Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/12
Outputs
OUTPUTS: FLAG attorneys completed the research, writing, production, distribution, and outreach for a farmer-friendly legal guide, "Farmers' Guide to Organic Contracts," that will provide current and transitioning organic farmers with critical, concise, and accessible guidance to the interpretation and management of the legal contracts with the processors, distributors, and retailers that increasingly dominate farmers' ability to market organic agricultural products successfully. The project's work included legal research; interviews with organic farmers and handlers; compilation of an organic contracts database; drafting and two rounds of edits by internal staff, and two rounds of peer review by a notable advisor panel (see below). The "Farmers' Guide to Organic Contracts" was written to help farmers make informed decisions at every stage of their contract relationships. This accessible new legal guide includes: 1. An overview of contract laws important to farmers; 2. A Quick Organic Contract Checklist and practical toolkit farmers can use to review and negotiate contract offers; 3. Highlighted sections illustrating how federal organic regulations interact with organic contracts; 4. Examples and discussion of over 100 types of organic contract provisions; and 5. Detailed information about solving the types of contract disputes that commonly arise in the organic market. The "Farmers' Guide to Organic Contracts" will assist farmers with all types of agricultural contracts, but the guide's primary purpose is to serve farm operations certified as organic under U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and National Organic Program (NOP) regulations. Specific suggestions and information for certified organic operations are highlighted throughout the guide, which features a color-coded symbol system designed to enhance reader understanding. PARTICIPANTS: Principal author/investigator: Amanda N. Heyman, FLAG Staff Attorney. Role: Interviewed stakeholders and worked with advisor panel to decide on the scope and content of the book; conducted extensive outreach to collect organic contract samples; reviewed and analyzed contract samples; conducted legal research; created the structure, content, and outline of the book; drafted all of the chapters; worked with peer reviewers, discussing and incorporating where appropriate their input; revised drafts based on peer reviewers' and FLAG senior staff attorney reviewers' feedback; finalized guide; worked on layout, publication, and distribution; and presented information from the guide at conferences, workshops, and trainings. Advisory panel: Jim Riddle, the Organic Outreach Coordinator for the University of Minnesota Southwest Research and Outreach Center, is the founding chair of the Independent Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA), and former chair of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Organic Advisory Task Force; Michael Sligh, the Sustainable Agriculture Program Director at Rural Advancement Foundation International-USA (RAFI), is a farmer, author, and founding chair of USDA's National Organics Standards Board; and Ed Maltby, the Executive Director of Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance (NODPA), one of the nation's largest grassroots organizations of organic dairy producers. Roles: Participated in several conference calls to discuss scope and content of the book; assisted with outreach to collect contract samples; provided individualized advice where appropriate; conducted two rounds of in-depth edits on the entire book. Supervising editor: Lynn Hayes, FLAG Program Director and Senior Staff Attorney. Role: Oversaw each step in the development and publication of the guide. Editor: Karen Krub, FLAG Senior Staff Attorney. Role: Edited all chapters. TARGET AUDIENCES: The Target Audience of this project is the growing community of current and transitioning organic farmers whose operations require the understanding and management of legal contracts with the processors, distributors, and retailers that increasingly dominate the farmers' ability to market organic agricultural products successfully. The organic sector uses written contracts at a much higher rate than the conventional agricultural sector (68 percent of the transactions of organic handlers use either written or verbal contracts), but the market has previously lacked an independent, reliable source of legal information for organic farmers to use when presented with, or when proposing, a marketing contract for organic crops, dairy, livestock, or other organic farm products. Over the years, FLAG has received contract-related calls from organic producers from Florida to Idaho, who are growing everything from watermelons to potatoes. Producers have asked questions about their legal recourse when a buyer rejects a perishable crop after it has been shipped hundreds of miles, or when a buyer "changes its mind" after committing to buy all of a crop the farmer can produce. And producers of organic grains have had questions about whether they must agree to testing for the presence of genetically modified organisms, pesticides, and other prohibited substances (and who should pay for the tests). Our collaborating organizations tell us that those kinds of examples are common across the country. The "Farmers' Guide to Organic Contracts," produced under this grant, will provide the legal information on contracts so that organic farmers can fully understand the implications of the contracts they are signing and other options that are available to them. The guide will be a useful resource to organic farmers contemplating a new contract, as well as to farmers searching for information and support after a dispute arises. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: This project is now complete.
Impacts
Change in conditions: FLAG has informed and will continue to alert key audiences about the guide's publication. Already, the guide has been posted on the online Organic Agricultural Resource Area of the eOrganic and eXtension websites; the Risk Management Agency's Ag Risk Education Library; in press releases to prominent agricultural publications; in a notice to, and a request to be included in, the newsletters and websites of partner organizations, e-mail listservs, website posts, and conference distributions. The precise impact of the guide won't be known until the year ahead when FLAG can and will document the numbers of paper copies that are printed and distributed; download traffic on FLAG's website; and discussions with individual organic farmers. The ultimate distribution is likely to be significant. In the relatively short time since the guide has been released, it has been downloaded from the FLAG website, in whole or in part, 506 times by people in 46 states and Washington, D.C. In addition, the guide's author presented in September on organic contract issues via videoconference for 15 members of the Organic Farmer Agency for Relationship Marketing (OFARM), a producer group that works to sustain organic farming; and has been invited to speak on the guide's contents at the Organic Farmers Conference of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), which ever year is among the nation's largest gatherings of the organic farming community. Change in knowledge: Upon review of the final edition of the organic contracts guide, Jim Riddle, Organic Outreach Coordinator for the University of Minnesota, and former chair of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Organic Advisory Task Force, described it as "a very useful, readable, and technically sound publication that will stand the test of time!"
Publications
- Heyman, A.N., 2012. Farmers Guide to Organic Contracts, published by Farmers Legal Action Group, Inc., in bound soft cover (available at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/flagpublications) and in PDF format online in its entirety or by individual chapters (available at http://www.flaginc.org/topics/pubs/organic.php#FGOC).
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Progress 09/01/10 to 08/31/11
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Attended and conducted research and obtained input and resources at the 2011 Minnesota Organic Conference and the conference of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES). Reviewed and analyzed a wide range of contracts involving many types of organic commodities. Conducted interviews with approximately 10 organic farmers and handlers. Constructed a contacts database of approximately 50 organic farmers and handlers. Completed research for and drafting of 85 percent of the guide, "Organic Farmers' Guide to Contracts," including Chapter 1 on Contract Basics (20 pages); Chapter 2 on Reviewing an Organic Contract (90 pages); and Chapter 3 on Problem Solving (20 pages); for a total of 130 pages. This draft has been through two rounds of edits by internal staff and is being prepared for submission to the project's adviser panel for the first of two rounds of adviser review. Drafted a checklist for farmers to use when reviewing organic contracts. PARTICIPANTS: Lynn A. Hayes was a founding attorney at FLAG. After 16 years, she left FLAG in the spring of 2002 to move to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In early 2006, FLAG welcomed Lynn back as senior staff attorney and, beginning September 2006, she began serving again as FLAG's program director. Lynn worked for the Office of the Monitor for three years, reviewing African-American farmers' claims in the racial discrimination case against USDA, Pigford v. Veneman. During her tenure at FLAG, Lynn was lead or co-counsel in several lawsuits, including Coleman v. Lyng (national class action lawsuit against the Farmers Home Administration); the Minnesota Milk Producers Association's challenge to federal milk marketing order provisions; and the pork checkoff case, among others. She has presented hundreds of workshops for farmers and their advocates on agricultural credit, contract-farming, environmental, commodity pricing, and antitrust issues. She has assisted farm organizations in developing proposed regulations and legislation at both the state and federal levels in many of these same issue areas. Lynn received her B.A. in English from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and her J.D. from Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. Amanda Heyman joined FLAG as a staff attorney in January 2011. Prior to joining FLAG, she served as a judicial law clerk for U.S. Magistrate Judge Franklin L. Noel and U.S. District Judge Ann D. Montgomery in the District of Minnesota. During her clerkships, Amanda worked on a wide variety of cases, including contract disputes, civil rights litigation, administrative appeals, and First Amendment claims. In addition, Amanda has significant experience in the legal services setting, including advocacy on behalf of Hurricane Katrina survivors on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Amanda earned her law degree from the University of Michigan Law School in 2008, where she was a Clarence Darrow Merit Scholar, an editor of the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, and co-chair of the Environmental Law Society Board. In 2003, Amanda obtained a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and a certificate in Environmental Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before embarking on her legal career, Amanda won several awards for her work as a newspaper reporter in Wisconsin and New Mexico. This project's work product will be reviewed by this accomplished advisory panel: Jim Riddle, Organic Outreach Coordinator for the University of Minnesota, is the founding chair of the Independent Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA), and chairs the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's Organic Advisory Task Force; Michael Sligh, Sustainable Agriculture Program Director at RAFI-USA, is a farmer, author, and founding chair of the National Organics Standards Board; and Ed Maltby is Executive Director of Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance, one of the nation's largest grassroots organization of organic dairy producers. TARGET AUDIENCES: The Target Audience of this project is the growing community of current and transitioning organic farmers whose operations require the interpretation and management of legal contracts with the processors, distributors, and retailers that increasingly dominate their ability to market organic agricultural products successfully. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: With the approval of NIFA, Lynn A. Hayes replaced Jill E. Krueger as Project Director.
Impacts
Change in conditions: Based on the expertise acquired in researching and writing this guide, FLAG project staff were invited to present on the legal intricacies of organic contracts at the 2012 Minnesota Organic Conference that will be held on January 13-14, 2012, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and at the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) conference that will be held on February 23-25, 2012, in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. These conferences will allow for a two-way exchange of information, with FLAG attorneys providing legal information and also obtaining additional feedback on organic contract issues and real-world experiences from organic farmers and other members of the organic industry, all of which will strengthen the guide and increase its usefulness.
Publications
- Organic Farmers Guide to Contracts is on schedule to be completed and published in 2012.
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