Food & Agriculture

Downey Brand’s Food and Agriculture Group helps clients thrive in one of California’s most regulated industries.

Our attorneys have extensive practical experience with the issues of daily importance to farmers, ranchers, input suppliers, packers, processors and grocers allowing our clients to focus on the demands of their operations.

Downey Brand provides a range of services to our Food and Ag clients that is unmatched in the region and covers the spectrum of industry issues from air quality compliance to tax issues and from pesticide regulation to succession planning. However, our advantages aren’t confined to knowing the law—we are active participants, as well as advisors, to the industry trade groups, associations and their members who must deal each and every day with specific concerns of specialized industries. We are also involved with the legislative committees and agencies that determine that regulatory environment in which the Food and Ag industry will operate.

Our comprehensive approach reflects the reality of today’s Food and Ag industry—a thriving, highly-regulated industry with complex business needs. We handle business transactions, interaction with regulatory agencies, counseling to prevent disputes, and dispute resolution in all state and federal forums relating to:

• Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act
• Food Safety Compliance and Labeling
• Food labeling
• Hazardous waste handling
• Environmental compliance
• Supply contracts
• Pesticide regulation and drift
• Crop damage
• Land use and permitting
• Lease of agricultural and commercial property
• Real estate and corporate law
• Regulatory and administrative disputes, including writ proceedings
• License suspension and revocation hearings
• Water supply and water rights
• Wastewater regulation
• Liquor wholesale
• Contract dispute negotiations
• Agricultural cooperatives
• Williamson Act
• Farmland Security Zones

We understand that many of our clients are family businesses both large and small and we work with them to address the particular issues of a family-owned enterprise including estate planning and succession.

Trending: Agricultural Cooperatives

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act created a tax advantage for farmers selling their crops to agricultural cooperatives. Section 199A of the Act spurred many farmers who also own interests in packing or processing operations to look into creating co-ops in order to make use of this opportunity. In April 2018, section 199A was amended, changing the criteria for eligibility and the available benefits. However, creating a co-op may still produce savings for some farmers and some cooperatives. Our Food & Agriculture attorneys have many years of experience forming and representing agricultural cooperatives and work on the front lines of new legislation affecting our clients’ interests.