The following editorial appeared Thursday in the Bellingham Herald.

A recent court ruling spells danger for farmers and farming in our state.

A state appeals court panel has ruled that a cherry orchard in Yakima County is a “nuisance” to its residential neighbors because it shoots guns and propane cannons to scare birds away from the fruit.

Neighbors complained, saying the noise made it impossible for residents to “peacefully enjoy their homes.”

In their ruling, the three-judge panel said state and Yakima County “right-to-farm” laws don’t protect farmers from liability for nuisances associated with their farm.

Right-to-farm laws have previously protected farmers as long as they used generally accepted farming practice – as the shooting was. This ruling throws that long-standing legal practice into doubt.

Beyond the specifics of the Yakima case, all residents should be alarmed about the ruling and what it might mean in Whatcom County and across Washington.

In our county, as in other counties, rapid residential growth is encroaching into lands that once were exclusively the home of working farms.

Using many different zoning rules and exceptions, landowners and developers have carved out small subdivisions throughout our county in areas surrounded by farms.

Let’s be honest: Farming can be dirty, noisy, smelly work. Even farmers would tell you so. That’s why the right-to-farm rules are so vitally important. If someone moves in near a working dairy it’s possible, maybe even likely, that occasionally they will be bothered by the smell of cow manure. Does that open the farmer up to a lawsuit as a “nuisance” under this new court standard? Only time will tell.

In Whatcom County, farming contributes nearly $300 million annually to the local economy, not including the hundreds of ancillary businesses that make their money supplying the farms with equipment and goods. By some economist estimates, farming accounts for about 15 percent of the entire Whatcom County economy.

Almost as important, farming preserves open space and a rural lifestyle, saving us from becoming a big, ugly subdivision from Canada to the Skagit County line.

What our community needs to do is work harder, and with more expediency, to get residential zoning, even minimal residential zoning, away from our farms. There are simply too many homes being built in rural and agricultural areas in Whatcom County today. If it isn’t stopped, all of our farms are in danger.

This new court ruling is hard to fathom. But it now stands, at least until the appeals court reconsiders or the state Supreme Court overturns it.

We shouldn’t wait idly by to see if court decisions make it easier for residential development to make farming obsolete. There is too much at stake. Action to protect farms from further encroachment needs to happen now.