Nov twenty seventh 2021
LIKE EVERY farmer Courtney Hammond, who grows blueberries and cranberries in Washington County, Maine, has a number of worries. He frets about climate, invasive species, failed crops and world costs. To abide by federal food-safety legal guidelines, he has needed to do coaching, preserve meticulous information, have insect- and rodent-control plans and doc every day the sanitation of his processing gear. It is an incredible quantity of labor however it means, he says, “I don’t have to worry about anybody getting sick from eating anything that leaves my farm.” Now he’s apprehensive {that a} new legislation might put his onerous work in jeopardy.
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Earlier this month 61% of voters opted to alter the state structure to make sure that all Mainers had a “right to food”, the primary legislation of its form in America. The constitutional modification’s important proponents included a conservative lobsterman, a liberal raw-milk natural farmer, the Sportsman Alliance (a searching group) and Cumberland County Food Security Council. The pandemic has shone a lightweight on meals insecurity in Maine. Now, Mainers have the “unalienable right to food…to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing”.
The modification sounded innocuous, however sceptics are cautious of its influence. Marge Kilkelly, a former state lawmaker who raises turkeys in addition to pigs and goats, factors out that most individuals don’t know a lot about farming: “It does not happen in an instant. You don’t just get the turkey seed and put water on it. Poof, there’s a turkey.”
Opponents of the modification fear that its imprecise wording opens cities to authorized challenges over native zoning and different ordinances. Rebecca Graham of the Maine Municipal Association expects all the things from searching legal guidelines to meals programmes to be challenged, at nice price to the taxpayer. Rules just like the one in Portland, the state’s largest metropolis, which permits residents a most of six hens (no roosters) might be ignored or challenged in court docket—by no means thoughts cows grazing in entrance gardens.
Janelle Tirrell, head of the Maine Veterinary Medical Association, is worried concerning the therapy of livestock by individuals ill-equipped to take care of them: individuals will “use that right-to-food defence to justify the keeping of animals in ways that violate our current laws”. Others foresee environmental impacts, resembling contaminated water provides. Some farmers concern that amateurs will introduce invasive species that would injury their crops.
Billy Bob Faulkingham, the Republican state consultant who championed the measure, pooh-poohs these considerations. He thinks court docket challenges are unlikely. Frivolous ones can be dismissed. The legislation will give Mainers extra possession of the meals provide, he argues: some 90% of the state’s meals is imported. Alluding to the constitutional proper to bear arms, he says: “I call this the second amendment of food.” His companion throughout the aisle, Craig Hickman, a Democratic state senator and an natural farmer, says not everybody goes to begin farming or elevating animals, however it will “inspire people to shop locally” and even share their land with their neighbours.
This chimes with native tradition. Despite its comparatively small farm business, Maine helps its producers. The state’s structure offers farms property-tax breaks. Some communities pay individuals to farm their land. The state has been experimenting with meals sovereignty. More than 100 cities have adopted ordinances that enable meals “self-government”, letting cities make their very own guidelines for meals merchandise. Producers in these locations can promote on to clients, providing, say, unpasteurised milk with out a licence (meat and poultry are excluded).
Farm-to-table eating places are immensely well-liked. Maine is a “foodie” vacation spot. Tourists flock there for its lobsters, blueberries and cranberries. Julie Ann Smith, of the Maine Farm Bureau, wonders how meals security will be maintained with out laws. That is why Mr Hammond is so anxious concerning the new modification. It will take just one vacationer sickened by blueberries bought by an newbie to taint all Maine farmers, not simply “the guy with three tomato plants on his porch”.■
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This article appeared within the United States part of the print version underneath the headline “Reaping what you sow”