The Role of Law in Promoting Sustainable Farming and Rural Development:
An International Perspective
October 15 and 16, 2007 – Des Moines, Iowa USA
Biographical Information about Speakers...
Michael Cardwell
Michael Cardwell, Professor of Agricultural Law, University of Leeds, United Kingdom
After working in legal practice with Burges Salmon, Bristol, Michael Cardwell joined the School of Law, University of Leeds, in 1990. His early research was directed to agricultural tenancies and European Community quota regimes. More recently, he has addressed also broader legal issues generated by Common Agricultural Policy reform, his publications including The European Model of Agriculture (OUP, 2004).
Marc Cohen
Marc Cohen is the interim leader of IFPRI's research program on policy processes in food security and nutrition, and a Research Fellow in the Food Consumption and Nutrition Division. His current research focuses on global and national institutions and policy processes related to food security and nutrition, global humanitarian aid policy, conflict and food security, post-crisis reconstruction, the right to adequate food, and the impact of food aid on community empowerment. Cohen, a U.S. citizen, joined IFPRI in 1998, and was previously Special Assistant to the Director General. From 1991 to 1997, he edited the annual world hunger report at Bread for the World (USA). He earned his B.A. in French at Carleton College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a professorial lecturer in international development at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University.
Juan José Fernández-Bussy
Professor Juan José Fernández-Bussy was born and lives in Rosario, Argentina. He is married, with five children .
He is a Law graduate from the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales del Rosario, Universidad Católica Argentina, Rosario, Argentina, 1973, and a graduate in Agricultural Law from the Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales Santa Fe, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fé, Argentina, 1993.
Prof. Fernández-Bussy has being practicing law for the last 34 years, providing professional legal services to individuals, corporations and cooperatives in civil and commercial matters as well as farming related contracting, trial juries, and estate claims.
Over the past 14 years, he has being a Professor of Agricultural Law, Mines & Energy at the Facultad de Derecho de Rosario, Universidad Nacional de Rosario. And he is a former Professor of Agricultural Law, Mines & Energy at the Facultad de Derecho y Ciencias Sociales del Rosario,Universidad Católica Argentina.
Prof. Fernández-Bussy regularly authors in national and international publications providing interpretations and analysis of agricultural laws and regulations. He is also an activate participant and lecturer at National and International Conferences and Workshops on Agricultural Law.
He is Vice-President of the Instituto de Derecho Agrario del Colegio de Abogados de Rosario, Provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina and an active member and former Head of Speaker at the Instituto de Derecho Agrario Argentino. In addition, he is a former Federal Co-judge at the Tribunales Federales de Rosario, Provincia de Santa Fé, Argentina
Neil D. Hamilton
Prof. Neil D. Hamilton, is the Dwight D. Opperman Chair of Law and Director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University Law School in Des Moines, Iowa. He lives with his wife Khanh on a 10 acre garden farm, Sunstead, near Waukee, Iowa, where they raise fresh vegetables for several local restaurants. Neil grew up on a 200 acre family farm in Adams County, Iowa, where his family has farmed since 1872. He has a B.S. from Iowa State Univ., 1976 in Forestry and Economics, and a JJ.D. from Univ. of Iowa. He has taught agricultural law for 27 years and has written a series of books and articles for farmers and lawyers. He is past-president of the American Agricultural Law Association (AALA) and author of the nationally award winning book What Farmers Need to Know About Environmental Law (1990). He also authored The Legal Guide for Direct Farm Marketing (July 1999), A Livestock Producer's Guide to: Nuisance, Land Use Control, and Environmental Law (1992) and Iowa Crop Producers Environmental Law Guide (1992 and 1994). In 1995 Top Producer/ Farm Journal published his book, A Farmer's Legal Guide to Production Contracts.
Prior to joining the Drake faculty in 1983 to found the Agricultural Law Center, he taught law for two years at the University of Arkansas where he helped create the Agricultural Law masters program. From 1979-81 he was an Assistant Attorney General in the Farm Division of the Iowa Department of Justice. Since 1983 he has been the director of the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University Law School, and has helped it establish a national and international reputation for excellence in research, education and public extension on food and agricultural law issues.
He has written numerous law review articles on topics such as: intellectual property rights and plant genetics, the future of agricultural law, sustainable agriculture, agricultural industrialization, and agricultural production contracts. He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of Nantes in France annually since 1991 and teaches two annual LLM short courses at the University of Arkansas. He has conducted legal seminars throughout the U.S. and in twenty foreign countries. He is the chair of the Advisory Board of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State and is on the boards of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, the Seed Savers Exchange, and the National Gardening Association. In April 2000 Iowa Governor Thomas J. Vilsack appointed him to chair the new Iowa Food Policy Council. In 2003 he organized and still leads the Slow Food Des Moines convivium. In 2005 he was named the Glynwood Center Harvest Award winner for national leadership on food policy.
Christopher R. Kelley
Christopher R. Kelley is an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. He currently teaches in the areas of governmental regulation of agriculture, agricultural environmental law, and international agricultural trade and resources policy in the School of Law’s Graduate Program in Agricultural Law. In the School of Law’s J.D. program, Professor Kelley currently teaches Administrative Law and Remedies. He also has taught other subjects, including Natural Resources Law, Debtor-Creditor Law, and Professional Responsibility.
During the fall of 2005, Professor Kelley taught as a Fulbright Scholar at the Kharkiv National Agrarian University and the Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He continues to lecture in Ukraine. In addition, Professor Kelley is Of Counsel to the Inyurpolis law firm in Kharkiv.
Professor Kelley currently serves as a Vice-Chair of the Russia/Eurasia Committee of the American Bar Association Section of International Law. He also is a founding board member of the Arkansas Chapter of the Fulbright Association.
Before joining the University of Arkansas School of Law faculty in 1998, Professor Kelley practiced law in both the public and private sectors, including with Arent Fox in Washington D.C., and Linquist & Vennum P.L.L.P. in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He began his legal career in the Solicitor General’s Office of the Minnesota Attorney General. He has also been a public defender, a legal services attorney, and staff counsel to the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi.
Professor Kelley also has taught at the William Mitchell College of Law, the University of North Dakota School of Law, the University of South Dakota School of Law, and in the Drake University School of Law Summer Agricultural Law Institute. He received his B.A. from Louisiana State University, his J.D., with honors, from the Howard University School of Law, and his LL.M. in Agricultural Law from the University of Arkansas School of Law. He is admitted to the practice of law in Arkansas, Georgia, Minnesota, North Dakota, and the District of Colombia.
Bodiguel Luc
Short presentation :
- Doctor in law since 2000. Thesis directed by the Professor Louis Lorvellec on the following topic : "L'entreprise rurale : entre activités économiques et territoire rural".
- Researcher in the National Center of the Scientific Ressearch (CNRS) since 2001
- Teacher in agricultural, environmental and contract law in Masters of the University of Nantes and University of Angers (Faculty of law).
- Belong to a scientific institute called « Centre d’études des régulations publiques de l’économie, de l’environnement et des espaces » wich depend from the University of Nantes and the National Center of the Scientific Ressearch (CNRS)
Publications (extract) :
- BODIGUEL L., Le règlement communautaire relatif au développement rural et son application en France, Revue de droit rural, novembre 2007, à paraître.
- BODIGUEL L., L’agriculture, entre crise de l’eau et enjeux politiques, in « Gouvernance et partage de l’eau. Bassin-versant de Grand-Lieu », », BODIGUEL M. (Dir.), Presse Universitaire de Rennes, 2007, 204 p., pp. 79-107, ISBN 978-2-7535-0393-9.
- BODIGUEL L., Droits à paiement unique et droit de préemption des SAFER, Revue de droit rural, déc. 2006, n° 348, pp. 13-16. o BODIGUEL L., CARDWELL M., Evolving definitions of agriculture for an evolving agriculture, The Conveyancer and Property Lawyer, sept.-oct. 2005, pp. 419-446.
- BODIGUEL L., Réflexions sur la réforme de la politique agricole commune et les droits à paiement unique, Gazette du Palais, 10-11 août 2005, pp. 2-9.
- BODIGUEL L., L'entreprise rurale : entre activités économiques et territoire rural, éd. l'Harmattan, Coll. "Droit et Espace Rural", Dir. LORVELLEC L., Préface HUDAULT J., 2002, 478 p.
Bhargavi Motukuri
Bhargavi Motukuri is the Policy coordinator at the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan, INBAR, based in Beijing, China. She works from the South Asia Regional Office based in New Delhi, India. Her current work focuses on developing policies for promotion of various bamboo products within India and various countries of INBAR operation to enhance rural livelihood opportunities and create a sustainable environment.
Prior to this she worked with the International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD as an intern and a consultant for an year on gender, land and trade issues. She earned her LL.M in Agricultural Laws from University of Arkansas in the year 2005, has B.A.B.L(Honors) from National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, (NALSAR), University of Law, Hyderabad, India. She is a recipient of National Ag Law Center Research Fellowship and two national scholarships in India for excellent academic performance.
She has also interned with a Judge and Attorney General in the Supreme Court of India and also has exposure to the working of the lower judiciary. She has worked with some NGOs and was active is setting up a legal-aid organisation, while in University in India, which is still functional. She has published a paper on Public Trust: In Search of the Trust of Public”, published in a premier Indian Journal called Indian Bar Review, a publication of the Bar Council of India. She has been a part of studies undertaken by NALSAR University for the Government of India on Conservation of Local Water Bodies, Efficient Solid Waste Management by Municipal Authorities and Ensuring Gender Justice in Family Laws.
Erimar von der Osten
Erimar von der Osten works as a Senior Fellow at the National Agricultural Law Center where his research focuses on International Agriculture and Trade. After completing his legal studies in Germany, Erimar worked for a New York law firm, headed the legal and compliance department of a securities industry firm, became a Member of the NYSE, and later headed the company. In Frankfurt, Germany, he was appointed to the executive board of a German bank. Erimar established the first general clearing firm of the German Agricultural Futures Exchange in Hanover, has been advocating agricultural market participants in Europe to strengthen their risk management systems, and established a joint venture operation with a federated agricultural cooperative. He has addressed these topics, inter alia, as a speaker at the German Bankenforum organized by the European Business School, where he became a curator of the Endowed Chair of Corporate Finance and Capital Markets. As an executive board member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft fuer Agrarfragen e.V., Berlin, a German agricultural association, Erimar pursues private property issues in East-Germany and has been covering these issues in newspaper editorials. He and his brothers manage a family owned forest in the Uckermark, Brandenburg, Germany.
Harrison M. Pittman
Harrison M. Pittman has an extensive background in agricultural law and has served in multiple capacities at the Center since 2001. He received his J.D. from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law, after attending Mississippi State University and graduating from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He earned an LL.M. in Agricultural Law from the University of Arkansas School of Law's Graduate Program in Agricultural Law. Harrison has authored articles on numerous subjects, including the National Organic Program, the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, the constitutionality of corporate farming laws, pesticide regulation and litigation, agritourism, states' recreational use statutes, legal issues associated with the structure of the livestock industry, agricultural bankruptcy issues, environmental regulation of agriculture such as the application of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act to agriculture, and the Packers and Stockyards Act. He has authored annotations for American Law Reports, including Validity, Construction, and Application of State Constitutional and Statutory Provisions Regarding Corporate Farming and Validity, Construction, and Application of Right-to-Farm Acts. Harrison is an active member of the American Agricultural Law Association, has contributed to the Association's monthly newsletter, The AgLaw Update, and serves on the Association's membership committee. He is a frequent presenter on various agricultural law and policy topics, including environmental law, the impact of globalization and the World Trade Organization on U.S. agriculture, conservation programs, legal liability issues in agritourism operations and other landowner liability issues, agricultural liens, the future of farm commodity programs, and the interrelationship between local food systems and public health issues. He is an active member of the Arkansas Bar Association, where he founded the Agricultural Law Section and later served as interim chair and chair. Harrison has taught at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law as part of the Ben J. Altheimer Distinguished Professorship for Agricultural Law and served as a Visiting Professor for the University of Arkansas Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences, Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the Agriculture Committee of the American Bar Association's Section on Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice. Among other activities with the Agriculture Committee, Harrison moderated A Conversation With Marc L. Kesselman, USDA General Counsel: The Administration's 2007 Farm Bill Proposals that was held at the Venable LLP in Washington, D.C. Harrison also serves as faculty advisor for students involved with the Journal of Food Law & Policy.
Paul Pomerleau
Paul Pomerleau is currently the general manager of the Dairy products and Spring water division of Nutrinor, a Quebec farmer cooperative, since August 2007. He joined Nutrinor in 2004 as general counsel, after 14 years in private practice specializing in food and agricultural law.
A member of the Quebec Bar since 1991, he holds a Master in Law (Ll.M., 1995) from the University of Montreal (Quebec, Canada), an Advance Graduate Diploma in Management (2000) from Athabasca University (Alberta, Canada) and a MBA in agribusiness (2002) from the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada).
Mr. Pomerleau has written many articles (over 50) and given conferences on various issues of food and agriculture law, to lawyers, agricultural organizations, farmers and lenders. He is the webmaster of www.droitagricole.com, a web site that is dedicated to agricultural law in the province of Quebec.
Mr. Pomerleau is currently president of the Table agroalimentaire du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean (2005-…), an organization dedicated to the promotion and development of the agricultural and food industries in the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean region (Quebec). He was on the board of directors of Agrinova, an agricultural research and development centre, from 1998 to 2004.
Nutrinor is a farmer cooperative group with 1200 members. It has gross revenues of over 260 millions dollars, with 375 employees. Its main activities are agricultural products (chickens, pigs and eggs), sales and distribution of farm supplies (animal feed, hardware, pesticides, fertilizers, seeds), processing of farm produce and food (grain, dairy products, meat products), bottling of spring water and sales and distribution of energy (propane, diesel, biodiesel, ethanol, gasoline, domestic fuel).
Chris Rodgers
Since 2003, Chris Rodgers has been a Professor of Law at Newcastle University in the UK. Prior to that he was a Professor of Law at the University of Wales Aberystwyth and Director of its Centre for Law in Rural Areas. He is Editor in Chief of one of the principal refereed journals in the environmental law subject area, the Environmental Law Review, and General Editor of the Environment and Countryside Book Series. He has written widely on environmental law and the law of property. This output includes two edited works on nature conservation law, one on legal aspects of the WTO Agriculture Agreement, and numerous articles in refereed academic journals and essay collections. Professor Rodgers is also the author of one of the principal works in the UK on agricultural property law (Agricultural Law, Butterworths 2nd ed 1998, 3rd ed in press 2007). His principal research interests are the environmental regulation of agriculture, property rights and land use. He is currently Principal Investigator of one of the Larger Research Grant projects in the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s Landscape and Environment Programme, Contested Common Land: environmental governance, law and sustainable land management c.1600-2006
Matt Russell
Matt Russell is State Food Policy Project Coordinator at Drake Agricultural Law Center where he is responsible for projects relating to improving the opportunities in Iowa's food system and rural economy. He joined the Center staff in April 2006 and spent the first six months working as the Iowa Food Products Coordinator under a public-private partnership between Drake University and the office of Governor Tom Vilsack. His study of the State of Iowa's food purchasing practices is the basis for a set of recommendations for creating new opportunities in Iowa's food economy.
Before coming to Drake, Matt worked as an organizer for Iowa Citizen Action Network, a statewide consumer advocacy non-profit and for the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, an advocacy and educational organization promoting sustainable food systems and vibrant rural communities across Iowa and the nation, and around the world. Matt grew up on a family farm near Anita in Cass County, received his B.A. from Loras College in Dubuque, and studied for the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines at the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary in Illinois. In 2003 he earned an M.S. in Rural Sociology from Iowa State University, with a concentration on community food systems. In addition to his work at Drake, Matt and a partner operate Coyote Run Farm, a 110 acre farm in rural Lacona and market fresh produce, eggs and meat at farmers markets and other local outlets. He also serves as the board chair for the Iowa Network for Community Agriculture. Prior to returning to Iowa in 1999, he taught morality, social justice, and journalism at Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has also taught Sociology at Des Moines Area Community College. His work on food and agriculture, has taken him to 21 states, the District of Columbia, Scotland, and Italy.
Susan Schneider 
Professor Susan Schneider is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Graduate Program in Agricultural Law at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Professor Schneider graduated with a B.A. in 1982 from the College of St. Catherine (Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Gamma Mu); she earned her J.D., cum laude, from the University of Minnesota School of Law in 1985 and her LL.M. in agricultural law in 1990 from the University of Arkansas School of Law.
Professor Schneider's private practice experience includes agricultural law work with firms in Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Washington, D.C. She served as a staff attorney at Farmer's Legal Action Group Inc. and at the National Center for Agricultural Law Research & Information. She has taught agricultural law and related subjects at William Mitchell College of Law in Minnesota and at the Drake University Summer Agricultural Law Institute in Iowa.
Her primary teaching areas are in agricultural finance, food law and policy, bankruptcy, agricultural labor law, and agricultural policy.She has published numerous articles on agricultural law subjects, including farm finance, agricultural bankruptcy, ground-water contamination, farm program payments, and women in agriculture. In addition to her traditional publications, she is a contributor to the agricultural law blog on the Jurisdynamics Network, available at aglaw.blogspot.com and the LL.M. blog at aglawllm.blogspot.com. Professor Schneider is an active member of the American Agricultural Law Association (AALA) and is a past president and former AALA board member. She is also a frequent speaker at agricultural law conferences.
Anthony Schutz
Professor Schutz joined the University of Nebraska College of Law faculty in 2006. During law school, he worked for Cline, Williams, Wright, Johnson, and Oldfather in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was the editor-in-chief of the Nebraska Law Review. After law school, Professor Schutz clerked for the Honorable C. Arlen Beam of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit until 2005. During the 2004-2005 academic year he also taught Legal Research and Writing at the College of Law as an adjunct instructor. During the 2005-2006 academic year he was a Visiting Lecturer in the Lawyering Program at the Cornell Law School.
The product of a farm family in Elwood, Nebraska, Professor Schutz’s research interests include the often intertwined subjects of agricultural law, environmental and natural resources law, and state and local government. He has recently authored a chapter in The History of Nebraska Law (Ohio Univ. Press, forthcoming Spring 2007) entitled “Land Use Law and Livestock Production.” And he is currently developing an article that explores the continued viability of state-law restrictions on the use of limited-liability business organizations in agriculture.
Domenico Viti
Professor of Agricultural and Food Law at the University of Foggia School of law- Italy. Coordinator at the Master in Food Security in the same University. Coordinator of the Erasmus Scholarship Program. Member of the Board of Directocs of the Consortium to the Apulian Universities. Author of several articles on Agricultural Law, Food Law, Environmental Law, Private Law.
Author of the book "Agriculture and use of territory. Legal experience". Recently appointed by the Region Puglia member of the Committee for agricultar landscape preservation. Expert of Environmental Protection Associations in the campaign against the illigal trade of olive trees.
Timothy Whipple
Timothy Whipple grew up on small family farm in North Central Iowa. He is a 1999 graduate of St. Olaf College and a 2007 graduate of the Drake Law School where he completed a Legislative Practice certificate and was a member of the Drake Journal of Agricultural Law . He has worked in the legal services bureau at the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, as a lobbyist with the Technology Association of Iowa, a legislative aid in the Iowa House of Representatives, and a law clerk at Roxanne Conlin & Associates, P.C. He is currently a fellow at Drake University's Agricultural Law Center working on issues affecting rural communities, including structural issues in the pork industry, rural economic development, and the environment.
Shunsuke Yanagimura
Born in Kobe, Japan 
1987-2005: lecturer, associate professor, professor of Rakuno Gakuen University, Hokkaido, Japan
1995-1996: assicate visiting professor of Cornell University, NY, USA
2005-Present: professor of farm business management of Miyagi University, Miyagi, Japan
Doctor of Agriculture Research Subjects: Intergenerational Farm Transfer / Comparative Analysis between family farm and coporate farm
Xiang Yang
Xiang Yang lives in Chongqing, China. She is the Associate professor of Law at Chonqqing Jiaotong University and the Associate Director of Economic Department, Chongqing Jiaotong University. She graduated from Chonqging Normal University with a B.A. in History and got her master degree of Law from Southwest University of Law and Political Science in 2001. She has authored or co-authored 13 referred articles, co-authored one book. Xiang Yang has been devoting to teach and study Chinese Economic and Labor Law. Her research is concentrated in two areas : (1) Social Security Law, (2) Labor and Employment Law.
At present, Xiang Yang is studying and doing her research as a visiting Scholar at Drake University Law School.
