by Elizabeth | Mar 31, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
The Denver Post reports that the Colorado Senate Agriculture, Natural Resources and Energy Committee passed a bill this week to legalize the use of rain barrels for the household collection of rainwater. Colorado is the only state in the country where it is illegal to...
by Elizabeth | Mar 29, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Environmental Law, Environmental Protection Agency, Pesticides, United States Department of Agriculture
The Baltimore Sun reports the Maryland senate passed a bill earlier this month that would ban stores from selling products laced with neonicotinoids to homeowners that spray them on their gardens. Neonics, or Neonicotinoid, is a systemic pesticide that once ingested...
by Elizabeth | Mar 28, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Food Labeling, Food Safety
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Assemblyman David Chiu has proposed a food labeling measure, AB 2725, designed to give consumers standard guidelines on the timeframe that they can safely keep and store food. AB 2725 would standardize date...
by Elizabeth | Mar 28, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Fair Labor Standards Act, Labor
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Tyson Foods over the company’s challenge to a nearly $5.8 million class action judgment awarded workers claiming they were underpaid. In a 6-2 ruling written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court upheld a 2014 appeals...
by Elizabeth | Mar 23, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Clean Water Act, Environmental Law, Water Law
According to the Storm Lake Times, the Iowa Farm Bureau and other commodity groups are paying legal fees for county drainage districts defending themselves in a lawsuit filed by the Des Moines Water Works. In the suit filed last year, Water Works officials claim...
by Elizabeth | Mar 22, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, International Trade
The nation’s chief agricultural trade negotiator, Darci Vetter, will speak March 29 in Little Rock about the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country pact that if approved by Congress, would be the largest free trade agreement in U.S. history. Vetter’s talk is...
by Elizabeth | Mar 21, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
A Wisconsin court recently ruled that the state’s the right to farm law protects agricultural uses and practices only from actions for damages or abatement, and not forfeiture. In Village of Black Earth v. Black Earth Meat Market (BE Meats), the defendant is a...
by Elizabeth | Mar 17, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Commercial Transactions, Landowner Liability
In Woody v. Pembina County Annual Fair Exhibition Ass’n, the North Dakota Supreme Court recently affirmed a district court’s ruling that an annual county fair was protected from negligence liability by recreational use immunity. Plaintiff Audra D. Woody attended...
by Elizabeth | Mar 16, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
Pursuant to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), the EPA recently announced its intent to cancel the registration of four pesticide products containing the insecticide flubendiamide. The notice identified Bayer CropScience, LP and Nichino...
by Elizabeth | Mar 15, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
Arkansas Secretary of Agriculture Wes Ward will deliver the keynote address, “Agricultural Trade with Cuba,” at the Third Annual Agricultural and Environmental Law Conference. The conference will be held Friday, April 22 in Memphis, TN, at the University of Memphis...
by Elizabeth | Mar 15, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
The Lincoln Star Journal reports Nebraska state legislators are considering a proposed constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to “engage in farming and ranching practices.” The measure would also prevent the Legislature from passing new regulations...
by Elizabeth | Mar 10, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
The Register-Guard reports that organizers in Oregon hope to put a measure on the November ballot banning aerial spraying of herbicides on forest lands in Oregon after logging. They also want to collect signatures for a measure to add restrictions for steep-slope...
by Elizabeth | Mar 10, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
Capital Press reports that Washington’s attorney general Bob Ferguson filed suit against Food Democracy Action, a group that campaigned for GMO labels on food, claiming they violated disclosure laws by failing to timely report the sources of $200,000 it spent...
by Elizabeth | Mar 10, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
The Juneau Empire reports that U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, introduced a bill last week requiring all genetically engineered salmon to carry the words “genetically engineered” or “GE.” The bill would also require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to...
by Elizabeth | Mar 8, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Hemp
According to the Capital Press website, House and Senate lawmakers in the state of Washington approved Senate Bill 6206 establishing regulations governing industrial hemp production. The House approved the bill 97-0. The Senate passed the measure 48-1 three weeks ago...
by Elizabeth | Mar 8, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
A South Dakota bill that changes the way county zoning is done for Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) has cleared a State Senate committee. The bill wants to streamline the approval process for permitting large livestock operations. Supporters of the bill...
by Elizabeth | Mar 8, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Endangered Species Act, Environmental Law
Environmentalists in San Francisco filed a lawsuit last month over thousands of cattle in the Point Reyes National Seashore. The suit comes one year after an oyster farm was forced to shut down at the park. Per the Marin Independent Journal, the suit, filed in U.S....
by Elizabeth | Mar 8, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
The Wall Street Journal reports that Perdue Farms Inc. will eliminate antibiotics used in chicken it sells as nuggets and strips in supermarkets across the country. The company expects the change to triple the no-antibiotic portion of such precooked and seasoned...
by Elizabeth | Mar 8, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update, Environmental Law, Water Law
In an apparent victory for farmers and longtime water rights holders, the Texas Supreme Court recently affirmed a decision limiting the state’s power to distribute water during drought. Per the Austin American-Statesman, farmers along the Brazos River had sued the...
by Elizabeth | Feb 18, 2016 | Ag & Food Law Update
Posted February 18, 2016 Agriculture in the Mid-South is uniquely impacted by changes and developments in state, federal, and international laws and policies. Hosted by the Agricultural & Food Law Consortium, the Third Annual Mid-South Agricultural and...
