Wyoming's Agriculture and

• Jurisdiction: Wyoming,United States
• Citation: Vol. 29 No. 6 Pg. 1
• Publication year: 2006
• Pages: 1
• Year: 2006
• topic: Contracts,Real Estate

Wyoming Bar Journal 2006.

Vol. 29, No. 6 #1 (December 2006). Wyoming's Agriculture and

WYOMING LAWYER

December 2006/Vol. 29, No. 6

Wyoming's Agriculture and

Natural Resource Mediation Program

By Lucy Pauley

* A borrower is referred to a financial analyst to help develop a financial plan. Through the mediation process, the borrower and FSA loan officer settle on a plan that allows the borrower to avoid foreclosure.

* The mediation coordinator receives a request and sets up a technical review team (TRT) to look at a Forest Service grazing allotment. Based on the TRT report, the grazing permittees and USFS district manager agree to changes in the permit that protect the resource and allow grazing to continue.

* A mediated family meeting is held to discuss the parents' plans for distribution of the family ranch. The family reaches an agreement outlining the key elements of an estate plan to distribute the ranch assets when the parents die.

* A split estate conflict arises. The mediator helps the parties resolve a surface use agreement dispute to ensure the economic development of the coalbed methane while minimizing disruption of the agricultural operation.

These are a few of the examples of mediations carried out under the Wyoming Agricultural and Natural Resource Mediation Program created by the Wyoming Legislature in 1987. Under the statute, mediation is a voluntary and confidential process in which a trained, neutral third party, the mediator, meets with primary decision-makers to help them develop a mutually satisfactory agreement.

The Program's Background

During the first half of the 1980s, Wyoming's farmers and ranchers - like agricultural producers throughout the U.S. - faced severe financial stress. A 1984 survey of Wyoming's farmers and ranchers...