National Agricultural Law Center

Last updated
The National Agricultural Law Center
National Agricultural Law Center logo.jpg
Established1987
Affiliation The University of Arkansas
DirectorHarrison M. Pittman
Location,
Website http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org

The National Agricultural Law Center (NALC) at the University of Arkansas is a federally funded, nonpartisan research and information center that serves as the nation's leading source of agricultural and food law research and information. [1] The center, created by Congress in 1987, is the only institution of its kind in the United States and serves the nation's vast agricultural community, including attorneys, farmers, federal and state policymakers, extension personnel, academics, students, consumers, and others. [2]

Contents

The center receives federal appropriations through the United States National Agricultural Library, an entity within the USDA Agricultural Research Service. It partners with nine different institutions, including The Ohio State University, The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, Western Resources Legal Center, Iowa State University, Pennsylvania State University, San Joaquin College of Law, and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service. [3]

About

NALC was established in 1987 with a mission to help the agricultural sector better understand the laws and regulations implemented in response to the farm crisis of the 1980s. [4] It was meant to be a nonpartisan entity which takes no position on the views expressed in the articles, writings, and resources published on their website; [1] all articles and writings are included for their legal and practical discussions of agricultural or food law topics rather than any particular viewpoint. [5] Effort is made to supply accurate and up-to-date information, however, the website is not meant as a source of legal advice, nor is it a substitute for a competent legal professional. [6]

The center's website is the primary means by which its agricultural and food law research and information products are disseminated. [2] The website is a clearinghouse for legal information that spans agricultural and food law topics both in the United States and around the world. As such, the website incorporates components that cannot be found elsewhere and provides an important resource to those needing information on legal issues surrounding food and agriculture. To make the information maintained by the website more user-friendly, the site is divided into sections to help focus a user on a particular topic. [2] The center works to serve all members of the agricultural community including producers, federal and state policymakers, extension personnel, and attorneys. [1]

Services

Glossary

Due to the unique vocabulary contained within food and agricultural law, not commonly used or understood by laypersons, or even attorneys, a glossary was put together to help provide a uniform level of understanding. [7] Chuck Culver, Director for Development for the Division of Agriculture at the University of Arkansas, created and published the Glossary of Agricultural Production, Programs, and Policy—Fourth Edition, an extensive list of legal and non-legal terms, definitions, and acronyms used in the food and agricultural fields. This glossary has been made freely accessible through the NALC website. [7]

Reading Rooms

One of the most expansive services provided by the National Agricultural Law Center are its Reading Rooms. A Reading Room is a compilation of electronic resources that provides readers with a way to access extensive agricultural and food law research and information related to various agricultural and general law topics. At the beginning of each Reading Room is an Overview article designed to familiarize the reader with the particular subject area and offers a sketch of both the history and the development of the subject; followed by a listing of major federal statutes affecting the area, links to applicable federal regulations, and a case law index of citations to recent common-law authority. [8] Secondary sources relevant to the Reading Room, including Center research publications, Congressional Research Service reports addressing agricultural and food law issues, governmental and non-governmental reference resources, and other publications are also included.

For example, the Agritourism Reading Room defines the term "agritourism" and briefly outlines some potential legal issues inherent in the topic, lists the relevant state and federal statutes that affect this area of the law, provides a case law index of precedential cases, and supplies links to various publications from the federal government, state governments, interested organizations, and experts in the field. [9]

Farm bills

Another important service provided by the National Agricultural Law Center, and one of the most popular, is the complete collection of digitized farm bills from the original legislation in 1933 to the most recently enacted 2008 Farm Bill, technically known as the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. Legislative history of each U.S. Farm Bill, research articles, and links to outside sources concerning the farm bills are included also included in this section of the center's website.

The depth and breadth of material provided in this area of the website surpasses anything else currently available, making it one of the most complete reference collections anywhere for United States Farm Bills.

State compilations

The State Law Clearinghouse provides readers with access to state statutes and administrative codes that regulate agricultural issues. Many issues pertaining to agriculture and food are administered on the state or local level, and this resource is geared towards providing the statutory language of state laws and regulations that affect agriculture.

Reference desk

This section contains the links to many different organizations that have some focus on agriculture or agricultural law. Links on this page include government websites, universities, law reviews and journals, associations, practice groups, libraries, and publications.

Offerings and publications

The AgLaw Reporter

This section includes all issues of the Agricultural Law Update, the professional monthly newsletter of the American Agricultural Law Association (AALA). The Agricultural Law Update Newsletters contain useful and timely articles on a variety of agricultural topics ranging from conservation programs to taxation issues. In addition, the newsletters cover recent cases and laws that affect the nation's agricultural community and the attorneys and policymakers who represent them.

Also included in the area updates to the Federal Register Digest since January, 2002 that provide a brief summary of agricultural and food law regulatory changes published in the Federal Register.

Judicial Officer Decisions on cases heard by those delegated authority by the Secretary of Agriculture to act as the final deciding officer in USDA adjudicatory proceedings are also contained on this page. Case Law Indexes and Case Summaries compiled and written by Center staff and the ever-expanding are also included in the AgLaw Reporter. The case law indexes and the summaries of these cases provide an extensive annotation of the common law surrounding agricultural and food law issues throughout the country and around the world.

The State Law Clearinghouse provides readers with access to state statutes and administrative codes that regulate agricultural and food law issues such as states' biofuels statutes, recreational use statutes, animal cruelty laws, alternative dispute statutes, and climate change legislation. Many issues pertaining to agriculture are administered on the state or local level, and this resource is geared towards providing the statutory language of state laws and regulations that affect agriculture and food.

Publications

This section contains articles researched and written by the center's staff, leading agricultural and food law scholars, and legal practitioners throughout the country and the world. The publications are grouped by topic and listed in alphabetical order.

As a nonpartisan entity, the center does not advocate for or against any particular viewpoint. While many articles may espouse an author's position on any given issue, the center publishes the articles for the background and legal analysis on the subject. As such, the publications are provided to assist researchers in understanding the complex web of agricultural and food law issues that confront all components of the agricultural sector.

Agricultural law bibliography

Professor Drew Kershen, Earl Sneed Centennial Professor of Law at the University of Oklahoma College of Law, created the Agricultural Law Bibliography, which is a bibliography of agricultural law that spans over 50 years of law journals, law reviews, and legal periodicals that publish articles, comments, notes, and developments that comprise the body of published research in agricultural and food law. The Agricultural Law Bibliography is updated quarterly and published on the center web site.

Center staff are currently contacting authors and publications listed in the bibliography in an effort to provide digitized copies of as many of the listed articles as possible. More than 1000 articles have been digitized to date.

Congressional Research Service Reports

The center provides an extensive database of Congressional Research Service Reports pertinent to agricultural and food law and policy issues. The Congressional Research Service reports are a non-partisan objective analysis of a question posed by a congressman or woman and commonly range in length from 5 to around 30 pages. The reports are grouped according to topic and subtopic, including areas such as animal agriculture, international trade, climate change, and environmental law. The center continuously publishes new Congressional Research Service reports as they become available.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agritourism</span> Tourism involving agriculture

Agritourism or agrotourism involves any agriculturally based operation or activity that brings visitors to a farm or ranch.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States Department of Agriculture</span> Department of the US government

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production, works to assure food safety, protects natural resources, fosters rural communities and works to end hunger in the United States and internationally. It is headed by the secretary of agriculture, who reports directly to the president of the United States and is a member of the president's Cabinet. The current secretary is Tom Vilsack, who has served since February 24, 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Farm Service Agency</span> Agency of the US Dept of Agriculture

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) is the United States Department of Agriculture agency that was formed by merging the farm loan portfolio and staff of the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) and the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS). The Farm Service Agency implements agricultural policy, administers credit and loan programs, and manages conservation, commodity, disaster, and farm marketing programs through a national network of offices. The Administrator of FSA reports to the Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm Production and Conservation. The current administrator is Zach Ducheneaux. The FSA of each state is led by a politically appointed State Executive Director (SED).

In American law, the American Law Reports are a resource used by American lawyers to find a variety of sources relating to specific legal rules, doctrines, or principles. It has been published since 1919, originally by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing, and currently by West and remains an important tool for legal research.

The United States National Agricultural Library (NAL) is one of the world's largest agricultural research libraries, and serves as a national library of the United States and as the library of the United States Department of Agriculture. Located in Beltsville, Maryland, it is one of five national libraries of the United States. It is also the coordinator for the Agriculture Network Information Center (AgNIC), a national network of state land-grant institutions and coordinator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) field libraries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal Welfare Act of 1966</span> U.S. federal law

The Animal Welfare Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 24, 1966. It is the main federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibition. Other laws, policies, and guidelines may include additional species coverage or specifications for animal care and use, but all refer to the Animal Welfare Act as the minimally acceptable standard for animal treatment and care. The USDA and APHIS oversee the AWA and the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have primary legislative jurisdiction over the Act. Animals covered under this Act include any live or dead cat, dog, hamster, rabbit, nonhuman primate, guinea pig, and any other warm-blooded animal determined by the Secretary of Agriculture for research, pet use or exhibition. Excluded from the Act are birds, rats of the genus Rattus, mice of the genus Mus, farm animals, and all cold-blooded animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HeinOnline</span> Online database for legal materials

HeinOnline (HOL) is a commercial internet database service launched in 2000 by William S. Hein & Co., Inc., a Buffalo, New York publisher specializing in legal materials. The company began in Buffalo, New York, in 1961, and is currently based in nearby Getzville, NY. In 2013, WSH Co. was the 33rd largest private company in western New York, with revenues of around $33 million and more than seventy employees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law report</span> Type of series of books that contain case law

Law reports or reporters are series of books that contain judicial opinions from a selection of case law decided by courts. When a particular judicial opinion is referenced, the law report series in which the opinion is printed will determine the case citation format.

In the United States, a commodity checkoff program promotes and provides research and information for a particular agricultural commodity without reference to specific producers or brands. It collects funds through a checkoff mechanism that is sometimes called checkoff dollars, from producers of a particular agricultural commodity and uses these funds to promote and do research on that particular commodity. As stated earlier the organizations must promote their commodity in a generic way without reference to a particular producer. Checkoff programs attempt to improve the market position of the covered commodity by expanding markets, increasing demand, and developing new uses and markets. Checkoff programs amount to $750 million per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal Information Institute</span> Non-profit free legal information service at Cornell Law School

The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a non-profit public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to current American and international legal research sources online. Founded in 1992 by Peter Martin and Tom Bruce, LII was the first law site developed on the internet. LII electronically publishes on the Web the U.S. Code, U.S. Supreme Court opinions, Uniform Commercial Code, the US Code of Federal Regulations, several Federal Rules, and a variety of other American primary law materials. LII also provides access to other national and international sources, such as treaties and United Nations materials. According to its website, the LII serves over 40 million unique visitors per year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">San Joaquin College of Law</span>

San Joaquin College of Law (SJCL) is a private law school in Clovis, California.

These organizations for higher education have a common purpose and mission for advocacy in numerous areas of both institutional management and the general public interest. The organizations have specific purpose for issues from faculty unionization to public policy research and service to institutions. Most are focused on the organization and governance of higher and tertiary education, but some are involved in service and research at all levels of education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missouri Attorney General</span> Attorney general for the U.S. state of Missouri

The Office of the Missouri Attorney General was created in 1806 when Missouri was part of the Louisiana Territory. Missouri's first Constitution in 1820 provided for an appointed attorney general, but since the 1865 Constitution, the Attorney General has been elected. As of January 2023, there have been 44 attorneys general in Missouri.

Legal research is the process of identifying and retrieving information to support legal arguments and decisions. Finding relevant legal information can be challenging and may involve the use of electronic research tools as well as printed books and materials. However, many resources that are useful for legal research are fee-based, and many are not easily accessible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Environmental Law Institute</span>

The Environmental Law Institute (ELI) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., that seeks to "make law work for people, places, and the planet" through its work as an environmental law educator, convener, publisher, and research engine. ELI's primary audience includes legal practitioners, business leaders, land managers, land use planners, environmentalists, journalists, and lawmakers. The Institute also convenes conferences to promote the exchange of ideas; holds seminars to educate legal practitioners and business leaders; and publishes original research, both as monographs and in its periodicals, the Environmental Law Reporter and The Environmental Forum.

Computer-assisted legal research (CALR) or computer-based legal research is a mode of legal research that uses databases of court opinions, statutes, court documents, and secondary material. Electronic databases make large bodies of case law easily available. Databases also have additional benefits, such as Boolean searches, evaluating case authority, organizing cases by topic, and providing links to cited material. Databases are available through paid subscription or for free.

Consumer protection is the practice of safeguarding buyers of goods and services, and the public, against unfair practices in the marketplace. Consumer protection measures are often established by law. Such laws are intended to prevent businesses from engaging in fraud or specified unfair practices to gain an advantage over competitors or to mislead consumers. They may also provide additional protection for the general public which may be impacted by a product even when they are not the direct purchaser or consumer of that product. For example, government regulations may require businesses to disclose detailed information about their products—particularly in areas where public health or safety is an issue, such as with food or automobiles.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway is the congressionally mandated and funded information service of the United States Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, United States Department of Health and Human Services. It was established in 2006 to replace the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information and the National Adoption Information Clearinghouse. The Child Welfare Information Gateway covers child-welfare topics, including family-centered practice, child abuse and neglect, abuse and neglect prevention, child protection, family preservation and support, foster care, achieving and maintaining permanency, adoption, management of child welfare agencies and related topics such as child and family assessment, laws and policies, statistics and coincident family issues. Its website links to sources of print and electronic publications, websites, databases and online learning tools on these topics.

A presidential directive, or executive action, is a written or oral instruction or declaration issued by the president of the United States, which may draw upon the powers vested in the president by the U.S. Constitution, statutory law, or, in certain cases, congressional and judicial acquiescence. Such directives, which have been issued since the earliest days of the federal government, have become known by various names, and some have prescribed forms and purposes. Presidential directives remain in effect until they are revoked, which the president is free to do. The classification of presidential directives is not easily done, as the distinction between the types can be quite arbitrary, arising from convenience and bureaucratic evolution, and none are defined in the Constitution. Furthermore, the different types may overlap. As one legal scholar put it: "it is a bit misleading to overclassify presidential directives as comprising separate and distinct 'types' just because they have different headings at the top of the first page." In terms of legal applicability, what matters is the substance of the directive, not the form, unless a certain kind of directive is specifically required by relevant statute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018</span> United States law

The 2018 farm bill or Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018 is an enacted United States farm bill that reauthorized $867 billion for many expenditures approved in the prior farm bill. The bill was passed by the Senate and House on December 11 and 12, 2018, respectively. On December 20, 2018, it was signed into law by President Donald Trump.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Banks Law Firm provides gift to support National Agricultural Law Center". Farm Progress. 2012-06-22. Retrieved 2020-07-30.
  2. 1 2 3 "About the Center - National Agricultural Law Center". nationalaglawcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  3. "Partners - National Agricultural Law Center". nationalaglawcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  4. Ropp, Terry (2020-03-23). "National Agriculture Law Center". Ozarks Farm & Neighbor Newspaper. Retrieved 2020-08-04.
  5. "The National Agricultural Law Center". Idaho Land Conservation Assistance Network. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  6. "Disclaimer - National Agricultural Law Center". nationalaglawcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
  7. 1 2 "Ag Law Glossary - National Agricultural Law Center". nationalaglawcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  8. "Research by Topic - National Agricultural Law Center". nationalaglawcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  9. "Agritourism - National Agricultural Law Center". nationalaglawcenter.org. Retrieved 2020-08-05.