It has been an unbelievably busy week around here, I bet the same is true for many of you.  Welcome to those of you joining from the Texas A&M Beef Cattle Short Course and the Southern Family Farmers and Food Systems Conference.  Here are some ag law stories recently in the news.

* Podcast episode recapping Texas Legislative Session for agriculture.  Yesterday, we released a podcast episode with J. Pete Laney recapping the 88th Texas Legislative Session and the key bills related to agriculture.  It’s become a tradition for J. Pete to join me on the podcast to do this, and he did a great job, as always.  In the coming weeks, we will have a blog post recap as well, but for now, you can listen to our podcast episode here.

* Don’t overlook legal documents for those college students heading to campus.  Legal documents may not be on your checklist for returning to college this fall, but they should be!  Anyone over the age of 18 should have certain legal documents in place in case there is an emergency situation that arises.  Read more here.

*Why do amendments to the Right to Farm statute matter to all Texans?  I recently chatted with Texas Standard to discuss the recent amendments to the Texas Right to Farm statute and why the Texas Legislature believes this law is important to all Texans.  Listen here.

*Bipartisan bill introduced in the US House of Representatives to consider modifying estate tax law for farmers/ranchers.  Recently, The Preserving Family Farms Act was introduced in Congress.  This bipartisan bill would essentially allow farms and ranches to be valued at agricultural use, rather than fair market value, for calculating any estate tax liability.  [Read article here.]

*Intergenerational estate planning considerations.  I’ve recently come across a couple of articles addressing the intergenerational aspects related to estate planning.  The first focused on how parents can introduce their children–even teenage children–into an estate planning discussion.  My parents and grandmother did this with my brother and I when we were children, and I actually think it is a really useful and important concept.  [Read article here.]  Then, I found a Farm Progress article discussing the importance of adult children and their parents understanding how their estate plans may work together and the issues that can arise when they do not do so.  [Read article here.]

Upcoming Presentations

Next week, I’m headed back to College Station to speak on the US Supreme Court and Agriculture at the Texas Ag Forum on Tuesday.  The following week, I’ll be speaking to the Big Country Beef Conference virtually in Abilene.