Who We Are

In 1987, Congress called for the creation of the National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information. In the decades since its founding, the National Agricultural Law Center has received funding in part from federal appropriations through the National Agricultural Library, an entity within the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  Additionally, the Center works with several partners and an array of stakeholders throughout the United States.

The National Agricultural Law Center, a unit of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, serves as the nation’s leading source of objective, scholarly, and authoritative agricultural and food law research and information, serving public and private sector stakeholders – producers, federal and state lawmakers, policymakers, land grant university faculty and academics, attorneys, and others — throughout the United States.  It is the only agricultural and food law research and information facility that is independent, national in scope, and directly connected to the national agricultural information network.

What We Do

Creating and maintaining resources that are accessible for, understandable by, and available to the general public is a major component to fulfilling the Center’s mission. The Center’s website serves as a hub for research and information within the agricultural, food and environmental law field. With over 50 subject specific “Reading Rooms,” the Center website covers a wide array of topics from animal welfare to industrial hemp production and is a focal point of the work done at the Center.  These resources include the Ag & Food Law Blog and publications such as white papers, factsheets and factsheet series, issue briefs, state law compilations covering various topics, and more.

In addition to written resources, the Center also hosts a webinar series on current and emerging important agricultural and food law topics. Typically held on the third Wednesday of each month, these webinars are freely available to the general public, both live and archived.

To complement the resources offered on the Center website, Center staff frequently present in-person to groups of producers, trade associations, Extension personnel, attorneys, students, state and federal policy-makers, and others at the local, state and national levels. If you or your organization is interested in hosting a Center Staff Attorney, contact us at nataglaw@uark.edu.

The National Agricultural Law Center also participates in the Agricultural Network Information Center (AgNIC).

This site is reviewed for accuracy and updated every six months.