Liability: How ag landowners can protect themselves

City dwellers looking for recreational opportunities away from the city will sometimes find themselves on farmland, leaving landowners with increased exposure to liability, say legal experts. 

An upcoming webinar from the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Law Center will address options to reduce liability. The webinar is March 18 at noon, EST. Registration is online at http://bit.ly/2SXVNzH.

Whether those visitors come because of an agritourism opportunity or are hiking and driving through fields and woodland unaware that they are on private land, the risks to landowners are very real.

“For many landowners, concerns over potential liability if someone were to be injured on the farm or ranch are terrifying,” said Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, associate professor and extension specialist in agricultural law for Texas A&M Agrilife. “There are, however, a number of steps a landowner can take to limit his or her liability exposure.”

Lashmet, whose work focuses on legal issues affecting Texas agricultural producers and landowners, said liability insurance and various state statutes can offer some measure of protection to landowners. She will discuss those and other risk management options March 18 in a free webinar hosted by the National Agricultural Law Center. The webinar begins at noon, EST.

Lashmet said that for landowners investigating various statutes limiting liability in their state, the NALC Reading Rooms are one of the most useful resources available.

For more information on the National Agricultural Law Center, visit https://nationalaglawcenter.org/ or follow @Nataglaw on Twitter.