John Hershey is a law student at Widener Law Commonwealth and a guest contributor to this blog. Crop insurance programs continue to be a sticking point in Farm Bill negotiations. Farmers pay federally subsidized premiums to obtain crop insurance coverage from private insurers. Crop insurance protects revenues when prices fall or natural causes such as drought or flood reduce harvests….
Orly Levy is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. Background The shift towards large-scale industrial animal farming has transformed the landscape of American farming over the past few decades. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) have out-competed smaller, family-owned farms, decreasing the number of livestock farmers in the US by…
Mike Orlando is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. Approximately 44 million Americans live without ready access to healthy food. To help mitigate this issue, Congress created the USDA Healthy Food Financing Initiative (“HFFI”) as part of the 2014 Agricultural Act (commonly referred to as the farm bill). HFFI…
Mike Orlando is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. On February 14, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, head of the USDA, testified in front of the House Agriculture Committee (the “Ag Committee”). He urged the Ag Committee to act quickly to pass the next farm bill, noting that delays…
James Wyche is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. America’s Digital Evolution America’s development from an agrarian country to one of increasing technological sophistication has engendered fundamental economic and social changes. Since the dawn of the age of the internet near the end of the 20th century, society’s reliance…
Orly Levy is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. Food Insecurity in Higher Education The next farm bill provides a legislative opportunity to tackle food insecurity amongst college students through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). While the exact numbers are unclear, many low-income college students don’t have enough…
This is a repost of a previous blog post from February 2023, written by Liz Turner, a previous law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. America’s farmworkers are a uniquely vulnerable group of workers. Farm labor is exempted from many federal protections, including the right to organize under the National Labor…
Zoe van Vlaanderen is a law student in the HLS Food Law & Policy Clinic and a guest contributor to this blog. Every year, preventable diet-related diseases contribute to the deaths of nearly 1.5 million people across the U.S. Many of those who face diet-related diseases also experience food insecurity, limited or uncertain access to food. The Farm Bill funds and…
Camden Smithtro is a Program Coordinator in the Pace Food Law Center and a guest contributor to this blog. Three marker bills — the LAST ACRE Act, the ReConnecting Rural America Act (RRAA) and the Rural Internet Improvement Act (RIIA) — are in contention to define the focus of rural broadband programs in the upcoming Farm Bill. Each program is…
Olivia Scuderi is a University of Maryland undergraduate student and guest contributor to this blog. Given the advanced age of the average American farmer, addressing the need for young and beginning farmers is critical to stabilizing the U.S. food system. Similarly, farm viability for small and medium-sized farms is vital to the future of agriculture. As a young farmer about…