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[Thomas Shelley <tjs1 AT cornell.edu>]

At 03:19 PM 4/22/2011, you wrote:
> 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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