Legal profiles of the agricultural production: Subjects, natural resources, supply chain contracts

The chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the themes characterizing the legal framework governing the agricultural sector. It examines the characteristics of law regulating agriculture and its study, and the key sources of the regulatory field, by focusing on international law treaties, national constitutions and international guidance instruments. It also illustrates the principles and concepts shaping agricultural law, including the recognition and protection of certain subjects (family farmers and smallholders, women and young farmers, rural workers); the emerging principles for responsible governance of tenure of land and other natural resources; the standards for sustainable farming practices, and the guidance on a specific typology of contractual relation used in the sector: contract farming.