National Agricultural Law Center

This is an interesting institution from the University of Arkansas. From the site:

n 1987, Congress recognized the University of Arkansas School of Law for its "unique expertise in the area of agricultural law" and called for the creation of the National Center for Agricultural Law Research and Information at the Law School. Since then, the National Agricultural Law Center has been funded with federal appropriations through the National Agricultural Library, an entity within the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The National Agricultural Law Center is the only agricultural law research and information facility that is independent, national and international in scope, and directly connected to the national agricultural information network. The Center has expanded the scope of its coverage to include food law as it recognizes the expanding scope of agricultural law and its convergence with food law topics. The Center is staffed by a team of law and research professors, lawyers, other specialists, and graduate assistants from the University of Arkansas School of Law Graduate Program in Agricultural Law.

In early 2003, pursuant to Congressional directive, the Center established a close working relationship with the Drake Agricultural Law Center at Drake University School of Law in Des Moines, Iowa. The blend of the Center's national and international agricultural and food law focus and Drake's concentration on state and local food policy issues has formed a creative environment of sharing that generates activities and projects designed to reach all members of the agricultural and food law communities.

Of particular note on the left hand side is a link to CRS reports. To those of you unfamiliar with CRS, that stands for the Congressional Research Service. They provide analytical reports on everything from biotechnology to living conditions in Uzbekistan. I used to be a Legislative Assistant in Congress, so I would read these quite often. They are excellent.

They are also, fortunately, available to any constituent who asks for a report. Www.opencrs.com takes advantage of this by requesting that people ask their Member of Congress to send them a report in electronic form, and then passing it on to OpenCRS so they can keep it in their database.

Both of these sites are worth a visit.