Newsletter: Agricultural and food law research and information

Since our last newsletter, the National Agricultural Law Center and Agricultural & Food Law Consortium have had another very active quarter. As always, it is a pleasure to share some of these activities with you and we hope you enjoy the updates in this Quarter's e-newsletter.

The Consortium continued its national webinar series on a range of legal issues including state and federal legal developments in agricultural nutrient management, GMO labeling issues, animal welfare standards in commercial aquaculture production, and the Endangered Species Act. We will soon begin announcing dates and topics for additional webinars, but please feel free to contact me with recommendations on future topics.

In other news, the Third Annual Mid-South Agricultural & Environmental Law Conference will be held on April 22, 2016, in Memphis, TN. For a "save the date" and further information on the conference in coming months, please click here.

Outreach has also been extensive this quarter, with Center staff traveling from one side of the country to the other, as well as to several events closer to home in Arkansas. Check out our Focus on Outreach article to learn more, including Center participation in the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture annual conference in Kona, Hawaii.

We have continued to update content on the Center website as well. The Second Quarter update to the Agricultural Law Bibliography has been posted. Special thanks to our friend and colleague Drew Kershen, Earl Sneed Centennial Professor of Law (Emeritus), University of Oklahoma College of Law, for another outstanding bibliography compilation! Several new Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports on various agricultural and food related topics have been added. The Center's database of ag and food related CRS Reports is a one-of-a-kind resource for the nation's agricultural community.

In addition, the Center has begun publishing USDA Administrative Law Judges decisions made after January 1, 2015. Those decisions are available here. Together with the Center-published Judicial Officer decisions, these represent a partnership with USDA to make all decisions and orders issued in USDA adjudicatory proceedings freely and publicly available.

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. We sincerely appreciate your interest in the Center, and we welcome your input and suggestions on how best we can provide objective agricultural and food law research and information to you!

Sincerely,

Center Director

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 this quarter, four webinars were held for the general public. In July, Peggy Hall covered "State and Federal Legal Developments in Agricultural Nutrient Management." A recording of the webinar is available here. Additionally, Ross Pifer held a webinar update discussing "Current Legal Developments in Mandatory GMO Labeling." The webinar recording, along with supplementary materials, is available here.

In August, Elizabeth Rumley presented on the "Basics of the Endangered Species Act," a recording of which is available here. Then in September, Stephanie Showalter Otts addressed "Animal Welfare Standards and Commercial Aquaculture Operations" to an audience that included participants from four countries as well as many parts of the United States! The recording of Stephanie's webinar is available here.

The Consortium will also be hosting three webinars during the final quarter of 2015. The first one was held earlier this week, covering industrial hemp production in the United States. A recording is available here. The November webinar will address biofuels, the renewable fuel standard, and invasive plants. More information is available here. Finally, the December webinar will discuss federal regulation of shale oil and gas development. More information on this webinar is available here.

In the coming year, the Consortium will be continuing to host public webinars monthly on topics that are important and/or timely to agricultural law. A listing of upcoming webinars and links to the archived records will remain available here.

NASDA Partnership Continues

In the past quarter, the Center and its Agricultural & Food Law Consortium partners continued periodic legal briefings to members of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA). The teleconferences are part of the ongoing partnership between the Center and the NASDA.

Recent updates have included litigation updates related to horse slaughter, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, drones in agriculture, GM labeling, avian influenza, and animal welfare. In addition to providing updates on recent issues, the briefings include a question and answer session on any issues NASDA members wish to raise.

The briefings are of great mutual value as they provide relevant updates to state departments of agriculture but also offer the opportunity for the Consortium members to be alerted firsthand to emerging issues throughout the nation.

Legal Guides for Direct Marketing

After several years of work, the Center and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have successfully completed an Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (USDA-NIFA) grant to create direct marketing guides for farmers in states that were part of the MarketMaker program as of the beginning of the grant.

Currently there are 18 states represented by guides and state specific webinars. The majority of the states are found in the Southern and Midwestern parts of the country.

Each guide begins with an overview of the federal and state regulatory system as well as issues important to farming operations, including the structure of an agricultural business, marketing plans for the business, taxation concerns and employment issues. The second half of each guide goes into greater depth on 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.

To view the complete collection of guides and accompanying webinars, click here.

Symposium: Advances and Issues in Food Animal Wellbeing

On August 6th, the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing, an affiliate of the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, hosted its 5th Annual Symposium: Advances and Issues in Food Animal Wellbeing.

Once again, the conference was well attended by academics, farmers and industry personnel and covered a broad range of policy, legal and scientific topics.

The symposium had an exceptional lineup of participants, addressing everything from humane handling and animal welfare issues, to the biology of stress, to biomedical and agricultural research.

NALC Senior Staff Attorney Rusty Rumley discussed environmental law issues important to agriculture, including an overview off recent cases involving the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act.

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:

Harrison Pittman, Rusty Rumley & Elizabeth Rumley participated in a panel presentation on agricultural law updates at the annual meeting of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture in Kona, HI.
Harrison discussed Water Quality Nutrient Credit Trading at a stakeholder meeting held by the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture in Little Rock, AR.
Elizabeth spoke about the regulatory structure governing the humane slaughter of poultry at the annual meeting of the Poultry Science Association in Louisville, KY.
Harrison addressed topics involved in the Environmental Regulation of Agriculture at the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts in Harrison, AR.
Rusty presented on the Endangered Species Act at the 5th Annual Symposium on Current Issues and Advances in Food Animal Wellbeing, sponsored by the Center for Food Animal Wellbeing in Fayetteville AR.
Elizabeth discussed legal challenges to poultry development at a workshop held by affiliated state poultry association executives in Atlanta GA.
Harrison discussed environmental and conservation law at the 2015 annual meeting of the Southwest Region RC&D Councils in Little Rock, AR.

Webinar presentations

Elizabeth presented a webinar, open to the general public, explaining the basic provisions of the Endangered Species Act as part of the Agricultural and Food Law Consortium's ongoing webinar series. This webinar was open to the general public, and a recording is available here.
Rusty presented a webinar available for the general public discussing a series of state-specific legal guides, written by the NALC and partner organizations, for producers that wish to engage in the direct marketing of their agricultural products.