agriculture definition

Many of us with interests in agricultural and food policy issues have felt a little left out during the Presidential campaign. The candidates have not talked much at all about agricultural or food policy. Yet, it is one area of distinct change that came with the Obama administration. Prior to the Obama administration, the USDA had very little interest in providing support to the local food movement. There was nothing similar to the current Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food Program. Recall that the KFKF campaign was developed over the strong opposition of many Republicans; see  Senators Challenge Know Your Farmer . The USDA, under the leadership of Secretary Vilsack now provides a wide range of resources and support related to KFKF, all within the existing budget, including: Support for Food Hubs to support and encourage regional food systems The  Compass map system  for local and regional food providers Grant funding, loans, and support  for local and regional food producers and syste

I hope that the title to this blog post attracted some interest and raised reader's curiosity.   Same Sex Marriage and Agricultural Sustainability ? I suppose that one could assume that I would be writing about the many dedicated farmers that are gay or lesbian (and there are many), but that is not my point. I wanted to write about my dismay over the Catholic Conference of Bishop's decision to revoke a grant award to the well-respected non-profit organization, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) . The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) was founded in 1982 "to foster an ethic of stewardship for farmland, to promote sustainable agriculture and to develop sustainable communities."  Since that time, it has done amazing work and gained national respect. The grant award was not revoked because of anything that LSP did, nor did it concern any position taken by LSP. The grant was revoked because LSP is a member of two other organizations, TakeAction Minnesota and the Minnesota Cou

Editor's note: I recently posted this paper announcement on Jurisdynamics and Biolaw . It occurs to me that readers of Agricultural Law might also be interested. I am therefore cross-posting this item on this blog. Jim Chen, Bioprospect Theory , available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2164848 or http://bit.ly/BioprospectTheory . To be presented at the University of Akron School of Law 's sixth annual Intellectual Property Scholars Forum . Conventional wisdom treats biodiversity and biotechnology as rivalrous values. The global south is home to most of earth's vanishing species, while the global north holds the capital and technology needed to develop this natural wealth. The south argues that intellectual property laws enable the industrialized north to commit biopiracy. By contrast, the United States has characterized calls for profit-sharing as a threat to the global life sciences industry. Both sides magnify the dispute, on the apparent consensus that comm

Mirriam Kutha recently published an interesting essay in Food Safety News, Why Low-Income Countries Should Care About Food Safety .  In it, Mirriam notes that while food safety is "one of the most ignored areas of policy in low-income countries, especially in Africa," food safety concerns are a threat not only to domestic consumers but inhibit involvement in international trade. There are, of course, many barriers.  Developing and enforcing a food safety system is expensive and requires a significant commitment of resources.  And, food insecurity concerns may overshadow food safety issues.  Mirriam effectively argues, however, that the development of a food safety regime can actually "[b]oost food safety on a local level, [i]ncrease revenue through international food trade, and [b]olster food security."  It is a thoughtful essay based on additional work she has done in this area. We are proud to claim Mirriam as one of our alumni in the LL.M Program in Agricultural

I firmly believe in the absolute necessity and importance of an historically informed (largely �classical�) �political economy� perspective in addressing topics in agriculture, science, ecology, (especially intellectual property) law, and politics itself. I find much of the �economics� of science and agriculture na�ve or ideologically mired in a neoliberal philosophy and neoclassical economics that precludes the sort of critical distance necessary for a values-infused social scientific examination of subjects that approaches the �truth� (or truths) of contemporary social reality (yes, I believe the truth of matters remains a desideratum ). In fact, with John Quiggin, I would characterize the cluster of ideas associated with that philosophy and economics as the �zombie economics of market liberalism,� in other words, there are economic ideas that continue to rule the minds of the social scientists, pundits, and decision-making elites of our world despite having �proved themselves wrong