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New National Centre begins to publish

August 31, 2004

The Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw Centre) has published its first set of papers on topical legal issues affecting Australian agriculture.

In this collection of papers the AgLaw Centre, at the University of New England, analyses issues arising from rural industry regulation generally, and new regulations concerning biotechnology and the environment in particular.

The AgLaw Centre has distributed 500 copies of The AgLaw Papers 2004 to key representatives of government, finance, agribusiness, and the legal profession, and has received feedback confirming the potential of its unique consultancy role.

Established just 12 months ago, the AgLaw Centre is the first organization of its kind in Australia. It is a joint venture of UNE’s Faculty of Economics, Business and Law, Faculty of The Sciences, and School of Law, and brings together skills from across these disciplines to support the development of agribusiness in Australia.

The Acting Director of the AgLaw Centre, Bryan Pape, said the response to the first issue of The AgLaw Papers had encouraged the Centre to plan further publications in the series. “The papers are aimed at a wide readership,” he said, “including farm and agribusiness managers, researchers, and leaders of government departments and agricultural industries. They are written by members of a multidisciplinary team of experts in science, economics, law and agriculture.”

As an example of this multidisciplinary approach, Book 2 of The AgLaw Papers 2004 contains a paper titled “Genetically modified crops: science, agriculture and potential legal issues” by Andrew Clarke (a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Law), Dr John Stanley (a lecturer in UNE’s School of Rural Science and Agriculture and the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Cotton) and UNE’s Professor of Horticultural Science, Acram Taji. The paper gives advice to farmers considering GM cropping, and discusses potential points of legal action (including negligence claims). Other topics covered in these and forthcoming issues of The AgLaw Papers include the industrialisation of agriculture and market power, sustainable farming, and farmers’ property rights. “By breaking down the traditional walls between university departments, UNE’s AgLaw Centre is able to bring both breadth and depth of vision to its analysis of these nationally important questions,” Mr Pape said.

As well as its roles in consultancy and communication, the AgLaw Centre has a strong focus on education, with eight students enrolled in the first year of its unique double degree program Bachelor of Agriculture / Bachelor of Laws, and planning under way for a postgraduate program.

The AgLaw Papers 2004 are available from the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law at UNE. Contact Bryan Pape on (02) 6773 2331 (e-mail: bpape2@une.edu.au).


Media contact: Bryan Pape, Acting Director, AgLaw Centre, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 2331 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE, Armidale (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at August 31, 2004 04:48 PM