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Panel Unanimously Supports Compromise Food Sovereignty Bill

Earlier this year, Gov. Paul LePage signed the food sovereignty bill, designed to establish local control over the private sale of food by farmers to consumers. But the U.S. Department of Agriculture says that would violate federal food safety laws, which require inspections of meat and poultry.

The Legislature’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee has come up with a compromise bill lawmakers will consider Monday.

Supporters of the law, which takes effect Nov. 1, were surprised when the governor signed the bill. His own Agriculture Department had opposed the measure, and the issue is very controversial within the agriculture community, which doesn’t like the prospect of federal food inspectors taking over inspections that the state has been doing for years.

That is exactly what the USDA plans to do if the state fails to change the law so that inspections continue.

Lance Libby, a senior policy advisor to LePage, testified before the committee that a measure being proposed by the LePage administration satisfies federal concerns.

“The bill before you today, the USDA has said in writing that this will fix the meat and poultry issue,” he said. “So it’s obviously up to the committee how you want to proceed.”

But some in the agriculture community do not like the new law at all and want it repealed.

Republican Rep. Jeff Timberlake of Turner, a lifelong farmer, said the feds will go after other food processors if the law stands.

“If you are a processor of food, this is having a huge bearing on what happens to you in the future, and the US Department of Agriculture is not going to stop at meat and poultry,” he said.

That theme was repeated by several at the public hearing on the bill. There is a concern that other foodstuffs such as seafood and dairy products regulated by other federal agencies will be next to face federal inspections because of the new Maine law.

Julie Bickford, executive director of the Maine Dairy Industry Association, suggested that the committee use a draft prepared by Maine’s Department of Agriculture.

“We would advocate that a one-sentence fix that the department had previously discussed with USDA would be preferable,” she said.

The governor’s bill runs three pages, and some are worried that in solving the meat and poulty inspection issue, it creates additional problems.

State-inspected slaughter houses have been increasing their output. Last year production was up 42 percent, or nearly 1 million pounds of red meat. Several amendments to address other food processors have been drafted, but time is running out.

“This meat and poultry needs to be fixed, and we got 10 days to do it. And you guys aren’t going to work here 10 days, so I suggest you have something ready for Monday morning,” says Melvin Williams, a farmer from Waldoboro.

After over two hours of partisan caucuses, the committee voted unanimously to amend the governor’s proposal to address the concerns raised at the public hearing.

Some confusing language was removed and definitions added to address the concern about other processed food inspections being pre-empted by the federal government. It also limits the food sovereignty law to face to face transactions.

Journalist Mal Leary spearheads Maine Public's news coverage of politics and government and is based at the State House.