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[Michael Burns <michael AT fingerlakespermaculture.org>]

Third Town In Maine Passes Food Freedom Law

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

Blue Hill becomes third town in Maine to pass food freedom law
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer

(NaturalNews) 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] is a huge milestone in the struggle to protect the rights, not  
only of
farmers to sell their products, but also of all citizens to eat the  
food of
their choice," John Gandy, a local resident of Blue Hill and Master  
for the
Halcyon Grange, is quoted as saying in the Activist Post. "It is time  
citizens
start defending our rights against big government and big business."

In early March, two other towns in Maine, Sedgwick and Penobscot, both  
passed
their own food sovereignty laws. And the town of Barre, Vt., will vote  
on its
own food freedom resolution sometime in May
(http://www.naturalnews.com/031833_f...).

Based on the Tenth Amendment to the US Constitution, the federal  
government has
absolutely no authority to interfere with state and local food  
affairs. The
Amendment specifically prohibits the federal government from exerting  
any power
not specifically granted to it by the Constitution, and a group called  
the Tenth
Amendment Center is working hard to help states break free from the  
chains of
unlawful federal intrusion (http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/).

You can also keep track of the status of food freedom legislation at the
following links:
http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com...
http://growninthecity.com/interacti...

Sources for this story include:

http://www.activistpost.com/2011/04...

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