Historically, Minnesota led the way to protect contract growers, setting guidelines on contract cancellation, requiring a mediation clause in contracts between growers and processors, and assigning parent company responsibility for contracts of subsidiaries. There is still a dearth of legislation and case law in this area, however, and new legislation is still focused on the basics: contract readability and a 3 day right to review (MN), contract leins to give producers the first priority to be paid (IA), and banning confidentiality on production contracts (IA). Continue reading

Bills on parent company liability failed in Iowa and South Dakota ( SD 1997 S.B 202, vetoed by governor in 1997 see SD Contractor liability). Minnesota passed a law in 1990 (see link to Statute below) that assigns liability to the corporation that owns the processor for any unpaid debts due to growers. Continue reading

Kentucky’s Division of Water recently finalized regulations on concentrated animal feedlot operations (CAFOs) which include integrator liability. The KY law is the first of its kind in the country. Under the regulations, integrators must apply for a state permit (KPDES) even if they own animals kept by a farmer under contract. If the permit is violated, it is the integrators who are liable for consequences. The regulations were to go into effect August 24, 2000, but last June the Farm Bureau and other groups challenged the rule in court by arguing that it was pre-empted by another Kentucky law that precludes the state from passing legislation stricter than federal standards. They were granted a temporary restraining order specifically on the integrator liability provision. Continue reading

Prior to 1999, Georgia levied ad valorem taxes for some agricultural commodities, such as fruit and nut trees and livestock. Legislation passed in 1998 relieved small scale farmers of this additional burden. For other crops, such as ornamental trees and shrubs, the possibility of ad valorem taxation was eliminated.

The legislation is noteworthy not because of the tax impact- farmers will save about $ 2.5 million a year, or an average of less than $20,000 per Georgia county- but because it targets those tax cuts to a well defined "family farm" scale agriculture.

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Colleges and Universities, especially the nation’s land grant universities are a perfect laboratory for policies that support locally-grown and/or organic food supplies. The University of Wisconsin’s Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems completed a survey of schools in 1998 and identified a handful that had policies in place that supplied their food service departments with significant quantities of locally grown and/or organic food. Continue reading