S. Food Systems and US Environmental Law

We eat food every day. The food system, from agricultural production to processing and distribution to consumption and waste, shapes our lives. The food system also profoundly affects our environment, climate, and public health. This course explores the environmental impact of modern agriculture and the U.S. laws that attempt to address it. In so doing, we examine a wide range of legislative approaches and compare their effectiveness as applied to a uniquely complex sector.

Today's industrial food system bears little relation to the bucolic family farms that were in Congress's mind when it passed most modern environmental laws and thus application of those laws is particularly tricky. And even the laws uniquely targeted at agriculture struggle with the diffuse and uncertain nature of biological processes. The country's agricultural history further complicates oversight of agriculture's environmental impact.

The stakes here are enormous. Agriculture drives about one-third of climate change and occupies approximately 60% of the country's contiguous land. It is the main cause of biodiversity loss. Billions of animals produced each year and their feed and manure, as well as crop fertilizers and pesticides, create signficiant air and water pollution. And agriculture is one of the most highly concentrated and unequal sectors of the economy, one in seven in the U.S. are food insecure, and we face a pandemic of food-related chronic diseases.

U.S. environmental and farm laws seek to address (some of) these harms; this course studies the strengths and weaknesses of current law, and explores alternative approaches to environmental and public health protections. How to regulate highly variable biological systems? How to manage the diffuse and unreported nature of most agricultural pollution? How to address the fact that the "machines" of meat production are sentient beings? How should the disparate impacts of food and its production affect policy choices? We consider these questions and more as we confront the need to transform our current food system if we hope to achieve environmental (and social) goals.