New Book on Farm Programs and Habitat Conservation

The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC) recently announced the release of a new resource, Conserving Habitat through the Federal Farm Bill: A Guide for Land Trusts and Landowners.

NSAC describes the book as a collaboration of six organizations. "Principal author Aimee Weldon, with the Potomac Conservancy, brought together contributing authors from NSAC, the Izaak Walton League of America, Defenders of Wildlife and the Intermountain West Joint Venture. The Biophilia Foundation and the Living Lands Project at the Defenders of Wildlife provided financial support and the North American Bird Conservation Initiative assisted with the technical content."

The book includes:

• A concise introduction to the federal conservation programs authorized under the Farm Bill, the agencies involved and general eligibility requirements;
  
• Detailed information on those conservation programs that can best be used to improve wildlife habitat conservation;
• Advice for the selection of the programs to match conservation and biodiversity goals;
• Advice regarding the application process;
• Recommendations on how to actively participate in the implementation of the programs to further local priorities;
  
• Case studies of the successful use of the programs to maximize wildlife and habitat benefits.

The guide promises to be a very helpful resource. it is available in a free download as a pdf document.

Questioning U.S. Food Aid: Corn/Soy Flour

From Doctors Without Borders, a compelling request.

Starved for Attention is a campaign to expose a significant problem with U.S. international food aid. The corn/soy flour that we send may relieve hunger, but it does not provide adequate nutrition for malnourished children. Yet, we spend millions of dollars subsidizing production, purchasing the corn and soy, manufacturing it into flour and shipping it in-kind to countries in need. Many recognize the problem, but we slow to correct it.

I invite you to read the letter from Sophie Delaunay, Executive Director U.S Section of Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

Food & Agricultural Law Student Writing Competition

On October 1, I had the pleasure of providing the keynote luncheon speech at the Cultivating Our Future food and agriculture conference hosted by the The Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation (JELL) and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics at the University of Oregon School of Law. Neil Hamilton provided the closing keynote address, and fellow blogger Anthony Schutz presented via video conference.

JELL and the Morse Center are again teaming up to announce the 2010‐2011 JELL Writing Competition. This year’s contest topic is Food and Agriculture Law and Policy, and the competition is open to students at accredited law schools in the United States and Canada who are enrolled as of the competition deadline of January 31, 2011.

Papers will be accepted on any issue concerning food/agriculture law and policy. However, topics addressed in articles recently appeared in the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation will not be favored. Competitors are encouraged to review previous JELL articles as posted on the JELL website.

The winner of the competition will receive a cash prize of $500 and the possibility of publishing the winning paper in the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation’s spring 2011 issue. Authors of other entries of publishable quality may also be offered the opportunity to publish in JELL.

All entries must be received no later than 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time on January 31, 2011. Entries will be acknowledged upon receipt. All entries become the property of the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation. Submissions will be judged by JELL editors, Wayne Morse staff, Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center faculty, Legal Research and Writing law faculty, and local attorneys with an interest in food and agriculture law and policy.

Papers will be judged on the basis of originality and timeliness of the topic, knowledge and use of applicable legal principles, proper and articulate analysis of the issues, use of authorities and extent of research, logic and reasoning in analysis, ingenuity and ability to argue by analogy, clarity and organization, correctness of format and citations, grammar and writing style, and strength and logic of conclusions.

Entries must be a minimum of 20 pages in length and a maximum of 40 pages in length, excluding endnotes, double‐spaced using Times New Roman 12‐point font with one‐inch top, bottom, and side margins. All citations should conform to the Bluebook (19th ed.). All entries must have only one author, be previously unpublished, and not currently submitted for publication elsewhere. Papers entered in the JELL writing competition may not be submitted for consideration to any other publication until after the winner is announced.

Submissions may be emailed to the Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation at daviss@uoregon.edu by the competition deadline. Please use “JELL Writing Competition Submission” as the subject line of the email message. Entries must be attached in Microsoft Word .doc or .docx formatting.

If submitting by email, the body of the message containing the attached submission must include the author's name, school, expected year of graduation, current address, permanent
address, and email address. No identifying information (name, school, etc.) should appear on the paper itself.

Although email submissions are preferred, hardcopy entries are acceptable. No identifying information should appear in the body of the paper, but should be included on a cover page. If submitting a hardcopy entry, mail it to the address below and send an email to
daviss@uoregon.edu to notify JELL that you are sending a hardcopy submission, or fax your entry to the number below. Hardcopy entries must be received by 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time on
January 31, 2011.

Failure to follow these guidelines may result in the rejection of a submission.

Mail or fax entries to:

JELL 2010‐2011 Writing Competition Phone: (541) 346‐3844
Journal of Environmental Law and Litigation Fax: (541) 346‐1564
ATTN: Writing Competition Editor Email: daviss@uoregon.edu
138 Knight Law Building
1515 Agate Street
Eugene, OR 97403

Please pass this announcement on to any interested law students. Its a great opportunity to explore a fascinating area of law.

Blogger Report From the AALA Conference

The American Agricultural Law Association Annual Symposium was held October 7-9, 2010 in Omaha, Nebraska. It was a very successful conference, with record attendance of 295 participants.

Over fifty law students attended, and I was pleased to accompany sixteen of our current class of LL.M. candidates. Fellow AgLaw blogger, Anthony Schutz and I both presented to the general session, with Anthony presenting the Update on Environmental Law and Agriculture. I presented the Food Law Update. And, I am delighted to report that we each received awards.

Anthony's excellent article, Grassland Governance and Common-Interest Communities received the Professional Scholarship Award. This article suggests a model for collective action among ranch owners to create common-interest communities in order to enhance opportunities for marketing “nature-based experiences” to customers. It illustrates the use of private law to create and support environmentally beneficial use beyond the scope of what one individual landowner could accomplish. It is a creative and well-articulated proposal published in Environmental Law & Sustainability. Anthony also presented the article at the recent University of Oregon Journal of Environmental Law & Litigation seminar, Cultivating our Future: New Landscapes in Food and Agricultural Law and Policy. The award was well deserved.

I was very honored to receive the AALA Distinguished Service Award. The Distinguished Service Award is given to a member of the AALA who demonstrates “sustained excellence” in contributing to the development of agricultural law. Making the award to Anthony in the picture above and to me in the lower photo is Jesse Richardson, practicing attorney and Associate Professor, Virginia Tech, Chair of the AALA Awards Committee and recently elected AALA Board of Directors member.

The Use of Best Management Practices to Reduce Nutrient Pollution in the Everglades Agricultural Area

It is only after my recent move to South Florida where I routinely drive on the Sawgrass Expressway that I appreciate how the wild beauty of the South Florida Everglades lives cheek to jowl with the buzz and press of busy city life.

William H. Owen captures this juxtaposition in a recent Earth Magazine article:

As the sun rises over the vast Florida Everglades, the endangered Florida panther quietly stalks a white-tailed deer in the tall grass. A raccoon fishes for its breakfast of crayfish. A small flock of rose-colored waterfowl flies overhead, a reminder of the vast flocks of wading birds that once called the Everglades home. A couple of otters roll around in the water nearby, keeping a watchful eye out for ubiquitous alligators. Manatees swim silently below the surface in Florida Bay, at the southern end of the Everglades ecosystem. Suddenly, a tractor engine revs to life as a farmer prepares to harvest his sugarcane, and the noise of commuters driving to work on the Sawgrass Expressway disturbs the calm. Such is life in the Everglades, where modern civilization meets wild in a vast subtropical wetland.

The Everglades is the largest subtropical wetland in the United States. It is an internationally recognized ecosystem that covers approximately two million acres in South Florida. Urban and agricultural development has endangered the biotic integrity of this ecosystem. One example of this development is the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA). The EAA is one of several large portions of the original Everglades that was drained for commercial, agricultural and residential development. The EAA is approximately 700,000 acres and is 27% of the original Everglades. Drainage waters from the agricultural lands in the EAA contain nutrients, primarily phosphorous, from the use of fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. This agricultural runoff flows downstream to areas that include the Everglades National Park. These excess nutrients have allowed nutrient loving plants like cattails to overrun the wetlands, displacing native species such as sawgrass.

In an article titled Reducing Nutrient Pollution in the Everglades Agricultural Area through Best Management Practices, Professor Alfred R. Light chronicles the social, legal and regulatory history of nutrient pollution reduction efforts in the EAA. Professor Light explains how the EAA farmers have recently used Best Management Practices to take the irrigation water with high phosphorous levels that flows into their fields and reduce those levels before allowing the runoff to drain downstream. Professor Light suggests that the successful use of Best Management Practices by EAA farmers will be a bellwether for other US farmers facing similar nutrient pollution problems. The abstract of the Article reads:

Some Florida farmers recently have been reducing the level of nutrient pollution discharged from their fields and entering sensitive Florida ecosystems from the level found in the irrigation water they use. They are doing this while continuing to operate their productive farms. Setting a water quality standard seems to have driven actual “real world” improvements in water quality in Florida, including development of the data and research needed to support those improvements. Mandatory BMPs seem to have worked in reducing phosphorus concentrations in water leaving the EAA. In fact, phosphorus concentrations in water leaving the EAA are about half of the concentrations in irrigation water entering the region. Other regions of the country with significant nutrient pollution thus may be looking to Florida to find out how farmers can be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Florida’s BMP program in the EAA thus may be a bellwether for other states seeking to confront the challenges of nutrient pollution.