It’s been eight years since Maine passed the country’s first Food Sovereignty Act, allowing towns to approve ordinances letting residents buy and sell most food free of state regulation.
And it’s been almost four years since voters amended the state’s constitution to include a right to food, laying the groundwork for future legal decisions about local food deregulation.
But farmers, homesteaders, state agencies and lawmakers are still working out how to apply those principles.
That’s apparent in the legislative session underway in Augusta, where bills addressing backyard chickens, working dogs and the right to food itself have continued the conversation and sparked some big reactions. At times, Mainers have fiercely resisted what they see as state overreach in their food production, exposing lingering divides over regulation that those earlier changes were not able to alleviate.
As the first state in the country to adopt a food sovereignty act and amend its constitution for the right to food, how Maine responds to these tensions could help set a path for other states.
LD 1655, An Act to Allow the Keeping of Chickens on Private Residential Property
This bill has arguably received the most attention so far, after Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, led a backlash to its original language in April. Its first draft limited people from having more than 36 birds and included coop construction and siting requirements.
But the intent of the bill was to promote food sovereignty by stopping municipalities from banning backyard chickens, according to sponsor Jennifer Poirier, R-Skowhegan. Some towns haven’t updated their ordinances since the Right to Food Act passed, she testified.
“I have spoken with some of those municipalities, including a code enforcement officer in Waterville, who suggested residents concerned about ordinances as they relate to Right to Food should take them to court,” Poirier testified. “Then and only then, would they consider changing their current ordinances.”
The original bill met with a firestorm on social media, including from homesteaders who accused the state of limiting their right to provide for themselves.
“Come and take it,” one wrote over a silhouette of a chicken in a Facebook group for homesteaders.
“We should especially be free to choose how many chickens we own as private citizens,” Shelby Young of Sumner testified. “We should be free to feed our families, whatever our family size may be.”
The language has since been updated, removing the bird and coop requirements to simply state a town can set limits but can’t ban chicken ownership, and a committee recommended the bill pass.
LD 1777, An Act to Strengthen Oversight of Kennels by Changing the Licensing Authority from Municipalities to the Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry
This bill would move licensing authority for municipal kennels — which are defined as keeping five dogs or more for purposes including breeding, hunting or training — from the town level to the state.
It was presented by Sen. Donna Bailey, D-York, as a solution to a shortage of animal control officers. About a third of Maine municipalities don’t have an officer, or they have one that is uncertified, according to Bailey. Among those, conflicts of interest can sometimes keep officers from investigating rules violations at kennels.
Bailey said the state’s animal welfare advisory council has heard public concern about kennels that aren’t inspected and complaints that aren’t investigated, and current law doesn’t give it authority to respond.
The bill has received testimony in support from animal welfare groups and individuals who described disruptive or concerning kennels that local governments can’t or won’t address.
But people raising dogs in their homes for hunting, sledding and guarding or herding their livestock oppose it over fears of higher licensing costs, new facility requirements and a general resistance to having the state involved. Guardian dogs in particular have been a growing presence on Maine homesteads and farms over the past decade to deter predators, but breeders have noticed a trend of people buying and selling them while unprepared for their needs.
Tarma Shena, a livestock guardian dog breeder, trainer and educator from Greenfield, testified that it’s important to keep multiple working dogs on a farm so they can rest, have companionship, train younger dogs and have a home when they retire.
She described 14 dogs with different roles on her farm. Ten would be classified as breeding age by the bill, but only one has been bred in the last two years. The requirements could increase her costs and mean some dogs would either have to be euthanized or go into the shelter system, she wrote.
“We grow a lot of our own food and l am eternally grateful to live in a ‘right to farm’ state,” she wrote. “We should also have a right to protect that farm.”
LD 124, An Act to Respect and Protect the Right to Food
This bill was introduced by Sen. Craig Hickman, D-Kennebec, who spearheaded the original food sovereignty movement and right to food act.
It aims to strengthen food sovereignty through a handful of provisions including protecting Mainers’ rights to grow vegetables on private property, allowing local governments to promote edible landscaping on public land, prioritizing farm support programs for veterans and marginalized groups, letting state land be leased for growing crops and expanding the reach of some local rules.
A similar bill passed committee last year but didn’t get funding.
“Food Sovereignty is doing exactly what proponents said it would do and … inspiring states across the nation to codify similar efforts at state and local levels,” Hickman said in introducing the bill, pointing to the success of the unlicensed Stockholm Sovereign Market in Aroostook County as an example.
He said the bill would help Maine reach its goals to grow more local food, make communities more resilient, help rural economies, increase personal responsibility and “advance the right of the people to consume the food of their own choosing.”
But it has been opposed by the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and a guild of Maine cheese producers.
They’re concerned about the risk of disease and a loss of public trust in Maine producers if people get sick after eating uninspected products — a running objection to food sovereignty laws — as well as provisions in the bill which the CDC said would also apply to restaurants and any place serving food.
Food sovereignty supporters argue that the act gives them the right to make that choice for themselves and expands Mainers’ ability to provide for themselves and their communities.
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