to liability in tort. Compare G.L.c. 143, §710 (regarding the conduct, responsibilities and duties of skiers and ski resorts). G.L.c. 128, §2D, represents a clear determination by the Massachusetts Legislature to restrict the liability of landowners engaged in equine activities just as forty-four other states have done. See Equine Activity Statutes: Part Four of an Update, CAUTION:HORSES (Am.Ass’n. for Horsemanship Safely, Fentress, Tex.) Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring 2000). G.L.c. 128, §2D was enacted in 1992 as an emergency measure designed to “immediately preserve equine agriculture in the commonwealth.” St. 1992, c. 212, §1. The court has previously given the term “agriculture,” “an expansive construction.” Town of Sturbridge v. McDowell, 35 Mass.App.Ct. 924, 925 (Mass.App.Ct. 1993) (<HOLDING>). See also Steege v. Board of Appeals of Stow,
holding that the customer of a chevron dealer could not maintain an action against the franchisor on an apparent agency theory when the customer knew that the station was independently owned and operated holding that a railroad operated and owned by the federal government was immune from antitrust liability holding that an engineer whose only qualifications were sales experience in the field of automatic and agricultural equipment and teaching high school automobile repair could testify in a products liability action involving tractors holding determination of reasonableness of pursuit requires a continuing assessment of need and risk holding that the breeding raising and training of dogs owned on the land is an agricultural pursuit under glc 40a 3