“I’d be more interested in how it could play out in the courts,” Brewer said.
However, Brewer agreed with criticism that the amendment is so vague that it’s unclear what it would actually do. The amendment is likely to find support among Maine’s self-sufficient, practical Yankee set, said Mark Brewer, a political scientist with the University of Maine. The nationwide food sovereignty movement has yielded similar laws in states including Wyoming, Colorado, Montana and North Dakota, and pushes for the same elsewhere. The law was especially popular with sellers of raw milk, which can be legally sold in Maine but is more restricted in many other states. The law allows local governments to OK small food producers selling directly to customers on site.
Maine enacted a food sovereignty law, the nation’s first of its kind, in 2017. The movement comprises a patchwork of small farmers, raw milk enthusiasts, libertarians, back-to-the-land advocates, anti-corporatists and others who want to ensure local control of food systems. The amendment proposal is an outgrowth of the right-to-food movement, sometimes called the food sovereignty movement, which has expanded in recent years in Maine and states around the U.S. Supporters of the proposal, including Faulkingham, said that local rules would still be enforced, and that the amendment would not mean you could do things like raise chickens anywhere you want or fish commercially without a license. Smith said the farm bureau is also concerned that the amendment could override local ordinances that prevent residents from raising livestock anywhere they choose. “It has the potential to cause serious problems in food safety, animal welfare.” “We think it’s very dangerous to have the words ‘to consume the food of your own choosing.’ That is so broad and dangerous,” Smith said.
The amendment could empower residents to buy and consume food that isn’t subject to inspections, proper refrigeration and other safety checks, Smith worried. That’s a problem in a state where potatoes, blueberries, maple syrup and dairy products are all key pieces of the economy, she said. They see the amendment as a way to wrest control of food from big landowners and giant retailers.īut Julie Ann Smith, executive director of the Maine Farm Bureau, the largest farmers advocacy organization in the state, argued the language of the amendment is so broad that it could make the food supply less safe. “We want to protect people’s ability to grow gardens, grow and raise their own food.”įaulkingham and others said the amendment is a response to growing corporate ownership of the food supply. “There’s a lot of disturbing trends in the food category, with the power and control that corporations are taking over our food,” said Faulkingham, who is also a commercial lobster fisherman. He says it’s a common-sense amendment that would make sure the government can’t stop people from doing things like saving and exchanging seeds, as long as they don’t violate public or property rights. constitutional amendment that assures the right to bear arms. Billy Bob Faulkingham, who proposed the amendment, likening it to the U.S. The proposal is essentially “the 2nd Amendment of food,” said Republican Rep.
2 election, voters will be asked if they favor an amendment to the Maine Constitution “to declare that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being.” PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Depending on whom you ask, Maine’s proposed “right to food” constitutional amendment would simply put people in charge of how and what they eat - or would endanger animals and food supplies, and turn urban neighborhoods into cattle pastures.įor supporters, the language is short and to the point, ensuring the right to grow vegetables and raise livestock in an era when corporatization threatens local ownership of the food supply, a constitutional experiment that has never been tried in any state.įor opponents and skeptics, it’s deceptively vague, representing a threat to food safety and animal welfare, and could embolden residents to raise cows in their backyards in cities like Portland and Bangor.
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