🖨️ Print post
The people of Maine face a critical choice and historic moment at the ballot box this November 2nd.
Referendum Question 3 will ask voters: “Do you favor amending the Constitution of Maine to declare that all individuals have a natural inherent and unalienable right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being?”
Maine is poised become the first state to clearly secure the right to food in its State Constitution. The Right to Food referendum is the result of over eight years of work by a grassroots coalition of farmers, fishermen, food security activists, local foods advocates, and a bi-partisan group of legislators organizing to protect food sovereignty.
In 2017, this work resulted in Maine becoming the first state in the country to enact a food sovereignty law requiring the State to recognize local authority over direct farm-to-consumer food exchanges.
On July 2, 2021, lawmakers enacted the “Resolution, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of Maine To Establish a Right to Food,” with over 75% of legislators voting in support. Passage of this Resolution sends referendum Question 3 to Maine voters.
If voters support Question 3, the following language securing the right to food will be included in the Constitution of Maine’s Declaration of Rights:
“Right to food. All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.”
Help is needed to get the word out effectively during these last weeks leading up to the vote.
A well-funded opposition campaign coordinated by DC-based lobbying groups was recently launched and is rapidly spreading misinformation about the impacts of the right to food referendum.
Food-sovereignty advocate Heather Retberg from Quill’s End Farm explains: “It’s been and continues to be an uphill road, but we really believe that a proactive measure with this kind of foresight is necessary and vital now. As more corporate control infringes on our ability to grow our own food, access our own water, and feed ourselves, we will need this bulwark in place, so individual people have the legal rights secured and able to be protected/defended under the law.”
Your help is needed to get the word out about the importance of securing the right to food.
Please spread the word to friends and family in Maine to Vote Yes on Question 3 this November 2nd.
Like & Share the Right to Food for Maine Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/righttofoodforme
Follow Right to Food for ME on Instagram: @righttofoodforme
Use these hashtags: #RightToFood #RightToFoodForMaine
Election Day is only three weeks away. Help us get out the vote by joining our campaign or making a donation at: righttofoodformaine.org
All power is inherent in the People. Do we have the right to obtain the foods we wish or don’t we? It’s really that simple. Let’s put in black and white. Let’s put it in writing.
Food is life. The time is now.
🖨️ Print post
I firmly believe that these inherent God given rights are supported within our Founder’s Beliefs & Intentions, that: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness… Those words supporting the actions that established our Nation & which all of our representatives should be taking to heart…
I believe just as with our Constitution’s Bill of Rights, which shouldn’t be necessary if all of our officials & representatives were to act purely within intent supporting our Nation’s unalienable rights, as they are required to swear an oath to support & defend our Constitution, but of course tragically, far more often than not in these times we live today, that is clearly not the case & many elected or appointed officials today instead willfully, intentially & unconscionably act or acquiesce to support efforts that deny our Nation’s people their God Given unalienable rights.
Just as our Nation’s Constitution’s Bill of Rights have proven themselves necessary & of critical import to assuring & protecting our unalienable rights from being denied or oppressed, I would most vehemently urge all of Maine’s Good People to further support & protect individual’s God Given unalienable rights from being denied or oppressed & to support this referendum, to further these protections within Maine’s Constitution & to Vote YES to Question 3, as presented, on the upcoming ballot.
Hopefully the results of this referendum will help to serve in our Nation’s history to further attest to & support our individual unalienable rights & come to be one of those things within the adage, as Maine goes, so goes the Nation… that we as a People & State will have acted upon & to be proud of, for our citizen’s & on behalf of our & our Posterity’s Survival & Liberty.
Eloquently stated, Sir. Places the responsibility for sustaining the individual freedoms we have as citizens of the United States squarely on the shoulders of the only ones who can protect those freedoms – us.