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No good deed goes unpunished

By Jim Chen at al.

In 1973, Minnesota passed an anti-corporate farming bill. (Minn. Stat. § 500.24). The purpose of the statute is "to encourage and protect the family farm as a basic economic unit, to insure it as the most socially desirable mode of agricultural production, and to enhance and promote the stability and well-being of rural society in Minnesota and the nuclear family."

Last week, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported here, that this law might prevent local Co-Op grocery, The Wedge from acquiring organic farm, the Gardens of Eagen (Eagen is a suburb of Minneapolis). The irony of the anti-corporate farming law impacting a natural foods co-op wasn't lost on the Pioneer Press reporter.

Laws similar to Minnesota's have been challenged, generally by agribusiness. Most recently, Nebraska's anti-corporate farming law was struck down as violating the dormant commerce clause. (See Jones v. Gale).

The Jones v. Gale decision is open to criticism--including some by my fellow Ag Law bloggers Samantha Bohrman and Anthony Schutz. Although Minnesota, like Nebraska, is in the Eighth Circuit, Jones v. Gale addressed a different law, and I'm not up to speed on the exact operation of Minnesota's law. It might not suffer from the deficiencies that the Eighth Circuit found in the Nebraska law. It will be interesting to watch how the Wedge, the farm, and the state resolve this quandry. It would be interesting to see if, and how, the law could be interpreted (or maybe finessed) to allow this purchase to go through.

Full post as published by Agricultural Law on October 16, 2007 (boomark / email).