Loka Ashwood et al., "Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-By-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm" (UNC Press, 2023)
Since the late 1970s, Right to Farm Laws have been adopted by states across the US to limit nuisance lawsuits against farmers engaged in standard agricultural practices. But who really benefits from Right to Farm Laws? And what can be done to promote real agricultural, rural, and environmental justice?\xa0Empty Fields, Empty Promises: A State-By-State Guide to Understanding and Transforming the Right to Farm\xa0(UNC Press, 2023) offers valuable history and incisive commentary on these questions.\nSince their adoption, there has yet to be a comprehensive analysis of what Right to Farm laws do and who they benefit. This book offers the first national analysis and guide to these laws. It reveals that they generally benefit the largest operators, like processing plants, while traditional farmers benefit the least. Disfavored most of all are those seeking to defend their homes and environment against multinational corporations that use right-to-farm laws to strip neighboring owners of their property rights. Through what the book calls the "midburden," right-to-farm laws dispossess the many in favor of the few, paving the path to rural poverty.\nEmpty Fields, Empty Promises\xa0summarizes every state's right-to-farm laws to help readers track and navigate their local and regional legal landscape. The book concludes by offering paths forward for a more distributed and democratic agrifood system that achieves agricultural, rural, and environmental justice.\nThe book is available for\xa0purchase or for\xa0FREE as an Open Access eBook from the University of North Carolina Press.\n\nLoka Ashwood is associate professor of sociology at the University of Kentucky. Her work develops action-centered methodologies that help frontline communities overcome environmental injustices and strengthen democracy. She is the author of\xa0For-Profit Democracy: Why the Government Is Losing the Trust of Rural America\xa0(2018) and co-author of\xa0An Invitation to Environmental Sociology\xa0(6th\xa0Edition, 2020).\n\nAimee Imlay is assistant professor of sociology at Mississippi State University.\n\nLindsay Kuehn is a public defender in Ramsey County, Minnesota, and a staff attorney with the Farmers' Legal Action Group.\n\nAllen Franco is an assistant federal public defender for the districts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.\n\nDanielle Diamond is a visiting fellow at the Brooks McCormick Jr. Animal Law and Policy Program at Harvard Law School.\n\n\nGarrett Broad\xa0is Associate Professor of Communication Studies in Rowan University\u2019s Edelman College of Communication & Creative Arts, where he also serves as Provost\u2019s Fellow in the Catalysts for Sustainability Initiative. His research and teaching explore the connections between contemporary social movements, food systems, and digital media technology. He is the author of More Than Just Food: Food Justice and Community Change, as well as a variety of articles on food's relationship to environmental sustainability, economic equity, and the health of humans and nonhuman animals.\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law