| Especially for the bulletin
Wednesday April 7th is the date of a tomato gardening program. It will be held at the Brown County Extension Office at 605 Fisk Avenue in Brownwood. The program takes place from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. It is open to anyone interested.
This April 7th program is the first in a series of Lunch-N-Learn horticultural programs run by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service during the Spring / Summer. The tomato garden program is supported virtually. Dr. Joe Masabni Extension Vegetable Specialist from Dallas will present the program virtually. It is only available from the Brown County Extension Office. The program includes growing tomatoes in home gardens. Dr. Masabni will be available to answer questions at the end of his presentation.
The specific dates for the Lunch-N-Learn range are as follows:
April 7th – Home Tomato Gardening, virtually supported
May 5th – Tour of Hardwick’s early-stage kindergarten
June 2 – Fresh Homemade Salsa (Hot Sauce) Making, Brown County Extension Office
July 7 – Oak wilt management in tree yards, Brown County Extension Office
All programs in the series are scheduled from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
The programs in this horticultural series are open to anyone interested in vegetable gardens and landscapes.
Single registration for the series is $ 25 or $ 10 per program. Pre-registration is not required.
For more information, please contact the AgriLife Extension Office at 325-646-0386.
Good news for Texas farmers and ranchers
Extension Ag legal specialist Tiffany Dowel Lashmet said there is now a bill in Texan law that will change livestock liability. This is good news for farmers and ranchers.
A bill aimed at essentially reversing a 2020 Texas Supreme Court ruling that limits the scope of the Texas Farm Animal Liability Act (FALA) was passed unanimously by the House Judiciary and Civil Law Committee. This is an important issue for farmers and ranchers as it affects their legal protection from liability for injuries caused by horses or livestock.
Legal background
The Texas Equine Act was passed in 1995. The scope of the law was changed in 2011 to extend the scope of the law from equine-only animals to all farm animals, defined as “horses, ponies, mules, donkeys or hinnies, cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, pigs, ratites (including ostriches, rheas.” and emus) and chickens or other foul. “
This law seeks to protect the owner of farm animals from liability if a participant is injured in a farm animal activity and the injury is the result of an inherent risk of the farm animal activity.
Several appeals court decisions have been made under the FALA. An ongoing question was whether the law was available as a defense if the victim was an employee or an independent contractor.
In the 2021 legislature, Rep. Andrew Murr introduced Bill 365. This bill is an attempt to make substantial changes to the law to reverse the decision in the Waak case.
Extended activity descriptions
In particular, this bill would add language to ensure its application to working farms and ranches. In addition, the definitions of “farm animal activity” and “farm animal activity” would be expanded to include languages such as “owning, raising, caring for or grazing a farm animal” and “feeding, vaccinating, training, weaning”, transporting, producing, herding, corralling, marking, dehorning or supporting or providing health management activities for farm animals. Also included would be the management of a livestock exhibition and “participation in routine or customary farm animal handling and management activities”.
Extended definition of “farm animal professional”
The bill would also change who would have to hang a Farm Animal Liability Act sign to check the applicability of legal protections. When the law is passed, all farmers and ranchers must hang the sign to be protected if someone who is being compensated is injured in any of these activities.
Involvement of employees and independent contractors
As mentioned above, there has been disagreement in the submissions of the lower courts as to whether the Livestock Liability Act applies to independent contractors and / or injured workers. This draft law would expressly answer this question in the affirmative, as the language includes both independent contractors and employees in the definition of a “participant”.
Where is the bill now?
The bill was referred to the House Committee on Justice and Civil Justice on February 25. A public hearing was held and testimony heard. On March 17th, the bill was passed unanimously by the committee. The next step is to get to the house and then, if passed, to the Senate.
