with information and technology, the Department of Agriculture shall establish a resource database to provide, upon written request of the county zoning authority or county board, information sources that may be useful to the county in evaluating and crafting livestock facility conditional use permits that meet the objectives of the county and the livestock producer applicant.

(4) Nothing in this section shall prohibit or prevent any county board from adopting a resolution that designates the county a livestock friendly county.