Agricultural law in the United States discusses law that deals with all agricultural matters. This would include agricultural production, marketing, and distribution. How the rates should be decided in which agricultural products are distributed or produced. The scope of the agricultural industry is very vast, and the rules and regulations of this industry are quite complex. Often various other laws overlap, like environmental laws, labor laws and more.
Naturally, it is a relatively new area of law. Lawyers who work in this industry usually cater to clients who are part of the agriculture industry. Chemical suppliers, equipment suppliers – equipment that is used regularly on a farm, farm owners and labourers or agribusinessmen and many more. Agricultural law and lawyers ensure there is sufficient production and distribution of agricultural products. An agribusiness involves producers or manufacturers of agricultural goods and services, such as fertiliser and farm equipment makers, food and fiber processors, wholesalers, transporters, and retail food and fibre outlets. In this article, we will learn about the same and various statues governing the same.
“Agriculture, food, and related industries represent 5.4% of the US gross domestic product (GDP) and 10.5% of all US jobs. US agricultural policy is framed mostly by the Farm Bill, which is standing legislation that governs farm, food and nutrition programmes and policies. The Farm Bill must be renewed at least every five years by Congress. Other federal, state, and local governing bodies, judicial systems, and agencies also impact US agricultural policy (see The Agricultural Law Section, Milestones in Agricultural Law, Md. B.J., December 2021, at 124).”
The United States contributes and takes part with numerous international agricultural organisations, this includes WTO, the World Trade Organization Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International Fund for Agricultural Development to name a few and many more.
Various programs and policies are enforced in the USA that provide financial assistance to support agricultural activities. This is run by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) which functions at the federal level. Each policies have their own requirements and eligibility criteria; one should carefully go through these essentials before applying for the same. Few of them are listed below:
- The Risk Management Agency (RMA) manages federal crop insurance options for farmers. Policies can cover fruits and vegetables, field crops (corn, soybeans, and so on), and certain livestock and animal products and grazing lands. The insurance policies cover a farmer’s loss in the event of a natural disaster or weather event and during declines in revenue due to market conditions. Private companies (Approved Insurance Providers) sell crop insurance under USDA policies and the USDA pays for some of the total premium cost, with farmers paying the rest.
- The Farm Services Agency (FSA) offers financing options including direct loans and loan guarantees to farmers and a number of other programmes to financially assist with natural disasters (including support for uninsured crops), other financial risks, organic certification, and retiring land from farming.
There are also programmes to provide education and research for agriculture in the US through the following USDA agencies and institutions:
- The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) supports research, education, and outreach to advance agriculture. NIFA also distributes funds to Land Grant Institutions, 1890 Institutions, which are historically Black colleges and universities, 1994 Institutions, which are tribal colleges and universities, and non-land-grant colleges of agriculture (NLGCAs) and Hispanic-serving agricultural colleges and universities (HSACUs). Usually, a combination of these institutions makes up the Cooperative Extension Service in each state, which provides education to agricultural producers and local communities.
- The Agricultural Research Service conducts research to solve agricultural issues and the Economic Research Service provides objective economic research on agricultural issues and trends. In addition to this there is also The National Agricultural Statistics Service conducts surveys and distills survey results on US agriculture.
Laws and Regulations that Apply to Your Agricultural Needs by Statute
General information on the requirements is provided below and should not be used as a guide. Laws tend to change from time to time, one can use the below information from a beginner’s point of view and accordingly decide which applies to you. In addition to this, each state also has their own set of policies that you can apply for, they are listed below: Check with your State and/or EPA Regional Office for more information:
- Clean Water Act (CWA)/Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA)
- Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA)
- Worker Protection Standard (WPS)
- Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA)
- Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA/Superfund)
- Clean Air Act (CAA)
- Emergency Planning & Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA)
- Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA)
- For additional regulatory information see also Agriculture: Crop Production and Animal Products (NAICS 111-112)
In the United States, the Farm Bill is comprehensive omnibus bill that is the primary agricultural and food policy instrument of the federal government. Congress typically passes a new farm bill every five to six years. The Farm Bill typically includes policies that focusses o rural development, agriculture research, trading and more.
HISTORY OF FARM BILL:
The AAA established a primary federal role in limiting the production of certain agricultural crops including wheat, corn, and cotton hoping to reduce supply in order to artificially inflate food crop prices. The first farm bill of the new millennium was the Farm Security Act of 2002, which was signed into law on May 13, 2002. In 2008, the farm bill was passed as the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008. The bill included approximately $100 billion in annual spending for Department of Agriculture programs, around 80 percent of which was allocated for food stamps and other nutritional programs. Between the passage of the 2008 farm bill and the creation of the 2013 bill, the food stamp program changed its name to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and nearly doubled in size.
Critics have alleged that, regardless of the initial intent of farm bills dating back to 1933, farm bills dating from at least the 1990s to the present have numerous harms, including:
- Increasing the cost of food for lower- and middle-income consumers, especially sugar.
- Making high dollar subsidized payouts to large corporate farms and farmers while giving little to nothing to smaller and independent farms and farmers.
- Incentivizing the farming of only a select small number of crops, making Americans and global consumers less healthy by focusing diets more and more on fewer and fewer commodity food items, harming national security by highly centralizing the food production and supply chain within the United States.
- Harming public health in terms of authorizing certain pesticides to be used without oversight.
One expert said of the farm bill that:
“It is a symbol of everything that’s wrong with Congress, revealing how life-sustaining policies can be taken hostage by a handful of parochial lawmakers; how incredibly difficult it is to make even minor changes that would actually help consumers and small businesses; and how intractable the divide on Capitol Hill has become, particularly between urban and rural legislators.”
Numerous attempts have been made to repeal the need to continue to reauthorize any sort of so-called “farm bill” at all, and instead leave farm and food prices to market forces, these attempts have failed.
