Betsy Garrold travels around the country talking about the importance of local control over local food and why it makes good sense.
But selling of local food in Maine is highly regulated with state and federal food laws governing and curtailing what farmers can sell directly to customers.
“We believe face-to-face transactions with your neighbors is safe and beneficial to both parties,” said Garrold, the acting executive director of Food for Maine’s Future. “They know you, you know them and, frankly, poisoning your neighbors is a very bad business plan.”
Last week Rockland took its first steps to create more opportunities for, and decrease regulatory burdens on, small farmers when a group floated the idea for a proposed food sovereignty ordinance, making the coastal town the first Maine city to consider codifying food sovereignty.
If successful, Rockland would join a number of towns that have successfully passed local food sovereignty ordinances.
Under the local ordinances, local food producers are exempt from state licensing and inspections governing the selling of food as long as the transactions are between the producers and the customers for home consumption or when the food is sold and consumed at community events such as church suppers.
Rockland City Councilor Valli Geiger proposed the local legislation but other councilors urged her to hold off to allow the administration to review it and for a new council to be put in place following the Nov. 8 election.
Two seats are up for election.
Geiger was asked to present the proposal, modeled after ones approved in other Maine communities, by a group of citizens who make up Renew Rockland.
“We are taking the organizational lead on the ordinance,” Nathan Davis of Renew Rockland, said. “We discussed it with a lot of people and eventually concluded this is a good idea.”
The folks he talks to in Rockland seem to support the ordinance, he said.
“People seem to be pretty enthusiastic about it and no one is saying it’s a bad idea,” Davis said. “It’s really a way to encourage sustainability and localize the food system.”
Current state and food regulations take a “one size fits all” approach, Garrold said, often leaving small farmers unable to compete with larger corporate farms. By declaring itself food sovereign, towns or cities like Rockland would help ease that regulatory burden on the small farmers and growers, Garrold said.
“If we want these young farmers to flourish there needs to be [regulatory] exceptions made,” she said. “Someone milking three cows is not the same as someone milking 500 cows and it is just wrong and makes no sense to have them under the same regulations.”
For proponents of food sovereignty, it comes down to protecting a way of life.
“It’s about the exchange of food according to the traditional ‘food way’ at the town and community levels where it is based,” said Heather Retberg, Penobscot farmer and food sovereignty advocate. “We are in relationships with each other and we can determine how our food needs are best met and how to develop rules around that.”
State agriculture officials do not agree, and say it comes down to food safety.
Last spring John Bott, spokesman for the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, said it is the role of his department to “support and promote Maine agriculture large and small, local and exported, [and] help ensure its success by enhancing quality and consumer confidence in Maine products.”
This week Bott repeated that while his department is not anti-local food production, the department wants to make sure all food sold in Maine is safe for the consumer.
Geiger acknowledged that state and federal laws trump municipal ordinances but said the food sovereignty proposal was “stating a philosophy on food sustainability.” This will support local farmers and farmers markets, she said.
“Safety comes from knowing who you are buying your food from,” Garrold said. “The only way to grow our small farms and local food production so we can feed ourselves is to encourage food sovereignty.”
By getting out from under what can be time consuming and costly regulatory requirements, small farmers — who tend to be young — have a fighting chance, she said.
“This allows them a crack in the wall to get in,” Garrold said. “They can start out small investing a reasonable amount of money and then as they expand to sell wholesale they can go through the regulating process.”
To date, 18 Maine towns in seven counties have declared food sovereignty with local ordinances giving residents the right to produce, sell, purchase and consume local foods of their own choosing in Sedgwick, Blue Hill, Penobscot, Trenton, Hope, Appleton, Isle Au Haut, Plymouth, Livermore, Freedom, Moscow, Solon, Bingham, Brooklin, Liberty, Madison and Alexander.
Last spring a bill introduced by Rep. Craig Hickman of Winthrop would have amended the Maine constitution allowing greater local control over food production and sales.
LD 783, “A Resolution, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of Maine To Establish a Right to Food,” ultimately died in the senate, and over the weekend Hickman declined to comment on his bill or any future food sovereignly legislative plans.
But Garrold said the food sovereignty movement remains very much alive in Maine. Because Maine is a “home rule” state, Gerrold said the movement can go town-by-town.
“In Maine according to the state constitution the government of the people devolves to the lowest unit, in our case the municipality,” she said. “Local municipalities can pass laws and ordinances that govern within the boundaries of their community and that is why we feel very strongly these food sovereignty ordinances have a very strong legal standing.”
For Retberg, it comes down to asking and answering three, simple questions.
“Who is making the decisions about food exchange? What relationships do we want to have in the community? [and] How do we encode that into law”? she said. “The closer to home we can get with food and rules, the better.”
Gerrald said she and her food sovereignty allies have no intention of slowing down.
“We are the muddy boots on the ground in the work of rebuilding our local food culture,” she said. “We are certainly not against regulations, but we are for ‘right sized’ regulations.”
BDN writer Stephen Betts contributed to this report.
