2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE FIVE - Agriculture (§§ 1 — 4706) › Chapter 77 - Agriculture and Livestock Industries Organization (§§ 3051 — 3061) › § 3053 - Duties and powers

(a) To coordinate the regulation of agricultural and livestock industries, and direct, promote, and provide for the development of agricultural and livestock industries with special emphasis on the marketing of their products, in accordance with the needs of each sector and the public policy of the Commonwealth, after consulting and ensuring that the different sectors involved in the activity to be regulated approve of said regulation. Upon ascertainment thereof, the Secretary of Agriculture shall initiate the process to such effects through a decree.
(b) He/She shall enact the public policy established in this chapter.
(c) He/She shall appoint a deputy regulating officer for each agriculture and livestock industry, who shall be qualified as a director of agricultural programs and preside over the business of the administrative boards. He/She shall also appoint the officials needed to carry out its functions. He/She shall establish their duties and confer upon them the powers needed to perform them. Said officials shall not have any financial interest, business or, activity related with the regulated industry.
(d) He/She shall develop and maintain satisfactory marketing conditions.
(e) He/She shall establish a registry of the growers, intermediaries, manufacturers and importers related to agriculture and livestock industries.
(f) He/She shall hold the public hearings required by this chapter and any others he/she may deem necessary to enact the public policy and purposes of this chapter.
(g) He/She shall require persons who operate businesses within the agriculture and livestock industry all information needed for the implementation of this chapter and the regulations promulgated thereunder, but he/she shall not require confidential information whose disclosure may injure the person in relation to his/her competitors or other persons related to said industry, unless he/she establishes as pact or agreement with and to the satisfaction of the person regarding a mechanism to guarantee the confidentiality of the information furnished.
(h) He/She shall prepare studies, compile statistics and disseminate all information pertinent to the operation and development of the agriculture and livestock industry.
(i) He/She shall require persons operating businesses within the agriculture and livestock industry to keep the records, data and forms, and to render the reports he/she may deem necessary to enforce the public policy and purposes of this chapter.
(j) He/She shall take the pertinent measures to enforce the provisions of this chapter.
(k) Should an order of the Regulating Officer not be duly observed, said officer may appear before the Court of First Instance to demand compliance with said order. The court shall give preference to the course and settlement of said petition and shall have the authority to issue orders to compel attendance to meetings or visits, or submission of any data, information or documents previously required by the Regulating Officer. The court shall have the power to sanction the disobedience of said orders as contempt.
History —Sept. 18, 1996, No. 238, § 4; Aug. 5, 2011, No. 169, § 1.