Posts

Showing posts from June, 2014

The 2 Percent: America's Million Dollar Farms

One of my summer projects is an update of my book, Food, Farming & Sustainability: Readings in Agricultural Law .  Here is an excerpt that I am working on that ties together some interesting resources that I have been meaning to blog about. Million-Dollar Farms:  The �2-4 Percent� of Agriculture Everyone has heard of the economic category of the �1 percent� of Americans � the political rallying point against excessive income disparity in the United States that was most visibly emphasized by Occupy Wall Street and its followers.  A less well known category is the small percentage of U.S. agriculture that owns increasing amounts of land, exercises significant market power, and is responsible for producing the majority of our commercial food stocks.  While some might not like it, we are far more dependent on these mega-farms that most people realize. USDA data from 2007 indicates that 37 percent of very large family farms and 13 percent of non-family farms have annual sales of $1 mill

Graduate Assistantships in Agricultural & Food Law

Image
From the LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law : I am pleased to announce that we have received additional funding for several new graduate assistantships for the LL.M. Program in Agricultural & Food Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law for the 2014-15 academic year.  These graduate assistantships provide for a full tuition waiver for the 9 month program plus a stipend of $3,000 per semester.  GAs agree to assist with research and projects part-time (usually about 10 hours per week during the semester), gaining valuable experience beyond the classroom. For over thirty years, we have been educating attorneys in the specialized laws that apply to agriculture, and for the last ten years, we have integrated the study of food law into our curriculum.  We provide a unique opportunity to consider all aspects of our food system -  from traditional farming and ranching to urban agriculture, from agribusiness to farmers markets, from farm subsidies to food assistance, lite