The Call to Action

As the needs of the agricultural sector have grown in number and complexity, so too has the need for specialized scholars and practitioners who are equipped to handle those issues – particularly in the legal realm. The list of developments faced by our nations’ farmers is long. It includes commodities marketing, cooperative economic strategy, operation of and access to federal farm programs, resource conservation, preservation of food supplies, property rights, and the risk of litigation, to name a few.[1] 

And the stakes are only getting higher. Crop protection tools are the subject of thousands of pending suits across the country.[2] In 2019, a jury’s nuisance verdict in North Carolina handed the state’s hog industry its fifth trial loss, with the total damages award exceeding $549 Billion over the course of five suits.[3]Farmers are sometimes the plaintiffs, challenging what they see as anti-competitive behavior from input wholesalers[4]and the processors who purchase their products.[5]

The law continues to play a multifaceted role in shaping the agricultural economy. And as the law shapes the industry, so practitioners shape the law. Indeed, the spheres of advocacy for our nation’s farmers are expanding from courts of law to courts of public opinion, legislatures, and boardrooms. Alongside traditional litigation are ballot measures and policy disputes over everything from laws to prevent activists from filming farming operations[6]to state constitutional amendments that carry widespread effects on national markets.[7]

No matter how one characterizes it, the need for educated practitioners and advocates to understand the forces behind these developments has never been greater. American agriculture can no longer afford to be without the policy, legal, and political experts needed to engage and step into the legal world the legal world on behalf of our farmers, and it is our goal to address the need for educating that expertise. 

[1]Neil D. Hamilton, The Study of Agricultural Law in the United States: Education, Organization, and Practice, 43 Ark. L. Rev. 503, 508 (1990).

[2] https://instituteforlegalreform.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Lawsuit-Advertising-Paper_web.pdf 

[3] https://www.bladenjournal.com/news/23198/fifth-hog-lawsuit-case-won-by-plaintiffs

[4] https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/farmers-file-antitrust-lawsuit-big-ag-companies-76886955

[5] https://www.thepoultrysite.com/news/2021/09/poultry-processors-tyson-and-perdue-to-pay-35-million-to-settle-lawsuit-with-us-farmers

[6] https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ag-gag-laws-an-update-of-recent-legal-developments/

[7] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/15/business/california-bacon-law.html#:~:text=Proposition%2012%2C%20which%20was%20approved,in%20which%20they%20are%20confined.