On September 23, 2022, from 12 noon – 1:00 ET, the Penn State Center for Agricultural and Shale Law, alongside the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Business Development Center presented the latest webinar in our new educational series, “Understanding Agricultural Law.” This session in our series is entitled, “Understanding the Basics of Livestock Market Regulation.”

Agricultural markets have been the subject of varying degrees and methods of government regulation since the early 20th Century in order to ensure a safe and sufficient food supply, but also to level playing fields for individual producers and their unique “living” commodities. Now more than ever, the relatively unequal bargaining power of producers against large and consolidated market forces has come under scrutiny at all levels, including the Department of Justice and the White House. Attendees learned the basics of the Packers and Stockyards Act and other market mechanisms such as mandatory price reporting that make agriculture a truly unique supply chain and one that is the center of so much current attention.

More information on this series can be found here.