Making Legal Space for Food: Science, Safety and Regulation Through Food Sovereignty Ordinances

• In Event: Science, Technology, and the Regulation of Food and Agriculture #1

Abstract

The Local Food and Self Governance ordinances developed by farmers and activists in several townships in the American state of Maine revolutionized food and agriculture social movements in the United States. The ordinances exempted food production and distribution from state and local regulation on the basis of autonomy under "Home Rule" governance characteristic of the region. The ordinances were developed as a response to new state-based food safety regulations that imposed a one-size fits all rule on small and large farms alike. The new regulation specifically impacted chicken processing and raw milk sales that up until 2009 had been relatively unregulated and thus legally regarded as "safe" by local and state authorities. The food sovereignty ordinances failed in the short term due to its reliance on local rights to govern. In the United States, the commerce clause, which establishes the supremacy of the Federal government over states and cities, exists to effectively pre-empt the local governance of trade, even in "Home Rule" states. Thus, the demand for rights to govern is always at risk for failure, and vulnerable to states of exception, without the creation of political spaces at (multiple) spatial scales often below and beyond the reach of the state. I position these politics within the narrative of insurgent or “agrarian" citizenship, which places its allegiance with nature, community, and “life itself” rather than the state and discuss what possibilities exist to protect rights to food.

Author

• Amy Trauger, University of Georgia