TN Action Alert – Vote on Right to Food 2/22 Hearing in Senate Committee for SJR 861

Tell Committee Members to Vote YES on SJR 861

Support a Constitutional Amendment for the Right to Food

On Tuesday, February 22 at 3pm central Senate Joint Resolution 861 (SJR 861) will have a hearing before the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee. SJR 861, known as the Right to Food Amendment, would add the following language to the state constitution:

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.

The right to grow, harvest, produce and consume is a basic fundamental right; the resolution is a commonsense protection of that right—something that is especially needed with supply chain disruptions, rolling shortages of various foods, and the deprivation of fundamental health freedoms throughout the country over the past two years as well as an increasing lack of transparency as to what ingredients are actually in foods in the conventional system.

The federal government has significantly raised its power since the onset of COVID; FDA, the agency charged with regulating 80% of the food supply, has made the following statements about our freedom of food choice:

“There is no absolute right to consume or feed children any particular food.”

“The assertion of a fundamental right to their own physical and bodily health … is unavailing because [consumers] do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish.”

The right to bodily autonomy, the right to determine what foods we put in our bodies, is something that can no longer be taken for granted; who would have thought that millions in this country would be threatened with the loss of their livelihood if they did not get an experimental “vaccine”?

It’s time to give our right to food a higher level of protection.

ACTION TO TAKE

Call and/or email Senate Judiciary Committee members and ask them to vote YES on SJR 861. Calls are best. It is especially important to contact a committee member if you are a constituent. Consider using any of the Talking Points below.

You may copy/paste this block of email addresses to contact all members of the committee (also see listing at the end):

sen.mike.bell@capitol.tn.gov; Sen.Dawn.White@capitol.tn.gov; sen.paul.rose@capitol.tn.gov; sen.todd.gardenhire@capitol.tn.gov; sen.sara.kyle@capitol.tn.gov; sen.jon.lundberg@capitol.tn.gov; sen.kerry.roberts@capitol.tn.gov; sen.john.stevens@capitol.tn.gov

TALKING POINTS

1. The resolution will give Tennessee residents stronger protection in a court of law if a government agency, corporation or individual is illegally interfering with another individual’s right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume foods of choice.

2. The resolution will not preempt any zoning or animal welfare law. Oversight of food processing and commerce by the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the Tennessee Department of Health remains. The resolution will not make it mandatory that the government provide food; it could actually reduce current government expenditures on food for the needy by encouraging people to be more self-sufficient in producing food, decreasing food insecurity.

3. The resolution will reduce dependence on the corporate food supply by increasing state and local resiliency and self-sufficiency in food production, leading to the development of stronger community food systems.

4. The decentralization of food production and decision-making will improve food security. Currently there is as little as three days’ worth of food in the conventional pipeline at any given time.

COMMITTEE CONTACTS

Below is contact information for each member of the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee; links for each are posted at

https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Senate/committees/judiciary.html

Mike Bell (R-District 9) – Chair

615-741-1946

sen.mike.bell@capitol.tn.gov

Dawn White (R-District 13) – 1st Vice Chair

615-741-6853

Sen.Dawn.White@capitol.tn.gov

Paul Rose (R-District 32) – 2nd Vice Chair

615-741-1967

sen.paul.rose@capitol.tn.gov