LAW 270 - Agriculture and Environment (Spring)

Barclay Rogers

Agriculture and the Environment is a seminar course exploring the interplay between agricultural practices and environmental impacts and examining the social and economic costs of current agricultural policies. The course will begin with an analysis of the historical and political narrative that influences agricultural policy decisions. This narrative will be juxtaposed against today’s reality of large, often heavily polluting, mega-farms that are largely immune from environmental regulation. The course will draw upon economic theory to consider the costs of these policies and will explore the politics leading up to their development.

The course will analyze special exceptions for agriculture in the environmental context, focusing on right-to-farm statutes that provide agricultural operations with immunity from nuisance lawsuits and statutory exemptions that shield them from federal environmental laws. The scope of these special protections will be explored in depth.