This colorful site from the University of Arkansas School of Law offers an exceptionally detailed variety of full-text online resources for anyone wishing to explore the tangled body of legal information on various aspects of American agricultural production. Created by Congress and funded through the National Agricultural Library, this unique facility centers its analyses on the contemporary state of proposed and enacted law and legislation governing all aspects of the agriculture and food industries. Some sections of this site were still under construction at the time of this review.
Under the National Aglaw Reporter heading on the main menu, there are detailed studies of twenty major topics in agricultural law, ranging from biotechnology to farm credit and cooperatives (and including the Clean Water Act and the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act). This section also contains links to the full text of all significant statutes, case summaries and judicial officer decisions filed by the piece of law invoked in the case or cases under review. This section of the Web site also contains a selection entitled Congressional Resources. This includes links to Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry reports from 1995 to date, the House and Senate Committees on Agriculture and the Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittees, agricultural entries in the Congressional Record from 1999 to 2003, the Congressional Rural Caucus, and General Accounting Office (GAO) Reports.
For those seeking the full text of the basic major pieces of legislation affecting American agriculture passed between 1938 and 2002, the section entitled Farm Bills offers a useful collection of primary materials. The section entitled Reference Desk is not what the user may expect, as this section does not offer users an online way of querying the Center regarding specific issues. It is, rather, an eclectic grouping of newsletters, two online journals, an extensive body of materials from the American Bar Association, glossaries, and education and research guides. It also contains links for continuing education in the field, as well as links to major federal and international agencies and libraries, selected publications in agricultural law, and sources of agricultural and food-related statistics.
Under the Research Publications heading, you can click on the links to the left to access articles and bibliographies on agricultural law. The bibliographies are divided by year; material is included from 1985 forward. Articles are available in PDF or Word file formats.
For anyone interested in the graduate program in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas, a link is provided from the main page menu, as is one to a similar program at Drake University in Des Moines under the list of links to the larger agricultural community. This list of links is disappointingly brief, offering access to specialized research Web sites of the Agricultural Research Service, the Agricultural Network Information Center, the American Agricultural Law Association, and the National Agricultural Library, as well as expected government agencies such as the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
One of the few flaws in the content of this site is its lack of currency for most areas covered, although users may effectively supplement this by linking directly to such government Web sites as Thomas (http://thomas.loc.gov/), for direct full-text access to agriculture-related laws under consideration by either the House or Congress.
Overall, the site is well-organized and easy to navigate and would be a valuable addition to the electronic resources of any college or university library supporting degree programs at any level in the agricultural sciences. Public librarians working in agricultural states should also consider adding this site to their Web pages as part of outreach to a hard-to-serve body of patrons, and it should be added to the home pages of farming-related activist and extension organizations at the state and county level as well.
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