The next time you get into a conversation with other farm owners, agribusiness moguls, or even lawyers, use some of these words, and you will be amazed at the impression that you will make. Again, knowledge is power.
Here are some terms that every farmer should be familiar with, from the most obvious, to the not-so-obvious.
- Abandon(ed); Abandonment: Usually when this term is used from a legal perspective, it means that a particular piece of land has not been used or planted on for five consecutive years.
- Absolute Advantage: This is the “upper-hand” that a country has in comparison to other countries to produce and export crops at a lower cost per unit compared to other counties. For example, Nigeria may be able to produce and export rice at a cheaper rate than American farmers. Nigerian farmers, therefore, have an absolute advantage.
- Adulterants: These are microbiological elements that the law thereby bans poison food and because they are unfit for human consumption.
- African Growth and Opportunity Act: This act was signed into law on May 18th, 2000, mainly to increase opportunities for trade between African and Caribbean countries.
- Agricultural Districts: Provided by law, this act was set in place to protect farmland owners from land encroachment and give them the authority to farm on their land freely
- Administrative Law: This is a branch of law that allows the government to get involved with certain aspects of law to ensure that there are fair interactions between the government and farmers or individuals in control of farmland.
- Agricultural Law: These are the laws that govern every legal aspect of agriculture, from forestry to fishery, till the soil, and animal farming, to name a few. Agricultural law also deals with the land that you rear your animals or plant and harvest your crops.
- Agricultural Leases: This is a type of lease that is growing increasingly common in the agricultural field. Under these types of contracts, the government can give individuals who are interested in farming an opportunity to lease the land for a short period to farm. This can also occur from one individual to another. This aspect of agriculture, like everything else in contract law and agricultural legality, has its advantages and disadvantages.
- Agritourism: Although it has seen quite a bit of controversy over the past few years, Agritourism is the combination of agriculture and tourism. Many governments use this tactic as a way to increase revenue for their respective countries. Agritourism is a branch of agriculture that has experienced a lot of growth, and there are quite a few legalities associated with that growth as well.
- Arbitration: Arbitration is the process of settling legal matters out of the court system through meditation.
Farmers, what are your thoughts? We wanted to start the series with legal terms that started with the letter “A” deliberately to allow you to become accustomed to the verbiage.
Let us know in the comments if you would like us to give you more legal terms in alphabetical order for the rest of the year. Thank you for reading, and we encourage you to keep farming.