Crop Issues

As planting season draws to a close, new agricultural issues are sprouting up across the country.  This edition of the Ag Law Harvest brings you federal court cases, international commodity news, and new program benefits affecting the agriculture industry. 

Pork processing plants told to hold their horses.  The USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (“FSIS”) is not going to appeal a federal court’s ruling that requires the nation’s hog processing facilities to operate at slower line speeds.  On March 31, 2021, a federal judge in Minnesota vacated a portion of the USDA’s 2019 “New Swine Slaughter Inspection System” that eliminated evisceration line speed limits.  The court held that the USDA had violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it failed to take into consideration the impact the new rule would have on the health and safety of plant workers.  The court, however, only vacated the provisions of the new rule relating to line speeds, all other provisions of the rule were not affected.  Proponents of the new rule claim that the rule was well researched and was years in the making.  Further, proponents argue that worker safety was taken into consideration before adopting the rule and that the court’s decision will cost the pork industry millions.  The federal court stayed the order for 90 days to give the USDA and impacted plants time to adjust to the ruling.  All affected entities should prepare to revert to a maximum line speed of 1,106 head per hour starting June 30, 2021. 

Beef under (cyber)attack.  Over the Memorial Day weekend, JBS SA, the largest meat producer globally, was forced to shut down all of its U.S. beef plants which is responsible for nearly 25% of the American beef market.  JBS plants in Australia and Canada were also affected.  The reason for the shut down?  Over the weekend, JBS’ computer networks were infiltrated by unknown ransomware.  The USDA released a statement showing its commitment to working with JBS, the White House, Department of Homeland Security, and others to monitor the situation.  The ransomware attack comes on the heels of the Colonial Pipeline cyber-attack, leading many to wonder who is next.  As part of its effort, the USDA has been in touch with meat processors across the country to ensure they are aware of the situation and asking them to accommodate additional capacity, if possible.  The impact of the cyber-attack may include a supply chain shortage in the United States, a hike in beef prices at the grocery store, and a renewed push to regulate other U.S. industries to prevent future cyber-attacks. 

Texas has a new tool to help combat feral hogs.  Texas Agriculture Commissioner, Sid Miller, announced a new tool in their war against feral hogs within the state.  HogStop, a new hog contraceptive bait enters the market this week.  HogStop is being released in hopes of curbing the growth of the feral hog population.  According to recent reports, the feral hog population in Texas has grown to over 2.6 million.  It is estimated that the feral hogs in Texas have been responsible for $52 million in damage.  HogStop is an all-natural contraceptive bait that targets the male hog’s ability to reproduce.  HogStop is considered a 25(b) pesticide under the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”), which allows Texas to use it without registering the product.  Commissioner Miller thinks HogStop is a more humane way to curb the feral hog population in Texas and hopes that it is the answer to controlling the impact that feral hogs have on farmers and ranchers.  More information about HogStop can be found at their website at www.hogstop.com. 

USDA announces premium benefit for cover crops.  Most farmers who have coverage under a crop insurance policy are eligible for a premium benefit from the USDA if they planted cover crops this spring.  The USDA’s Risk Management Agency (“RMA”) announced that producers who insured their spring crop and planted a qualifying cover crop during the 2021 crop year are eligible for a $5 per acre premium benefit.  However, farmers cannot receive more than the amount of their insurance premium owed.  Certain policies are not eligible for the benefit because those policies have underlying coverage that already receive the benefit or are not designed to be reported in a manner consistent with the Report of Acreage form (FSA-578).  All cover crops reportable to the Farm Service Agency (“FSA”) including, cereals and other grasses, legumes, brassicas and other non-legume broadleaves, and mixtures of two or more cover crop species planted at the same time, are eligible for the benefit.  To receive the benefit, farmers must file a Report of Acreage form (FSA-578) for cover crops with the FSA by June 15, 2021.  To file the form, farmers must contact and make an appointment with their local USDA Service Center.  More information can be found at https://www.farmers.gov/pandemic-assistance/cover-crops.

Federal court vacates prior administration’s small refinery exemptions.  The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order vacating the EPA’s January 2021 small refinery exemptions issued under the Trump administration and sent the case back to the EPA for further proceedings that are consistent with the Tenth Circuit’s holding in Renewable Fuels Association v. EPA.  The Tenth Circuit held that the EPA may only grant a small refinery exemption if “disproportionate economic hardship” is caused by complying with Renewable Fuel Standards. The EPA admitted that such economic hardship may not have existed with a few of the exemptions granted and asked the court to send the case back to them for further review.  The order granted by the Tenth Circuit acknowledged the agency’s concession and noted that the EPA’s motion to vacate was unopposed by the plaintiff refineries.  

Michigan dairy farm penalized for National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System violations.  A federal district court in Michigan issued a decision affirming a consent decree between a Michigan dairy farm and the EPA.  According to the complaint, the dairy farm failed to comply with two National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permits issued under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act.  The violations include improper discharges, deficient maintenance and operation of waste storage facilities, failing to report discharges, failing to abide by its NPDES land application requirements, and incomplete recordkeeping.  The farm is required to pay a penalty of $33,750, assess and remedy its waste storage facilities, and implement proper land application and reporting procedures.  The farm also faces potential penalties for failing to implement any remedial measures in a timely fashion.  

Spring is a common time for farmers to deal with pesticides and insecticides, but this spring the legal system has also been busy with pesticides and insecticides.  Important legal developments with dicamba, glyphosate, and chlorpyrifos raise questions about the future of the products, with proponents on both sides pushing for and against their continued use.  In today’s post, we summarize legal activity concerning dicamba.  Part 2 to this series will cover recent developments with Roundup.

Dicamba registration lawsuits.  In April, the federal courts resumed two cases filed late last year that challenge the registration and label of dicamba products made by Bayer, BSF and Syngenta.   The cases had been on hold since February due to the change to the Biden Administration and its EPA leadership.   Center for Biological Diversity v. EPA, in federal district court in Arizona, claims that the 2020 registration of the products should not have been granted because the registration fails to meet the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) standard that a pesticide may not cause “unreasonable adverse effects” to the environment. Relief requested by the plaintiffs includes overturning the registration approvals and also ordering EPA to officially reverse via rulemaking its long-standing policy to allow states to impose local restrictions on pesticide registrations under FIFRA’s Section 24(C).   

In the D.C. district court, American Soybean Association v EPA takes the opposite approach and argues that the EPA exceeded its duties under FIFRA by imposing application cutoff dates of June 30 for soybeans and July 30 for cotton and establishing 310-foot and 240-foot buffer zones for certain endangered species.  The plaintiffs in that suit want the court to remove the cutoff dates and buffer restrictions from the approved dicamba labels.  Manufacturers Bayer, BASF, and Syngenta have intervened in the cases, which both now await responses from the EPA.

Two additional challenges to the dicamba 2020 label approval were consolidated for review to be heard together by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and now await the court’s decision.  National Family Farm Coalition v. EPA originally filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals,  argues that EPA failed to support its conclusion of “no unreasonable adverse effects” and did not ensure that endangered species and critical habitat would not be jeopardized by approved dicamba use.  On the flip side, American Soybean Association v. EPA alleges that the 2020 label cutoff dates are too restrictive and buffer requirements are too large, which exceeds the authority granted EPA in FIFRA and the Endangered Species Act.  The EPA has filed a motion to dismiss the cases but the plaintiffs have asked to be returned to the Ninth Circuit. 

Bader Farms Appeal.  The$265 jury verdict awarded last year to Bader Farms, which successfully argued that Monsanto was responsible for harm to its peach farms resulting from dicamba drift, is on appeal before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Monsanto filed its brief on appeal in March, arguing that the verdict should be reversed for several reasons:  because the court had not required Bader Farms to prove that Monsanto had manufactured or sold the herbicides responsible for the damages, which could have resulted from third party illegal uses of herbicides; because the damages were based on “speculative lost profits”; and because the $250 million award of punitive damages violated state law in Missouri.

Office of Inspector General Report.  The EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), also played a role in recent dicamba developments.  The OIG is an independent office within the EPA that audits, investigates and evaluates the EPA.  Just last week, the OIG issued a report on EPA’s decision in 2018 to conditionally register dicamba products, allowing them to be used during the 2019 and 2020 growing seasons.  That decision by EPA ultimately led to a legal challenge by environmental groups, a holding by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the EPA violated FIFRA in approving the registrations, and a controversial order ceasing use of the dicamba products.  The OIG evaluated the EPA’s registration decision making process for the dicamba registration.  The title to its report, “EPA Deviated from Typical Procedures in Its 2018 Dicamba Pesticide Registration Decision” is telling of the OIG’s conclusions.

OIG determined that EPA had “varied from typical operating procedures” in several ways.  The EPA did not conduct the required internal peer reviews of scientific documents created to support the dicamba decision.  Senior leaders in the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention were “more involved” in the dicamba decision than in other pesticide registration decisions, resulting in senior-level changes to or omissions from scientific analyses to support policy decisions.  EPA staff were “constrained or muted in sharing their scientific integrity concerns” on the dicamba registrations. The result of these atypical operating procedures by the EPA, according to the OIG, was substantial understatement or lack of acknowledgement of dicamba risks and the eventual decision by the Ninth Circuit to vacate the registrations.

The OIG recommended three actions the EPA should take in response to the report:  requiring senior managers or policy makers to document changes or alterations to scientific opinions, analyses, and conclusions in interim and final pesticide registration decisions along with their basis for changes or alterations; requiring an assistant administrator-level verification statement that Scientific Integrity Policy requirements were reviewed and adhered to during pesticide registration decisions; and conducting annual training for staff and senior managers and policy makers to promote a culture of scientific integrity and affirm commitment to the Scientific Integrity Policy.   The EPA had already taken action on the OIG’s first and third recommendations but has not resolved the second. 

Will the OIG Report affect ongoing litigation on dicamba, or lead to additional lawsuits?  That’s a critical question without an immediate answer, and one to keep an eye on beyond this spring.

To read more about legal issues with dicamba, visit our partner, The National Agricultural Law Center and its excellent series on "The Deal with Dicamba."

Ohio landowners have seen it before:  when the snow flies, so do the snowmobilers.   Landowners are forced to watch snowmobilers crossing their fields and driveways and cutting through woods and homesteads, without permission and apparently without concern for property damage.   Two common questions from landowners arise at this time:  what can I do about them, and will I be liable if there’s an accident?   While the answers aren’t always satisfactory to landowners, several Ohio laws try to address these two questions.

What can you do about snowmobilers on your land?

One possibility for dealing with unwanted snowmobilers is to call local law enforcement.  That might not get the results you’d like, given the difficulty of identifying and catching snowmobilers and limited law enforcement resources in rural areas.  Trail cameras, pictures, or other ways of verifying the sleds and riders might be helpful.  Look for the registration decal on the front of the sled, which allows tracking it to its owner.   Despite these challenges, there are two sections of Ohio law that provide for criminal actions against trespassing snowmobilers if you can apprehend them:

• Ohio criminal trespass laws make it a fourth degree misdemeanor to knowingly or recklessly be on another’s land without permission or to fail to leave after seeing “no trespass” or similar signs of restricted access or being notified by an owner.  Committing this type of trespass while on a snowmobile doubles the fine to up to $500, and up to 30 days in jail is also possible.  The court could also award damages for harm to the landowner victim of the criminal trespass.   A second offense can result in impoundment of the title to the snowmobile. 
• Ohio motor vehicle laws also address snowmobilers specifically.  The law prohibits a snowmobiler from operating on any private property or in a nursery or planting area without the permission of the landowner or tenant of the property.  The penalty for doing so is a fine of $50 to $500 and potential jail time of three to 30 days. Note that snowmobilers are also not allowed to operate on state highways, railroad tracks and railroad rights of way, and anywhere after sunset without required lighting.  The law does allow snowmobilers to drive on berms and shoulders of roads, across highways if done safely, and on county and township roads if permitted to do so by the county or township.

Another potential legal strategy is to bring a civil action against trespassing snowmobilers.  Again, that requires knowing who they are and proving that they were on your property.  A few laws that could apply are:

• Ohio’s law on civil trespass is a court made law, and it requires showing that a person intentionally entered another’s land without permission and caused harm to the land.  If a snowmobiler harmed the property while trespassing, this type of claim allows a landowner to seek compensation for that harm.  Examples of harm that might arise include damaged fences, culverts, drives, and crops. 
• If the snowmobiler behaved recklessly and caused damage, another law comes into play.  Ohio law prohibits a person from recklessly destroying or injuring vegetation on another’s land, which includes crops, trees, saplings, vines, and bushes.  “Recklessly” means with heedless indifference to the consequences of an act.    To punish the reckless behavior, the law awards compensation to the landowner for three times the value of the destroyed vegetation.  This law can be particularly helpful when the ground is not frozen and snowmobiling damages the crop beneath the snow.

Other than legal action, a few management practices might be helpful in deterring snowmobilers.  We’ve removed many of the old fences that used to fence in our farms, but fencing is an obvious although costly solution.   If you put up a fence, it should be noticeable and not just a thin wire or two.  Consider flagging the fence with neon markers.  Beyond fences, other actions can help mark property boundaries clearly.  No trespassing signs serve this purpose, but make sure they are easy to see when there’s snow, are visible from a distance, and are placed where snowmobilers might enter the property.  You may have other ways to restrict access to the area where snowmobilers enter, but be aware that you could be liable if you set up a “trap” or dangerous situation that harms a snowmobiler, discussed in the next section.

Will you be liable if there’s a snowmobile accident on your land?

Attorneys often prefer to answer a question with “it depends” but in this case, we could add “but probably not.”  Generally, Ohio law doesn’t favor making a landowner liable for harm that a trespasser suffers while trespassing.  But there are a few exceptions to the general rule:

• One exception is if the landowner commits a willful, wanton, or reckless act that harms a trespasser.   Shooting at a snowmobiler is a good example, as is placing a single strand of barbed wire or thin wire across a drive or opening to “stop” snowmobilers.   Landowners could be liable for harm resulting from these and similar intentional acts that could harm a snowmobiler.
• Another exception to non-liability is if a landowner knows or should know that a trespasser is in a “position of peril” and fails to take ordinary care to prevent harm from the perilous situation.  For example, if you know there’s a big hole in the middle of the field where snowmobilers always cross and you don’t mark it off so the snowmobilers can see it, you might be failing to protect them from a “position of peril.”  Remember, the landowner must be aware of the perilous situation and must fail to take any protective measures for this exception to apply.  Landowners don’t like knowing they can be liable to trespassers in such a situation, but the law expects us to protect people from harms we know of even if those people are trespassing.

The good news is that Ohio has a law that can make landowners completely immune from any liability for snowmobilers.  The Recreational User Statute applies to non-residential premises like farms and parks, and states that the owner or occupant of the premises has no duty to keep a “recreational user” safe and no liability for injuries caused to or by recreational users.   The catch, though, is that a recreational user is someone who has “permission” to be engaging in a recreational use on the property and is not paying for that use, unless the payment is through a leasing situation.   

The practical outcome of the Recreational User Statute is that it protects landowners only if the snowmobilers have permission to be snowmobiling on the property.  What if the snowmobilers never came to you for permission, or you don’t even know who they are in order to go and give them permission?  One court in Ohio dealt with this situation, and concluded that a landowner who “acquiesces” to recreational users and does not tell them to leave is in effect granting permission.  In that case, a snowmobiler who had snowmobiled across a farm for years without ever asking permission sued the landowners after wrecking in an area where the landowners had installed new drain tiles.  Because the landowners had never told the snowmobiler to leave the property, the court held that the landowners had indeed granted permission.   If other courts follow this reasoning, landowners have liability protection under the Recreational User Statute if they allow snowmobilers to use the property by way of not telling them to leave.

What solutions are we missing in Ohio?

There currently isn’t a perfect legal solution to the snowmobile problems many landowners are facing this winter.  Owners can secure and mark their properties, call the sheriff, file a legal action, and hope the Recreational User Statute protects them from liability.  But understandably, landowners may still get agitated and feel hopeless when they hear the snowmobiles coming. 

Are there solutions that could better address landowner concerns about snowmobilers?  After reviewing how other states have tackled snowmobile problems, it appears that our trespass laws are quite similar to other states.  Some states have a "purple paint" law that allows landowners to mark their boundaries with purple paint marks on trees and posts, making it easier to identify the boundaries.  Ohio has tried but failed to pass a purple paint law. 

A more noticeable difference between Ohio and other states is that Ohio has only 100 miles of groomed snowmobile trails, according to the American Council of Snowmobile Associations.  Compare that to 20,000 miles in Minnesota; 6,500 miles in Michigan; 6,000 miles in Pennsylvania and 2,500 in Illinois.  Could the lack of available snowmobile trails be a contributor to our problem in Ohio?

Some of the trails in other states are on public lands while others are a mix of public and private lands.  Several states work directly with private landowners to enhance their trail systems.  In Indiana, local snowmobile clubs maintain and monitor 200 miles of groomed trails that the state leases from private landowners.  Minnesota’s United Snowmobilers Association works with landowners who allow snowmobile trails on their property through a “Landowner Trail Permit” system.  Local snowmobile clubs maintain the trails and provide signage, and only registered snowmobilers may use the trails.  State law protects the landowners from liability for trail use.

Before the snow flies next year, maybe we can develop these and other new ideas to address the old problem of snowmobile trespassing in Ohio.   

Just in time for Christmas, Congress delivered quite a package this morning by passing new COVID-19 relief legislation.  President Trump is expected to sign the bill soon.  Buried in the 5,593 pages of the legislation is an allocation of nearly $11.2 billion dollars to the USDA.   A large portion of the USDA funds will provide additional payments for agricultural producers under the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP).   Benefits for food processors, energy producers and timber harvesters are also in the bill, as well as funding for several other USDA programs and studies.  We’ve categorized, compiled and summarized where the USDA funds are to go below.

Crops

• Supplemental CFAP payments of $20 per eligible acre for the 2020 crop year, for eligible “price trigger crops,” which includes barley, corn, sorghum, soybeans, sunflowers, upland cotton and wheat, and eligible “flat rate crops,” which includes alfalfa, amaranth grain, buckwheat, canola, cotton, crambe, einkorn, emmer, flax, guar, hemp, indigo, industrial rice, kenaf, khorasan, millet, mustard, oats, peanuts, quinoa, rapeseed, rice, rice, sweet, rice, wild, rye, safflower, sesame, speltz, sugar beets, sugarcane, teff, and triticale but excludes hay, except alfalfa, and crops intended for grazing, green manure, or left standing.
• $100 million in additional funding for the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program.

Livestock, poultry and dairy

• Supplemental CFAP payments to livestock or poultry producers (excluding packers and live poultry dealers) for losses from depopulation that occurred due to insufficient processing access, based on 80% of the fair market value of depopulated livestock and poultry and including depopulation costs not already compensated under EQIP or state programs.
• Supplemental CFAP payments to cattle producers for cattle in inventory from April 16 to May 14, 2020 according to different payment formulas for slaughter cattle, feeder cattle and all other cattle.
• Supplemental Dairy Margin Coverage payments for eligible operations with a production history of less than 5 million pounds whenever the average actual dairy production margin for a month is less than the selected coverage level threshold, according to a specified formula.
• $1 billion for payments to contract growers of livestock and poultry to cover not more than 80% of revenue losses from January 1 to December 22, 2020.
• $20 million for the USDA to improve animal disease prevention and response capacity.
• Establishment of a statutory trust via the Packers and Stockyards Act that requires a dealer with average annual purchases above $100,000 to hold cash purchases of livestock by the dealer in trust until full payment has been received by the cash seller of the livestock.

General payment provisions

• In determining the amount of eligible sales for CFAP, USDA must include a producer’s crop insurance indemnities, non-insured crop disaster assistance payment and WHIP payments, and may allow a producer to substitute 2018 sales for 2019 sales.
• USDA shall make additional payments under CFAP 1 and CFAP 2 to ensure that payments closely align with the calculated gross payment or revenue loses, but not to exceed the calculated gross payment or 80% of the loss.  For income determination, USDA shall consider income from agricultural sales, including gains, agricultural services, the sale of agricultural real estate, and prior year net operating loss carryforward.
• USDA may take into account when making direct support payments price differentiation factors based on specialized varieties, local markets and farm practices such as certified organic production.

Marketing and processing

• $100 million for grants under the Local Agriculture Market Program for COVID-19 impacts on local agriculture markets.  USDA may reduce and allow in-kind contributions for grant matching requirements.USDA may provide support to processors for losses of crops due to insufficient processing access.
• $60 million for a grant program for meat and poultry slaughter and processing facilities seeking federal inspection status or eligibility for the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program to modernize facilities or equipment, comply with packaging, labeling, and safety requirements and develop food safety processes.
• USDA must deliver a report on possible improvements to the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program that allows interstate shipments of meat and poultry products and on the availability and effectiveness of federal loan and grant programs for meat and poultry processing facilities and support for increasing processing capacity.
• USDA may make recourse loans available to dairy product processors, packagers or merchandisers impacted by COVID-19.
• Until September 30, 2021, USDA may extend the term of marketing assistance loans to 12 months.

Food purchases

• $1.5 billion to purchase and distribute food and agricultural products to individuals in need, and for grants and loans to small and midsized food processors or distributors, seafood processing facilities, farmers’ markets, producers or other organizations for the purpose of responding to COVID, including for worker protections.  USDA must conduct a preliminary review to improve COVID-19 food purchasing, including the fairness of purchases and distribution.
• $400 million for a Dairy Donation Program to reimburse dairy processors for purchasing and processing milk and partnering with non-profit organizations to develop donation and distribution plans for the processed dairy products. 

Timber and energy

• $200 million for relief to timber harvesting and hauling businesses that experienced a loss of 10 percent or more in gross revenue from January 1 to December 1, 2020, as compared to the same period in 2019.
• USDA may make payments for producers of advanced biofuel, biomass-based diesel, cellulosic biofuel, conventional biofuel or renewable fuel produced in the U.S. for unexpected market losses resulting from COVID-19.

Training and outreach

• $75 million for the Farming Opportunities Training and Outreach Program for grants for beginning, socially disadvantaged and veteran farmers and ranchers impacted by COVID-19.  USDA may reduce and allow in-kind contributions for grant matching requirements and waive maximum grant amounts.

Farm stress

• $28 million for grants to State departments of agriculture to expand or support stress assistance programs for agriculture-related occupations, not to exceed $500,000 per state.

Nutrition

• $75 million for the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, and USDA may reduce matching grant requirements.

We’ll keep digging through the legislation to report on other agricultural provisions. Or readers may take a look at H.R. 133 here.  The USDA allocations we summarized are in Subtitle B, beginning on page 2,352.