I hope this edition of the National Agricultural Law Center Quarterly e-Newsletter finds you doing well and having a great summer. It is always a pleasure to share with you recent and upcoming developments about the Center and its Agricultural & Food Law Consortium partners.

The Second Annual Mid-South Agricultural & Environmental Law Conference was a huge success. A special thanks to the University of Memphis Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law, the Mississippi Bar Association Natural Resources, Environment & Energy Section, and Delta Farm Press for their assistance and support. We could not have done it without each of those partners.

The Center and its partners in the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium continue a comprehensive series of webinars to producers, attorneys, Cooperative Extension Service professionals, and others throughout the nation. Please take a few moments to review the article below highlighting some of these programs. As always, feel free to let us know what topics would be of interest to you.

We continue to update our website in many ways. We recently updated the Case Law Indexes for the Packers and Stockyards Act and the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, with others to be updated during this quarter. We have also updated or added several dozen Congressional Research Service Reports to the Center's website on a diverse range of agricultural and food law topics. In addition, we published a new Clean Air Act Reading Room in conjunction with a project focusing on states' approaches to agricultural burning.

For daily updates in agricultural and food law, be sure to check the Center's Twitter account, Facebook page, and the Agricultural & Food Law Blog.

I hope you enjoy the brief updates we're sharing with you today. We sincerely appreciate your interest in the Center and, as always, welcome suggestions on how we can best serve you in providing objective agricultural and food law research and information!

Sincerely,

Center Director

Second Annual Mid-South Agricultural & Environmental Law Conference

The Center, as part of the Agricultural and Food Law Consortium, was proud to host the Mid-South Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference in Memphis in early April.

We were glad to welcome almost 100 attendees from ten states. Attendees included private and governmental attorneys, agricultural lenders, real estate agents and students, among others.

Topics presented included:

Agricultural & Environmental Law Update: Recent Trends and Developments
2014 Farm Bill for Practitioners, Lenders, and Other Ag Professionals
USDA National Appeals Division 101: What You and Your Farm Client Need to Know
Farm Succession & Estate Planning for Mid-South Agriculture
Ethical Considerations for Farm Clients
Easement Negotiation 101: Focus on Gas Pipelines and Energy Transmission Lines

For a list of speakers and access to the conference materials, click here. Plans are already underway for next year's conference, so check back for more information in coming newsletters!

Consortium News: Webinar Series

As part of its mission, the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium is hosting a series of webinars on numerous agricultural and food law topics. These webinars are freely available to the general public and are typically designed to be appropriate for both attorneys and non-attorneys.

During the month of June, two webinars were held to discuss the legal issues surrounding the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in agriculture. In these webinars, Peggy Hall discussed the proposed regulations released by the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year, as well as the current system for regulating the commercial use of UAVs. The webinars also addressed constitutional law and tort liability. Senior Staff Attorney Rusty Rumley discussed privacy issues and several recently enacted state statutes concerning UAVs, and also addressed trespass and nuisance liability. Just under a hundred visitors attended the two webinars, a recording of which is available here.

The Consortium will also be hosting two webinars in the month of July. Peggy Hall will cover "State and Federal Legal Developments in Agricultural Nutrient Management" on July 24th. More information is available here. Later in the month, Ross Pifer will hold a webinar update of "Current Legal Developments in Mandatory GMO Labeling." This webinar will be held on on July 30th , and more information is available here.

A listing of upcoming webinars and links to the archived recordings will remain available here.

Regulation of Ag Biotech in the U.S.: An Overview

On Wednesday, July 15, Dr. Mike Firko, Deputy Administrator for USDA-APHIS' Biotechnology Regulatory Services, will present a "Biotech 101" webinar.

Co-hosted by the NALC and USDA-APHIS, the webinar will address the origins of genetic engineering, the federal regulatory framework, and the specific role of APHIS in regulating genetically engineered organisms. In addition, Dr. Firko will provide an update on GE traits currently undergoing regulatory review.

More information about the webinar, including the link to log-in at noon (EDT) on the 15th, is available here.

Agriculture & the Clean Air Act

A new Reading Room has been added to the Center's website that focuses on the Clean Air Act (CAA) and agriculture. The CAA is one of several federal laws that impacts agriculture, and will continue to do so for years ahead.

The Reading Room contains an overview article that highlights its relevance to agriculture, as well as an annotation of court decisions, EPA regulations, Congressional Research Service Reports, and other useful resources. The Reading Room will be continuously updated, so please check back for new information.

The Reading Room was developed in conjunction with an ongoing interdisciplinary project, Managing Crop Residues to Reduce Particulate Matter Emissions. Under that project, the Center has also collaborated with the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture Public Policy Center to examine states' approaches to agricultural burning for a upcoming report titled, State Government Approaches to Particulate Matter Emissions from Agricultural Burning: Laws and Policies Across the United States.

Focus on Outreach

Center staff has given multiple presentations to a wide range of audiences over the past quarter. You can see some recent examples below. If you're interested in learning more about any of the topics below, or in having Center staff present at a conference or webinar you're sponsoring, please contact us.

In-person presentations:

Center Director Harrison Pittman & Senior Staff Attorney Rusty Rumley presented at the Second Annual Mid-South Agricultural & Environmental Law Conference in Memphis, TN.
Senior Staff Attorneys Elizabeth and Rusty Rumley presented at the annual meeting of the Mid-South Chapter of American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers in Baton Rouge, LA. Elizabeth covered environmental law while Rusty addressed farm leasing issues.
Harrison Pittman attended the annual "Agriculture Information Network Collaborative" (AgNic) meeting, and discussed resources offered by the National Agricultural Law Center and the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium.
Rusty Rumley presented at the Sebastian County (AR) Ag Day. He addressed estate planning.
Harrison Pittman discussed "Advocacy in Academia" as part of the American Farm Bureau Federation's 2015 Annual SPARC Conference
Elizabeth and Rusty Rumley co-taught an intersession class with Profs. Anthony Schutz and Maureen Moseman at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law. The topic of the course was "Animals & Agricultural Production- Law & Policy."
At several places in eastern Arkansas, Harrison Pittman conducted stakeholder meetings with representatives from USDA Strikeforce and Rural Development, as well as stakeholders in local food systems development in the Delta region
Senior Staff Attorney Rusty Rumley participated in a roundtable discussion on business organizations and liability at the "Plan, Produce and Profit" workshop in Fayetteville, AR
Harrison Pittman presented an environmental law update to the Arkansas Farm Bureau Environmental Committee

Webinar presentations

Rusty Rumley was a presenter in two webinars on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). One webinar was focused on Cooperative Extension personnel, while the other was open to the general public.

Update on Direct Marketing Guides

A recent Center project involved the creation of legal guides highlighting the issues faced by producers engaged in direct marketing. After an overview of the federal and state regulatory system, the guides discuss issues important to farming operations, including the structure of an agricultural business, marketing plans for the business, taxation concerns and labor and employment issues. Further, they discuss the regulation of certain specific products, including dairy, eggs, fish and other aquatics, produce, grains and cereals, honey and maple syrup, meat and poultry and organic marketing. Each book then finishes with an extensive glossary of terms relevant to the legal and production concerns raised in the book.

We're happy to say this project is nearing completion! We're currently working on the last of the guides and they should be published within the next few months. The guides, and accompanying webinars, are available here.