HB1149

House Bill 1149 establishes state-level protections for the cultivation of vegetable gardens on private residential property in Arkansas. The bill defines a vegetable garden as a plot or elevated soil bed used to grow edible plants, flowers, or pollinator plants for personal consumption or noncommercial sharing. It explicitly prohibits counties, municipalities, and other political subdivisions from enacting laws or regulations that prevent property owners from maintaining such gardens. The legislation declares the development of sustainable vegetable and fruit cultivation to be an important interest of the state. Property owners are granted the right to cultivate these gardens on their own land or on the land of others with the owner's permission. The bill mandates that these activities must still comply with generally applicable local laws and zoning requirements, provided those requirements do not result in a total prohibition of the garden.