FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Agritourism, biofuels, land and water conservation, farm bills - keywords that lead almost any internet search engine to one of the leading sources of agricultural law, the National Agricultural Law Center at http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org.

The center has recently named two new interim directors who will lead its mission to conduct legal research into the most critical issues facing agriculture and food today - issues such as food borne illnesses, food labeling and corporate farming laws.

“We are proud to have Doug O’Brien and Harrison Pittman step up to become directors of such a prestigious national center during an exciting time for the Law School,” said Dean Cyndi Nance, who appointed the two as interim directors for the academic year 2006-07.

For nearly 20 years, the National Agricultural Law Center has researched legal aspects of agritourism, biofuels, land and water conservation, and farm bills.

O’Brien and Pittman have been around agriculture their entire lives. O’Brien grew up on an Iowa farm, while Pittman grew up in an agricultural community in eastern Arkansas. Both earned their masters’ degrees in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas School of Law.

Doug O'Brien

O’Brien clerked for Justice Jerry L. Larson of the Iowa Supreme Court after earning a juris doctor from the University of Iowa School of Law and then decided to come to the graduate program in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas, which according to director, Susan Schneider, is the only program of its kind, bringing top graduates from around the world.

After earning his graduate degree, O’Brien worked as a legal specialist in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Grain Inspection Packers and Stockyards Administration’s National Hog Office and was counsel for the Senate Agriculture Committee in Washington, D.C., where he worked on the 2002 Farm Bill, the multiyear federal legislation that addresses farm and rural policy.

O’Brien began his work for the center in 2004 through a special arrangement with the Agricultural Law Center at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. He is employed as a senior staff attorney at the center, while he teaches at both Drake University and the graduate program in agricultural law at the University of Arkansas. His agricultural law research emphasizes livestock marketing, biofuels, the farm bill and cooperative issues.

Harrison Pittman

Pittman hails from Helena, Ark., and earned his juris doctor from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law and his master’s degree in agricultural law from the University of Arkansas. He has a broad spectrum of research areas, ranging from the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act to the National Organic Program to agritourism. Recently he led a conference on agritourism sponsored by The Winthrop Rockefeller Center in cooperation with the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism.

Agritourism, he says, is a growing U.S. industry combining agriculture and tourism to provide income to farmers and educational and recreational resources to the public. Pittman believes it may be a way to generate state revenue while sustaining small farmers who are becoming scarce.

Among his other research areas are the constitutionality of corporate farming laws, pesticide regulation and litigation, and market concentration and horizontal consolidation in the livestock industry. He founded the agricultural law section of the Arkansas Bar Association, and he currently serves on the agriculture committee of the America Bar Association’s section on administrative law and regulatory practice.

O’Brien and Pittman will replace former director Michael Roberts, who has gone to work for the Venable Law Firm in Washington, D.C., where he will counsel the firm on food law and policy. Roberts will also continue teaching at the Law School as an adjunct professor in food law.

“Working for the National Agricultural Law Center was my favorite job, and I will miss it greatly,” said Roberts.

He said the center is proud of its accomplishments, which include launching a nationally acclaimed Web site, maintaining an excellent staff, including O’Brien and Pittman, and assisting with the first student-run journal of its kind, The Journal of Food Law & Policy.

O’Brien and Pittman plan to carry on the center’s mission to conduct legal research and provide objective, authoritative and scholarly articles to scholars, attorneys, policymakers and others in the agricultural community throughout the United States.

For more information or to learn more about agricultural and food law, visit the center’s Web site at http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/.