In March, Barre City passed a food sovereignty law and last week Barre Town did the same.
Food sovereignty in both towns was defined as “the right to save seed, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products.”
The idea behind food sovereignty laws is that people have the right, as individuals and through their elected officials, to resist any restrictions on their rights to save seeds, grow, process, consume and exchange food and farm products within Vermont.
Vermont’s two towns are not alone. The town of Sedgwick, Maine, unanimously passed an ordinance that gives its citizens the right to “produce, process, sell, purchase and consume local foods of their choosing.” This includes raw milk and locally slaughtered meat. There are three more towns in Maine that are slated to vote on similar laws in the coming weeks.
The impetus behind the Sedgwick resolution and the Vermont resolutions is that there should be no state licensing requirements prohibiting farms from selling dairy products or producing their own to sell to other people in the community for their own consumption (versus for commercial consumption).
What is less clear thus far is whether these local laws can and will be able to legally supersede state laws. In Maine, municipal home rule is written into the state’s constitution, after being adopted by public referendum in 1969.
The issue has yet to be tested in Vermont. But the concept has merit. If local food suppliers are not providing quality or value to local consumers, local consumers will look elsewhere for their produce, eggs or meat.
The logic of consumers holding local producers accountable for the quality of the product makes more sense than wondering how the E. coli got into the spinach from California or the botulism got into the eggs from the factory farm in Kansas.
There is a self-regulating aspect of local consumers holding local producers accountable that makes sense.
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