Legal Planning for Specialty Crop Producers: Understanding Liability Protections, Regulatory Processes, and Other Legal Risks

A multi-part 2022 educational series to assist Pennsylvania specialty crop producers successfully augment wholesale sales revenue with income from direct sales, pick-your-own, value-added commodity processing, or agritourism, agritainment & educational activities. Penn State Law’s Center for Agricultural and Shale Law conducted this educational series of workshops and webinars in 2022, relating to the prevention and planning necessary to best avoid contractual, tort, and regulatory liabilities in conducting income-augmenting activities.

Producer Guide
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This series is now complete. Recordings of the webinars in this series are available below.

Schedule

Topic #1
Legal Liability Risks from Business Invitees on the Farm

This topic examined the ways in which legal liability can arise from the care, custody, and control of real estate upon which visitors are invited for the purpose of doing business with a specialty crop producer, as well as liability insurance coverage, waivers, etc.

 Topic #2
Legal Liabilities in Selling Raw and Processed Specialty Crop Products

This topic covered various theories of contractual, warranty, and common law legal liabilities, including “products liability,” that can arise from the production and sale of both raw agricultural products and value-added processed products, as well as how insurance may protect against such claims.

Topic # 3
Business Structures for Operational Resilience and Liability Avoidance

This topic reviewed the various forms of business entity structures that may be employed by specialty crop producers, the attributes and pros and cons of each, the formalities that must be followed to maintain financial and legal liability protections.

Recap & Feedback
Legal Planning for Specialty Crop Producers

This session was an in-person workshop summarizing the content and materials from Topics #1 – #3, with substantial time devoted to producer Q&A and the solicitation of feedback to ensure that topics covered throughout this project are meeting the interests of specialty crop producers.

  • Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022, Rock Springs, PA (as part of Penn State Ag Progress Days)

Topic #4
Licensing and Regulatory Obligations in Selling Raw and Processed Specialty Crop Products

This topic covered state laws and county/municipal ordinances that regulate the activity of producing and selling foods for human consumption, including health/food code licensing requirements for the storage, production and sale of food, sales tax licensing and collection, and other regulatory requirements that may apply in particular contexts, venues, or jurisdictions.

Topic #5
Municipal Law & Zoning for Agritourism / Agritainment, Specialty Crop Processing & Sales

This topic provided producers an understanding of local municipal government requirements and procedure for permits and approvals that may be required for agritourism, agritainment, processing, and sales activities conducted in conjunction with the production of specialty crops.

Topic #6
Statutory Protections/Restrictions: Understanding PA’s Ag Area Security, Right-To-Farm, ACRE, and Clean & Green Laws for Specialty Crop Producers

This topic instructed producers on how to understand the scope of, and potentially employ, the various statutory protections in Pennsylvania law for agricultural operations, and frequently also available in other jurisdictions.  It also examined business operation limitations that arise from voluntary enrollment in governmental benefit programs which seek to preserve agricultural uses of land.

Recap & Final Focus 

This session was an in-person workshop summarizing the content and materials from Topics #1 – #6, with substantial time devoted to producer Q &A and the solicitation of feedback to ensure that topics covered throughout this project met the interests of specialty crop producers.

  • Live: conducted as part of the 2023 PASA Sustainable Agriculture Conference

 

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These presentations are created as part of the Pennsylvania Specialty Crop Block Grant Program