PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Towns in several states are
adopting local ordinances that exempt farmers from state and federal
regulations if they sell their products directly to consumers, despite
warnings that the ordinances are invalid.
Residents in Livermore
and Appleton, Maine, approved so-called local food and community
self-governance ordinances at town meetings this month, joining six
other Maine towns that did the same thing last year. Residents in
Fayette, however, voted down a similar proposed ordinance.
The
votes should send a message that Maine residents want more local say on
how to regulate small farms that process food ranging from poultry and
milk to cheese and jam that are sold to people in their area, said
Douglas Wollmar, a small-scale produce farmer in Blue Hill, which passed
a similar ordinance last year.
Ultimately, supporters would like to see a state law passed that addresses their concerns.
"We’re
trying to get more towns to pass the ordinance, because at the state
level we’re not getting any attention," Wollmar said. "The response we
got from legislators is it’s nice you got five or six towns, but what
you need is 50 towns before we’ll listen."
The situation isn’t unique to Maine.
Towns
in Massachusetts, Vermont and California have all passed so-called food
sovereignty ordinances or resolutions in the past year or so.
In
Sandisfield, Mass., Brigitte Ruthman, the owner of Joshua’s Farm,
proposed a resolution at last year’s town meeting after she received a
cease-and-desist order from the state saying her dairy operation was
illegal. Ruthman sells shares of her small dairy herd to people in the
region, who then get a share of the raw milk from her cows.
To
comply with state demands, she would have had to invest tens of
thousands of dollars for a new cooling system, septic system and other
equipment, she said. That might be reasonable if she were a commercial
dairy, but the state was coming after her for milk from a single cow
that was shared by three people, she said.
"On a micro level, this
is really the aggravation we have with government," she said. "You
can’t control our lives, you can’t control our food choices that are
very personal. Stop it."
Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, said he expects more towns to follow
suit.
"Right
now Maine is way ahead of the curve as far local food ordinances, but
the trend is going in that direction,’ Kennedy said.
Blue Hill,
Sedgwick, Penobscot, Trenton, Hope and Plymouth last year passed
ordinances proclaiming that federal and state regulations hinder local
food production and usurp people’s rights to foods of their choice.
Supporters say the ordinances promote family farms, sustainability and
healthy eating.
But state agriculture officials say the ordinances
don’t hold legal muster and that regulatory oversight is essential for
food safety and public health.
Agriculture Commissioner Walt
Whitcomb, who co-owns a dairy farm, said he’s supportive of local food
producers, but his department has to ensure the products are safe.
The
department strives to work with food processors, and licensing
requirements aren’t as onerous as some people make them out to be, he
said. Licenses require some basic common-sense requirements to ensure
the public’s health.
"The inspection personnel try very hard to
explain not only the law but the reasons why it’s beneficial for their
future sales, as well as what is healthy for the consuming public,"
Whitcomb said. "Setting aside the legal aspects, there’s nothing worse
for sales from somebody getting sick from what they just bought from
you."
The local ordinances, he said, are invalid because they’re superseded by state and federal laws.
That
warning, though, wasn’t enough to dissuade residents in Livermore and
Appleton from green-lighting the same ordinance in their towns last
week.
Cathy Lee, who collected signatures to force a vote at
Livermore’s town meeting, said there’s a long history of home rule in
Maine. Food safety issues, such as E. coli and salmonella problems, are
more likely to crop up with large food corporations than with local
farms.
State regulations, she said, require added paperwork, more
inspections and expensive upgrades that are geared toward large farms
and corporations. The regulatory burden, she said, is enough to put some
farms and food producers out of business.
In Maine, people in Fayette voted down a proposed food self-governance ordinance on Saturday.
Town
Manager Mark Robinson said residents and the board of selectmen are
supportive of local farms and small-scale food producers. But they
realized that a local ordinance wouldn’t carry any legal weight.
"The
ordinance really did nothing other than send a message," he said. "It
gives the issue attention, but I would think so could an effort to amend
state laws to address the issue."
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.