Environmental Law Seminar: Global Agriculture & Food Law

This course explores the laws, regulations, policy issues, intra-governmental relationships, and political dynamics that define how food is grown, produced, processed, and sold in the United States. Students will explore five major themes for agricultural law and policy, using U.S. context as a touchstone, including Maryland and Baltimore City as local examples. The course will compare global law and policy frameworks for agricultural production of food along key themes of land access, tenure, and management; agricultural labor; agricultural production and food safety standards, including use of biotechnology; global food trade; and climate conscious agriculture that balances human and environmental health (planetary health). Class participants will be asked to think critically about the role of law in establishing and upholding the current food system – and how and to what degree law may be used to build more equitable, sustainable, and just global food systems.