Justia Agriculture Law Opinion Summaries

The Project and four individual herders challenged the agencies' 364-day certification period for H-2A visas, which allowed nonimmigrants to enter the country to perform certain agricultural work. The DC Circuit held that the Project's complaint adequately raised a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security's practice of automatically extending "temporary" H-2A petitions for multiple years; the Project adequately preserved its challenge to the Department of Labor's decision in the 2015 Rule to classify herding as "temporary" employment; the 2015 Rule's minimum wage rate for herders was not arbitrary, capricious, or unsupported by the record; and the Project lacked standing to challenge the wage rates set by the already-vacated 2011 Guidance Letter. Accordingly, the court reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Hispanic Affairs Project v. Acosta" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of Bread for the City's complaint for failure to state a cause of action. Bread for the City alleged that the Department spent hundreds of millions of dollars less than the law required on a program to provide food for the needy. The district court upheld the Department's interpretation of 7 U.S.C. 2036(a), a spending provision in The Emergency Food Assistance Program, as modified by the Agriculture Act of 2014, Pub. L. No. 113-79, 4027(a), 128 Stat. 649, 812. The court held that the available evidence showed that those intimately involved in determining the spending levels of the Program did not support Bread for the City's version of section 2036(a). View "Bread for the City v. USDA" on Justia Law

USI petitioned for review of the FSIS's determination that the packaging used by USI was misbranded under the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1907 (FMIA), 21 U.S.C. 601 et seq., because its label included the FSIS inspection identification number of its supplier without the latter's permission. The D.C. Circuit denied the petition for review and held that FSIS's determination that USI's labeling was misleading was neither arbitrary nor capricious where the Administrator noted that the FSIS permits a re-boxer to use its supplier's establishment number only if the supplier consents to the practice, and USI had not provided document as requested, showing consent of the official establishment. View "United Source One, Inc. v. US Department of Agriculture" on Justia Law