Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Great things continue to happen at the National Agricultural Law Center, and it's always a pleasure to share recent and upcoming developments with you.
We have officially announced the creation of the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium, a first-of-its-kind partnership between four universities and the USDA National Agricultural Library, designed to better serve the nation's vast agricultural community. You can read more about the Consortium, its members, and its upcoming November 19 program on mandatory GM labeling below, but I do hope you can take a few moments to complete the brief and anonymous online survey, available here. The data gathered by the survey will be used to help focus Consortium work in the coming years.
The Center has remained busy since the last newsletter. For example, I recently had the pleasure of presenting at the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) annual meeting on legal issues associated with industrial hemp. Further, as part of our formal partnership with NASDA, Senior Staff Attorney Rusty Rumley presented a webinar on legal issues associated with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Additionally, at the September meeting of the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, Senior Staff Attorney Elizabeth Rumley was able to update the trustees and answer questions about the Center's recent project regarding state laws affecting grain dealers and warehouses. Further, we are wrapping up a project with the National Sea Grant Law Center focused on direct marketing of aquaculture products, and have received new funding to broaden Center work on, among other areas, the Endangered Species Act and oil and gas issues.
On a different note, numerous people have inquired about making a financial gift to support the Center's work. We have added a "donate here" feature to our home page to make that process easier, and are very thankful for your support.
I hope you enjoy the brief updates in this newsletter. We sincerely appreciate your interest in the National Agricultural Law Center!
Sincerely,
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Agricultural & Food Law Consortium Launched
The National Agricultural Law Center has teamed up with the National Sea Grant Law Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law, the Agricultural Law Resource Reference Center at Penn State Law, and the Agricultural and Resource Law Program at The Ohio State University to create the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium.
A first-of-its-kind partnership, the Consortium is designed to enhance and expand the development and delivery of authoritative, timely, and objective agricultural and food law research and information. This information is available to the nation's vast agricultural community of producers, attorneys, state and federal policymakers, Cooperative Extension Service professionals, and others at the local, state, regional, and national levels. Agricultural law and food law includes law related to land-based food, fiber, and energy production systems, as well as seafood and marine-based aquaculture.
On November 19 at 2:30 (EST), the Consortium will provide a webinar titled, Mandatory GM Labeling Laws: Overview and Status of Current Legal Issues. The presenter will be Ross Pifer, the Director of the Agricultural Law Resource Reference Center at Penn State Law. Additionally, the Consortium is currently conducting an online survey to help define mid- to long-term strategic planning. To access the survey or learn more about the Consortium and its schedule of activities, including the scheduled webinar, please click here.
The Consortium will provide publications, workshops, webinars, and other activities on current and emerging agricultural and food law topics directed to attorney and non-attorney audiences throughout the nation. It will also provide funding and other mutually beneficial support to scholars, legal practitioners, and other specialists throughout the nation seeking to develop and deliver objective agricultural and food law research and information on a wide range of subject areas. In addition, the Consortium will provide leadership to manage and support the eXtension Community of Practice for Agricultural & Food Law.
The work of the Consortium is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch project number 1005058, and is a formal partnership with the USDA Agricultural Research Service, National Agricultural Library. For inquiries about the Consortium, please contact Center Director Harrison Pittman.
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Outreach & Education: The Regulation of Grain Sales and Storage
At the end of August, Arkansas papers began publishing stories about the possible insolvency of Turner Grain Merchandising Inc., a grain dealer in Brinkley, AR. Shortly after the stories began, they were proven true as the business shut its doors and creditors- farmers, truck drivers, and purchasers alike- worried about payment. Current estimates of loss range from $50-70 million, with those losses spread across the Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi delta region. In response to stakeholder interest, the Center began several projects to raise awareness of the regulation of grain dealers and warehouses across the country. Here are two of those projects:
Outreach: At the end of September, the Center hosted Jerry Quick and Craig Sondgeroth of Massie, Quick & Sodgeroth, LLC
in a series of meetings with Arkansas stakeholders discussing the regulation of grain warehouses and dealers. Mr. Quick was instrumental in drafting the statutory and regulatory scheme used in the state of Illinois, and is widely recognized for his understanding. During the meetings, he shared his decades of experience on dealing with this issue while he was working for Illinois Farm Bureau, and addressed various issues on state and federal statutes concerning licensing, bonding, auditing, inspection, and indemnity. In doing so, Mr. Quick was also able to address and explain the numerous questions and concerns posed to him by a wide range of stakeholders.
Education: The Center has also begun to outline and digitize the state requirements for warehouses and grain dealers to operate. Warehouses are involved in the storage of grain. Typically, ownership is maintained by the grower, rather than being transferred to the warehouse. Warehouses are regulated by either state or federal government, depending on the entity with whom the warehouse is licensed. On the other hand, a grain dealer is a person or entity involved in buying, receiving or exchanging grain from the grower. Typically, an interaction with a grain dealer requires a transfer of ownership (title) to that dealer. Largely, regulation of grain dealers has occurred on the state level, and varies significantly from place to place. For both grain dealers and warehouses, requirements are very different from state to state, ranging from no regulation at all to very significant requirements, including licensing, bonding, statutory liens, and civil and criminal sanctions. To learn more about this project, including review of the states that we have completed, click here. Note, however, that this is an ongoing project and more statutes are added weekly.
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An Opportunity to Support the Center
In response to inquiries about ways that stakeholders can support the Center, we have added a "Make a Gift" button to our homepage. Your tax-deductible gift is an investment in the Center's work, including research and outreach to tens of thousands of members of the nation's agricultural community every year. To make a gift, click here.
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Local & Regional Foods Project Continues
Center staff continues its work under the project titled Farm-to-Fork Pilot: Comprehensive Local/Regional Food Systems Development in the Arkansas Delta. The project is supported by funding under USDA Rural Development and is coordinated as part of the USDA Strikeforce Initiative. To date, considerable outreach has occurred to identify project needs and priorities to establish the foundation for further publications and outreach in the targeted areas.
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Employee Changes
The Center has welcomed a new employee within the last few months, and is excited for the next adventure of one who recently left!
Good Luck to: 
Charles Cunningham, a recent graduate of the University of Arkansas (Fayetteville) School of Law, who left the Center to begin his career as a clerk at the Arkansas Court of Appeals. While at the Center, he was an integral part of a project that involved drafting state specific guides for direct marketing products in various states throughout the South. Charlie has been a valuable part of the Center for the past three years and we will miss his contributions greatly.
Welcome to:
Jessica Fritts, a second-year law student at the University of Arkansas School of Law. She is a cum laude graduate of the University of Arkansas in 2013 with a double major in Poultry Science and Agriculture Business. During her undergraduate career, she was active in the Poultry Science Club, Alpha Zeta, Gamma Beta Phi, and Block and Bridle. Jessica's professional experience includes work at the Center of Excellence for Poultry Science, Cobb-Vantress and the National Turkey Federation in Washington DC. Jessica is an integral part of our project identifying the laws applicable to grain warehouses and dealers.
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Outreach to the Hmong Community
As part of a continuing effort to provide information to Hmong farmers in Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma, the Center took part in an informational meeting in Fort Smith, AR, on September 5th. At that meeting, Center staffers discussed resources available on the Center's website, including reading rooms on production contracts and a recent publication addressing direct marketing issues for Arkansas producers. Congressional and Senate staffers attended to take questions and comments from the audience during the morning session, while experts in poultry and specialty crops from the University of Arkansas conducted the afternoon session of the program.
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