Penn State ag law center helps launch new ag and food law consortium

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Penn State Law’s Agricultural Law Resource and Reference Center is one of four institutions in the new Agricultural and Food Law Consortium, a partnership supported by a $750,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant and established to study how food and agriculture laws affect land- and sea-based food, fiber, and energy production.

The consortium will expand the reach of objective agricultural and food law research and information to the nation’s agricultural community of producers, state and federal policymakers, attorneys, Cooperative Extension Service professionals, and others at the state, regional, and national levels. The scope of the Consortium includes land-based food, fiber, and energy production systems, as well as seafood and marine-based production via aquaculture.

“Penn State Law lends unique expertise to the consortium with our work in shale gas law and policy, as well as our research in areas like genetically modified organisms, agricultural regulation, and watershed protection,” said Ross Pifer, clinical professor of law and director Penn State Law’s agricultural law center. “Our membership will allow us to continue -- and expand -- our research and outreach on the important legal issues facing today’s agricultural producers and rural communities.”

The Agricultural and Food Law Consortium is supported by a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library, an entity within the USDA Agricultural Research Service. It is being led by the National Agricultural Law Center, a unit of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, and also includes the National Sea Grant Law Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law and the Agricultural and Resource Law Program at The Ohio State University.

The consortium has launched an online survey that will help define its long-term research and information agenda. One of its first projects will be a webinar series covering various issues in agricultural and food law, including state laws on GMO labeling, food safety, and shale energy.

Additional information about the consortium is available online at nationalaglawcenter.org/consortium.

For more information on the Penn State Law agricultural law center, visit pennstatelaw.psu.edu/aglaw.