The Environmental Law of Farms

Abstract

Farms and farming are intrinsically linked with human civilization, and have had a dramatic impact on our planet's landscape and environmental systems. Environmental regulation in the United States, though young when compared to other fields of law, is a highly developed body of law. Unfortunately, a wide chasm exists between these two social endeavors--farms are virtually unregulated by the expansive body of environmental law that has developed in the United States in the past 30 years. Yet the absence of an environmental regulation program for farms presents us with the opportunity to create one from scratch. The time for taking advantage of that opportunity is long overdue.