Agricultural law, sometimes referred to as Ag Law, deals with such legal issues as

agricultural infrastructure Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

, seed, water,

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

pesticide Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and ...

use, agricultural finance, agricultural labour,

agricultural marketing Agricultural marketing covers the services involved in moving an agricultural product from the farm to the consumer. These services involve the planning, organizing, directing and handling of agricultural produce in such a way as to satisfy far ...

, agricultural

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

, farming rights,

land tenure In common law systems, land tenure, from the French verb "tenir" means "to hold", is the legal regime in which land owned by an individual is possessed by someone else who is said to "hold" the land, based on an agreement between both individual ...

and tenancy system and law on Agricultural processing and rural industry. With implementation of modern technologies, issues including credit,

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

, trade and commerce related to agricultural products are dealt within the sphere of this law. Simply put, agricultural law is the study of the special laws and regulations that apply to the production and sale of agricultural products. "Agricultural exceptionalism," i.e., the use of legal exceptions to protect the agricultural industry, is pervasive, worldwide. American law schools and legal scholars first recognized agricultural law as a discipline in the 1940s when law schools at

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, Texas, and Iowa explored and initiated agricultural law courses. These early efforts were short-lived, however, and agricultural law as a distinct discipline did not resurface for three decades. In 1979, a scholarly journal, The Agricultural Law Journal was initiated. In 1980, the American Agricultural Law Association was formed and an advanced law degree program, the LL.M. Program in Agricultural Law was founded at the

University of Arkansas School of Law The University of Arkansas School of Law is the law school of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a State university system, state university. It has around 445 students enrolled in its Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Law (LL.M) ...

. In 1981, a fifteen volume Agricultural Law Treatise was published and in 1985, the first law school casebook, Agricultural Law: Cases and Materials was published by West Publishing. In recent years, agricultural law studies have expanded to incorporate a wider consideration of the impact of agricultural production, including issues of environmental law, sustainability, animal welfare, and food law and policy. Reflecting this expanded perspective, in 2009, the LL.M. Program in Agricultural Law at Arkansas changed its name to the LL.M Program in Agricultural and Food Law. In 2010, the second law school textbook was published with the title, Food, Farming & Sustainability: Readings in Agricultural Law. And, in 2012, the American Association of Law Schools changed the name of its Agricultural Law section to Agricultural and Food Law. The emerging discipline of food law & policy traces its roots to the discipline of agricultural law as well as tradition food and drug law.

References

External links

Iowa State University's Center for Agricultural Law and TaxationLL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law
University of Arkansas School of Law
Food Farming & Sustainability: Legal Resources WebsiteDrake Agricultural Law CenterAgricultural Law Information PartnershipLLM in Food and Agriculture Law
Vermont Law and Graduate School {{law-stub

See also

References

External links