Myth Making in the Heartland – Did Agriculture Elect the New President?

This essay addresses the role of America’s farmers in electing President Donald Trump. This role may not have been as large as the agricultural community and others have suggested. Additionally, this essay cautions the agricultural community against taking too much credit for the election of a politician and party whose interests are often at odds with agricultural interests

TRENDS IN ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION OF AGRICULTURE

Environmental Economics and Policy,

Forced Feeding: New Legal Issues in the Biotechnology Policy Debate

In the fall of 2000, I presented a paper, Legal Issues Shaping Society’s Acceptance of Biotechnology and Genetically Modified Organisms, at the American Agricultural Law Association annual meeting in St. Louis. The paper inventoried the legal and policy issues shaping America’s approach toward biotechnology and was designed to serve as a tool for understanding the ongoing debate. Thirty months have passed and the pace of consideration of issues relating to society’s acceptance of biotechnology has not slowed. Just as the article was being finished, the StarLink fiasco was beginning. That episode alone has provided the grist for numerous lawsuits and other policy debates. In the intervening thirty months, several issues have become more settled. What follows is an effort both to update many of the issues discussed in the previous article and to make the analysis more timely and complete. In doing so, the Essay will share whatever insights and observations are possible concerning the role that biotechnology will play in our food and agriculture system and how policy and law will be asked to shape that future

Food Democracy II: Revolution or Restoration?

Author\u27s Note: This essay is a companion to the essay \u27Food Democracy, which appears in 9 DRAKE JOuRNAL OF AGRICULTURAL LAw 9 (2004). In that essay, the author discussed many of the progressive trends that are helping reshape America\u27s food system. These trends have a common denominator in their reflection of the democratic tendencies of the American populace. The desire of an increasing number of consumers to eat better food and to have access to the information, choices, and alternatives that make better food available are helping drive shifts in food production and marketing. Accompanying these shifts are political and legal debates over fundamental policy issues that relate to food labeling, support for local food production, the emergence of ecolabels, and examination of the relation between nutrition and public health. Arrayed against the emergence of these new economic and policy developments are the institutions and values of the conventional food and agricultural sector, which the author collectively describes as Big Food. He argues the emergence and recognition of \u27Food Democracy is a valuable development for helping America examine the future of the food and agricultural system. In this essay, the author provides further amplification of his thesis, in part using the recent mad cow incident to illuminate some of the differences in values and attitudes between Big Food and Food Democracy

Iowa Land and Landowners: Fear or Opportunity

Our relation to the land changed as modern agriculture changed. Today many issues involving the land seem to focus on fear and conflict, revealing a fragility of agriculture surprising for how it confounds the expected image of strength and stability. In many ways, our fragile relation to the land contrasts to the optimism of the relation in the past, in the years of settlement and expansion. Part of the change reflects the adverse impacts of modern agriculture catching up with us, and part stems from a society more willing to focus on issues of equity, inclusion, and inequality. The good news is the current state of tensions on the land can’t obscure the land’s resiliency and its ability to offer hope. Rather than consider reasons for hope, this essay examines what brought us to a pattern of fear and conflict on the land

Keeping the Farm and Farmer in Food Policy and Law

Thank you for the opportunity to be with you, it is always a pleasure to return to the University of Arkansas Law School where I began my teaching career in the fall of 1981. We are pleased Drake University Law School and the University of Arkansas College of Law have built and maintained a partnership on teaching and research that stretches back over three decades. I am especially pleased to be with you as we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Journal of Food Law and Policy, another part of the University\u27s pioneering work in the area of food policy and agricultural law