NeilTheCop
Member
None of that says he "wasn't" farming the fields for two decades before you purchased the property. He could have been farming without a permit, he could have be farming it for somebody else, or even squatting.
Is this an adverse possession action?
That made me smile because what I imagined was a line of stealth tractors slipping into the field in the dead of night to perform some clandestine plowing

The actual case is one of private nuisance and the farmer is trying to use the right to farm act as a defense. One of the exclusions of the NM act is that I would have had to move to the nuisance for the farmer to use the act. Simply put, I was there first. The judge has already agreed to this and granted my preliminary injunction.
NMSA 47-9-3
D. No cause of action based upon nuisance may be brought by a person whose claim arose following the purchase, lease, rental, or occupancy of property proximate to a previously established agricultural operation or agricultural facility, except when such previously established agricultural operation or agricultural facility has substantially changed in the nature and scope of its operations.
Had he been farming without a permit or squatting it would be even better for me. From the same statute;
"except that the provisions of this section shall not apply whenever an agricultural operation or agricultural facility is operated negligently or illegally such that the operation or facility is a nuisance."