Food Freedom Laws

[creaker]

I found this interesting:

http://www.naturalnews.com/032142_food_freedom_Maine.html

"Within the past several months, numerous towns in Maine, and one in Vermont, have proposed or enacted food sovereignty laws that declare, plainly, that the federal government has no business telling citizens what food products they can and cannot buy or sell locally. Representing the third town to successfully pass such an ordinance, Blue Hill, Maine, recently adopted a local food and self-governance bill that asserts the freedom of local citizens to choose their own food.

In a near-unanimous vote, Blue Hill residents successfully voted to pass the food freedom ordinance on April 2. Besides declaring sovereignty from government intrusion on local food policy, the bill exempts all direct sales of food from having to comply with state and federal license and inspection requirement. In other words, local residents who grow and sell produce, for instance, will not be subjected to the tedious and expensive bureaucratic red tape that rightfully applies to factory farm operations."

It's an aspect of "local" I hadn't considered before - basically how the tenth amendment plays against locally produced food.

[peggy]

Whoo Hoo! Now I can sell my oysters from my van on the side of the road! And home butchered rabbit (cat) and home canned mushrooms!

[flowerseverywhere]

Whoo Hoo! Now I can sell my oysters from my van on the side of the road! And home butchered rabbit (cat) and home canned mushrooms!

I am not sure what that is supposed to mean. I am very happy when residents are able to pass laws that they feel will be of benefit to them. No one tells you that you have to buy it, it is your choice. You can go to a grocery store if you want.

I love Blue Hill area. We spend time there every few years off season, right when they are ready to close the towns down from tourism and the people are wonderful. Red tape is strangling us all.

[Gregg]

I've never been to Blue Hill, but love the Maine coast. You can bet a trip there just got added to my bucket list. Bully for them!

[creaker]

Whoo Hoo! Now I can sell my oysters from my van on the side of the road! And home butchered rabbit (cat) and home canned mushrooms!

I know there is a down side - but on the other side there seems to be more and more federal regulations implemented that work at a large corporation level, but don't scale down well and stifle local products and are putting local growers out of business. And sometimes I wonder if they are specifically there for that reason.

On the other hand there will likely be plenty of deaths from corporate food this year just like there is every year - some will go under (the operation that caused the problem will be sold and run by some other corporation), the rest will get fines that won't dent profits very much.

[Zzz]

All fine and dandy, but a local municipality can't override federal or even state law. We might like the strict view of constitutional interpretation but regardless of what may or may not have been the intent of those who wrote the document, it's not how the country functions today. They made a statement. It's not worth much more than the paper or digital media that it's recorded on...

[creaker]

Medical marijuana started pretty much the same way. It has to start somewhere, and it's unlikely that somewhere is going to be at the federal level.

[Zzz]

Medical marijuana may be more accepted than it was, but it's still not legal most places in the U.S. Maybe it will be someday; maybe not. IN the meantime, it's still prosecutable in most places. If people want to engage in civil disobedience, that's fine. I've done my share of that, as well. However, they better be willing to accept the penalties that can go with it...

[creaker]

Agreed - I'm just saying this isn't stuff that poofs into universal legal acceptance, it's a process.

[peggy]

I really wasn't trying to be snarky, sorry. Just feeling my oats today, and thinking on down the line. Here's hoping they can get rid of the really goofy rules that tie the local farmers hands, and keep the ones that protect the residents, including the farmers.

[The Storyteller]

I don't think anyone involved in passing these ordinances is stupid enough to think they can actually be applied. They are gestures of protest more than anything, gestures that I applaud.

But the problem often isn't the federal government, it is the local and state. The federal exemption from inspection for processed poultry is 20,000 birds a year. Here in Oklahoma it is restricted down to 1,000. Good ol' anti-regulation Oklahoma is 20 times more strict than the federal USDA. And why would that be? To protect the consumer? Nope. Tyson Foods has a sizable presence in the state.

But at least the state lets me do that. The local city and county won't let me sell my birds at the local farmers market, even though I have gotten the state's okay. I have to take preorders and have the customer come out to the farm to pick them up. Now my farmers market czars want to come out and inspect my setup, even though I won't actually sell the birds at the market. I don't know what they are going to look for, though. They are just a bunch of gardeners with no hands on experience with meat birds.

So, ironically, the federal government is the least restrictive, and my farmers market is the most.

I need to move to Maine.

[Gingerella72]

I am not sure what that is supposed to mean. I am very happy when residents are able to pass laws that they feel will be of benefit to them. No one tells you that you have to buy it, it is your choice. You can go to a grocery store if you want.

I love Blue Hill area. We spend time there every few years off season, right when they are ready to close the towns down from tourism and the people are wonderful. Red tape is strangling us all.

The problem is that in many places the federal government is stepping in and telling consumers what they can and cannot buy, and telling food producers what they can and cannot sell. For example, raw unpasteurized milk. In many states it is illegal to sell it, and to purchase it. It doesn't matter that raw milk is healthier (assuming it's coming from grass fed cows, not from a CAFO) and that many people prefer to consume it instead of the white nutrient-dead chalk water from the grocery store. The FDA and the USDA say it is unhealthy and will not allow it, no matter that it is the consumer's choice to "put their life at risk" to drink it. If I have studied the pros and cons of it, made the choice that I want to drink raw milk, that choice is being taken away from me by the federal government.

The same goes for many local meat producers. A farmer who wants to raise grass fed cattle and slaughter/process the meat on his own farm cannot do so, by law he has to take the cattle to have it processed at a USDA inspected and approved slaughterhouse.....which means the farmer risks exposing his carefully raised, organic, hormone and antibiotic free meat to CAFO-bred meat which can be disease-ridden. No matter that the farmer may have an even more clean and sterile facility on his own farm than the approved slaughterhouse, the law says he cannot process his own meat.

These towns that are passing these sovereignty laws are protesting this, saying the people as consumers and food producers should have the right to make their own choices about food. The people protesting do not want to buy their food at a grocery store.

For some further reading:

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/raw-milk-controversy-raids-and-regulations

http://blogtown.portlandmercury.com/BlogtownPDX/archives/2009/08/12/everything-joel-salatin-does-is-illegal

http://howtoeliminatepain.com/ibs/the-factory-farming-of-your-meats-cafos-%E2%80%93-part-2-%E2%80%93-the-really-bad-flaws-in-factory-farming-cafos-the-industry-doesn%E2%80%99t-want-you-to-know-about/

Also, check out Nourishing Traditions (http://www.amazon.com/Nourishing-Traditions-Challenges-Politically-Dictocrats/dp/0967089735/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303739878&sr=8-1) from Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, and The Unhealthy Truth (http://www.amazon.com/Unhealthy-Truth-Shocking-Investigation-Americas/dp/0767930746/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I2V8TY6T71ZMI6&colid=3N3PDPOK4GMAN) by Robyn O'Brien.

[ApatheticNoMore]

and The Unhealthy Truth by Robyn O'Brien

Very interesting sounding book, wish-listed :) I already eat mostly real foods but still interesting.

[Gingerella72]

Very interesting sounding book, wish-listed :) I already eat mostly real foods but still interesting.

After reading it I was dumbfounded and sick at how interconnected government is with Big Ag, as well as doctors. Can't trust anyone these days it seems!

[lhamo]

I was thinking about this issue last night after discovering from her blog that Novella Carpenter (author of Farm City) is facing issues with the Oakland city government about her urban farm. Story is on her blog, and really sad. She and her partner finally scraped together the money to buy the lot next to their apartment that she had been farm-squatting on for years, and then somebody (clearly not a neighbor -- likely an animal rights activist) up and reports her for city code violations. It looks like she is going to be able to work things through, but may have to give up some or all of her farm animals (which are an important source of fertilizer). I can understand if the farm was a nuisance and if someone in the neighborhood did it, but she is tight with her neighbors and sure that it wasn't them.

Anyway, it makes you think about how the whole system is set up not to benefit the little guys. Hat tip to those folks in Maine for at least attempting to wrest back some control from the machine.

lhamo