Dear Friends and Colleagues,
It is a privilege to share with you recent and upcoming activities at the National Agricultural Law Center. Great things are happening at the Center as we continue to expand our role as the nation's leading source of agricultural and food law research and information. I hope you enjoy the updates highlighted in this newsletter.
As you will read below, we're expanding our staffing, launching another new USDA partnership initiative and providing several continuing legal education programs on current agricultural and food law issues. We have significantly updated our website and will continue to do so over the next year. And, we have continued to attract significant new funding to engage in a diverse range of agricultural and food law research and information activities. Finally, we've continued enhancing The Ag & Food Law Blog, a long-standing partnership between the Center and the American Agricultural Law Association (AALA). Assisted by these improvements, the number of visitors utilizing our resources continues to grow by leaps and bounds.
Speaking of AALA, the Association's 34th Annual Conference will be held in Madison, Wisconsin Oct. 31 - Nov. 2. The AALA is an excellent organization for attorneys, students, and other professionals to be involved in. If you're not yet a member or want to learn more about the annual conference, visit the AALA website or contact the Executive Director Robert Achenbach.
Again, it's a great privilege to share Center developments with you, and I certainly hope you enjoy this newsletter. Other ways you can stay in contact with us include "liking" us on Facebook, following us on Twitter, and checking out The Ag & Food Law Blog that is updated throughout each day. And as always, we're continually available through email at nataglaw@uark.edu.
Best regards,
Center Director
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On October 10, from 12-1 (CDT)/1pm-2pm (EDT), the Center and the American Agricultural Law Association are co-sponsoring a webinar titled, Enforcing Animal Welfare Laws: Whose Job Is It Anyway? The focus of the program will be the role that private citizens may play in the enforcement of animal welfare laws at farms, homes, and businesses. This program has been approved for 60 minutes of Continuing Legal Education credit in Arkansas, and Center staff will gladly coordinate with any attorney seeking CLE approval in other states. For more information on this webinar, please click here.
The second webinar is scheduled for November 14th on the topic of Country of Origin Labeling (COOL). This webinar will begin with a synopsis of COOL, including its recent history and current status, and continue in point/counterpoint format for a discussion on where we will and should move in the future. The future policy discussion will feature J. Dudley Butler, former Administrator of the Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration (GIPSA) and currently with the Farm and Ranch Law Group; and John Dillard, an associate with Olsson Frank Weeda Terman Matz P.C. and author of the "Ag in the Courtroom" blog. Watch for further information about this webinar in the coming weeks!
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Website Redesign
Center staff recently completed a complete redesign of the Center website, to make it more user-friendly and easy to navigate. As part of the redesign, the homepage also highlights social media platforms in which the Center participates, including Twitter, Facebook and the Ag & Food Law Blog. It also includes an easy to access way for interested individuals to sign up for communications from the National Agricultural Law Center.
Another benefit of the redesign, based on the WordPress platform, is to allow Center staff to make quicker updates to the materials included on the site, so that our available resources are both relevant and timely. If you have any comments, suggestions, or find a broken link, please email nataglaw@uark.edu.
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New Congressional Research Service Reports
 A popular Center resource is the collection of Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports. The Congressional Research Service is the public policy research arm of the United States Congress and serves as a source of nonpartisan, objective analysis and research on all legislative issues. We receive a wide range of CRS Reports including those covering the current status of the Farm Bill, environmental issues, animal welfare, renewable energy, tax policy, and a host of other topics. To view the entire collection, click here. More specifically, some of our more popular recent posts include:
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New Interns
The Center is very pleased to welcome Elizabeth Burns-Thompson and Kenneth W. Blackson, Jr. ("Kenny") as interns. Elizabeth is a third-year law student at Drake University Law School, with a specialty in agricultural law, while Kenny is currently enrolled in a dual-degree program at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he will earn both a MPA and JD.
Elizabeth is working at the Center as part of the Drake University Law student internship program, which is designed to provide educational opportunities for students while promoting
 the school's professional skills curriculum. In her time at the Center, Elizabeth will undertake various projects to support the Center's national research and information mission. She has a strong academic and agricultural background, including internships with the United States Senate, the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST), eXtension, and the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF).
Kenny is the first student to participate in a new partnership between the Center and the USDA Agricultural Research Service, Office of Outreach, Diversity, and Equal Opportunity.
 The partnership is designed to promote post-undergraduate professional development and knowledge for underrepresented min ority students who are participants in the USDA Pathways Program (formerly known as the STEP and SCEP programs). The objective of this program is the improvement of minority achievement and focuses on increasing the number of low-income students who are preparing to enter and succeed in the legal field. The Center is participating in the program and working with those students who are interested in agricultural law. For more information about Elizabeth, Kenny and other Center staff, please visit our Professional Staff page. |
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Outreach
Center staff have remained very busy lately with grants, partnerships and presentations near and far. Events in which they take part are discussed in more detail on this Outreach page, but a few highlights include:
- Staff attorney Rusty Rumley spoke at the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing's third annual symposium on "Advances and Issues in Food Animal Wellbeing." He discussed nuisance lawsuits and right-to-farm laws in front of a large and diverse audience of producers, industry and government representatives.
- In June, staff attorney Elizabeth Rumley traveled to Vancouver, BC to discuss farm animal confinement laws at the State Agricultural and Rural Leaders Legislative Ag Chairs Summit. Given recent legislative action in many states, her presentation sparked some very lively discussion!
- Center Director Harrison Pittman recently spoke at the annual meeting of Southern Association of State Departments of Agriculture in New Orleans. His presentation on check-off programs was well received by the audience of Commissioners, Secretaries, and Directors of Agriculture from Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Virgin Islands.
- In Fairview, Missouri, staff attorneys Rusty Rumley and Elizabeth Rumley were part of a series of conferences with Hmong producers. Their presentations covered a wide range of topics, beginning with a basic discussion of how the United States federal and state governments operate and interact, the basics of contracting, and how government agencies, including GIPSA, operate.
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