Welcome to this week’s Weekly Round Up.  This will be the last weekly round up post for a couple of months as my family will be adding a little one next week and I will be out of the office on maternity leave.  I’ve got regular weekly posts scheduled throughout my absence, so please continue to check back and keep up with the Texas Agriculture Law Blog!  We will continue the Weekly Round Up posts again in January.

* Basic overview of Texas landowner liability law.  My friend and Austin-based attorney, Jim Bradbury, recently sent me a copy of a short summary he put together of the basic landowner liability laws and statutes in Texas.  He does a great job of boiling a very complex subject (remember this article and this paper I previously wrote?) into a short read for non-attorneys.  [To view his summary, click-here ].

*Alaska Supreme Court considers definition of farm under state’s Right to Farm law.  On Wednesday, the Alaska Supreme Court heard argument in a case asking an important question under the AK Right to Farm statute:  what is a farm?  The defendant owns farmland, on which he spreads sewage obtained from his primary job, as a septic hauler.  Not surprisingly, neighbors complained of the odor and filed suit.  The defendant asserted that his actions were protected by the state’s Right to Farm law.  At issue before the Supreme Court is whether the defendant’s operation is considered a “farm,” to which the protections apply.  The lower court found the operation was not a farm, looking at factors such as the amount of the defendants’ income that came from farm activities and the commercial production made on the farm.  [Read article here.]

* TAMU Agricultural Law Symposium next Friday, October 28.  The Texas A&M Law Review is hosting an ag law symposium, Agriculture, Intellectual Property and Feeding the World in the 21st Century.  The speaker line up is awesome and it will be a great program!  [Click here for more info.]