Mr. Speaker, women and men of the House. I rise in opposition to the pending motion on LD 475, An Act To Increase Food Sovereignty in Local Communities.
Concerning the most important bill that I have presented to the first regular session of the 126th Legislature, I find myself in the minority report. I guess you could call that poetry.
As former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, once said, “Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people.”
::
Her name was Mrs. Meeks. Well, that was the only name I ever heard her called. I was in her kitchen only once. She, like us, lived on the North Side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, smack dab in the middle of factories that made big things and paid good wages. I couldn’t tell you if Mrs. Meeks worked in one of them or not, or even if she worked outside her home at all. All I knew is that she hailed from rural Alabama and she made a mean coconut cake. So mean it was the only cake my parents ever bought for a special occasion.
We didn’t have much. We were on food stamps, in fact.
But when we splurged, for a special occasion, we turned to our neighbor. And Mrs. Meeks made the best cakes you’d ever want to buy. She made them all in her kitchen, a place that felt like the hearth in her home that it was. Her reputation preceded her. So much so that when I began teaching myself how to bake a good cake, way back in the fourth grade, Mrs. Meeks was the cake maker I wanted to emulate. Why?
Because in every single bite of Mrs. Meeks cakes, you could taste the love.
Just as you could taste the love in Aunt Fannie’s famous seafood gumbo. Originally from rural Louisiana, Aunt Fannie migrated to Milwaukee after World War II, her expertise in creole cuisine in tow. Nobody we knew who wanted gumbo for Christmas ever made their own. They bought some of hers. Or, if they were really lucky, she invited them over to her house, sat them down right her kitchen table, and served that spectacular ambrosia fresh out of that giant pot. We were among the lucky ones. Still, if we took any of her gumbo home with us, my father reached into his wallet and gave her a little something. She needed it to help her family make ends meet while caring for a son, challenged in so many ways.
Now what on earth do Mrs. Meeks and Aunt Fannie have to do with food sovereignty?
Well, everything—pretty much.
And even though they both lived in cities by the time I was able to partake of their culinary wizardry, their values were shaped in the rural communities from which they hailed. So were my parents’ values. Which is why my father shared some of his hunt with our neighbors whenever they needed it. Why my mother fed and bathed countless throwaway girls who knocked on our door, no questions asked.
Now, I live in a rural community. A community of people who share my values. After all, they sent me here.
::
I believe locally produced food is national security. I believe that access to wholesome food is a right for every citizen. When one in four children among us goes to bed hungry every night, we can do better. We must. We cannot allow a single one of us to go hungry for a single day. Maine has all the natural resources and the hard-working, independent-spirited people to grow, catch, trap, forage, process, prepare, and distribute enough food to feed our people and strengthen our local economies. Let us stop importing more food per capita than any other state in the contiguous 48.
I believe the best way to achieve more food self-sufficiency and security in Maine is to allow our neighbors—many of whom are small-scale farmers and/or small-scale food producers, like Aunt Fannie and Mrs. Meeks—to advertise, sell, and feed us the food we want to eat.
If you control the food, you control the people.
“People,” said Woodrow Wilson, “may now be dominated and governed only by their own consent. Self-determination is not a mere phrase; it is an imperative principle of action. . . . "
An imperative principle of action.
Food sovereignty equals self-determination.
Who gets to decide the rules and regulations about our local food supply? Who do you trust? The multinational biotech companies that so desperately want to control our food supply by genetically engineering seeds and patenting those same seeds and then influencing the FDA and the USDA to create policies that serve to drive small food producers out of business?
Do you trust a food system that allows chickens to be slaughtered at a rate of 175 per minute, with minimal human oversight, the carcasses dipped in bleach and chemical brines in order to make them fit for human consumption? A food system that allows for hamburger filler to be washed in ammonia, also known as pink slime, in order to kill E. coli and make that meat fit for human consumption?
Or, do you trust the person in your neighborhood or community who produces food with wholesome ingredients and a heaping bowl of love?
If you control food, you control the people.
I’m a farmer who still works the land by hand. Mr. Speaker, I've never been more committed to anything in my life. Never been happier. There is simply nothing like living off the land and nothing simpler. Knowing exactly where your food comes from because you produce it yourself. I am truly blessed. My customers appreciate every bag of spinach, jar of granola, or crown of broccoli they get from the farm. And I appreciate them. Their concerns and requests, their own gardening triumphs and failures. Our exchange of ideas and recipes and tricks. I never would have imagined I would become such an integral part of a local food chain. Never would have imagined I could sell thousands of dollars of organic produce and homemade foods in a single season directly to patrons without vending at a farmer’s market or supplying a restaurant. Never would have imagined folks would stop by simply to thank me for doing what I do even though they buy their produce at another local farm. I think now of Michael Pollan's words from his must-read book In Defense Of Food, “In a short food chain… [f]ood reclaims its story, and some of its nobility, when the person who grew it hands it to you.”
Think about that.
I’m going to say it again: In a short food chain food reclaims its story, and some of its nobility, when the person who grew it hands it to you.
Mr. Speaker, in 2009 the people of Maine demanded an expanded medical marijuana law, even though marijuana is illegal at the federal level. Have the feds shut it down?
If the people of the Maine, through their representatives, make a firm stand on who has the right to make the rules for their own food, then how can we go wrong? The threat of the FDA or the USDA coming in and taking over everything or shutting down all Maine food producers is a fear-based argument that simply doesn’t hold water.
Food sovereignty is Home Rule for food.
Food sovereignty means local control.
Food sovereignty is rural economic development.
Food sovereignty means farmers and fishers have first rights to local and regional markets.
Food sovereignty means empowered communities all over the State working together to advance local food systems that ensure health and dignity for all Maine people.
Food sovereignty means that all people will have access to healthy, wholesome, locally produced and delicious food.
Food sovereignty means that farmers, farm workers, ranchers, and fishers will have control over their lands, water, seeds, and livelihoods.
The people in 9 towns in the state of Maine voted to enact Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinances. What the Legislature can do today is uphold these ordinances, grant them a bit of teeth, if you will, and relieve the state of Maine from using taxpayer dollars to file suit against a one-cow farmer who feeds the people in his community the food they want to eat
LD 475 as amended states, “Pursuant to the home rule authority granted to municipalities by Title 30 and by the Constitution of Maine, Article VIII, Part Second, and notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, local government may regulate food systems by local ordinance.”
Do we really want to turn that down because we’re afraid of the federal government?
We invoke Home Rule frequently when discussing local education systems. Why can’t we apply that same principle to local food systems?
Think about that.
Think about that.
If you control food, you control the people.
Food is life. Food is life.
We the People must have control over our own lives.
We the People insist.
Food is life.
I humbly ask that you vote against the pending motion and affirm the right of local communities to govern their own food systems as they see fit.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Testimony: Deregulating Face-To-Face Food Transactions
Testimony
of Representative Craig Hickman for LD 1287: An
Act To Deregulate Face-to-face Transactions Between the People and Small Farms
and Small Food Producers Before
the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, May 7,
2013
Senator Jackson,
Representative Dill and other distinguished members of the Joint Standing
Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. I am Craig Hickman,
representing District 82, Winthrop and Readfield and I stand before you today
to present LD 1287, “An Act To Deregulate Face-to-face Transactions between the
People and Small Farms and Small Food Producers.”
I’d like to tell you the story of why I became a farmer.
I hope my story makes it clear why I’m presenting this bill and how important
it will be to vote to pass it later today. The story is entitled “Collard
Greens” and I wrote it in November of 2009 in preparation of my 20th
college reunion.
::
::
FOR TWO years, they didn't have garden-fresh collard
greens.
For all of my childhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my father grew a small garden in our back yard that yielded incredible produce. We didn't call it organic gardening back then. There was no need for such a description. It was what it was: gardening. No chemical fertilizers, no pesticides.
Well. Almost. One year—I can't remember how old I was but I was in elementary school—the insects were so bad, my father chose to shake garden dust over all his yet-to-fruit tomato plants, which were being devoured by hornworms. He cried. He was afraid he would poison his family. Afraid that we would starve if we didn't have any tomatoes to eat fresh or can for later so he chose drastic action. But he left alone the collards and other leafy greens. "I can't shake no dust on those. They go directly into our mouths, so we're going to have to pick the bugs off with our fingers."
For all of my childhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, my father grew a small garden in our back yard that yielded incredible produce. We didn't call it organic gardening back then. There was no need for such a description. It was what it was: gardening. No chemical fertilizers, no pesticides.
Well. Almost. One year—I can't remember how old I was but I was in elementary school—the insects were so bad, my father chose to shake garden dust over all his yet-to-fruit tomato plants, which were being devoured by hornworms. He cried. He was afraid he would poison his family. Afraid that we would starve if we didn't have any tomatoes to eat fresh or can for later so he chose drastic action. But he left alone the collards and other leafy greens. "I can't shake no dust on those. They go directly into our mouths, so we're going to have to pick the bugs off with our fingers."
::
Summer 2009, I stood amidst my collards in one of
the many gardens on our 25-acre organic farm in central Maine talking to my
pregnant sister on the phone. I told Gina that my collards weren't growing as
well as I'd like. That because of the unceasing rain the insects were winning.
That's when she told me.
In the last two years of our father's life, when the pancreatic cancer made him too weak to tend his garden, she and my mother had no fresh collards. The rose chafers, Japanese beetles, cabbage worms and whatever else loves this bittersweet brassica had devoured the leaves down to skeletons.
"He simply had no energy, Craig. And we couldn't help because it would have been an admission that we knew he was sick, and since he never told us, we couldn't let him know that we knew."
I simply could not fathom my family back home in Milwaukee went two years without Daddy's collards. Could not fathom why my sister had never told me about it till just then. Could not fathom why my mother had never told me about it at all.
I stood amidst my insect-infested collards and wept.
Losing my father on March 14, 2007, a month to the day after he turned 87, began the most transformative right of passage in my life to date. The man who taught me about discipline, respect, honor, dignity; about how to rise up after being knocked down; how to dream great dreams; how to love; how to live had left this world and left a hole in my soul as big as the lake on which my farm sits.
Two years later, in early spring, when I finally came up from under, I saw my father walk from the side of the road right up the gravel driveway and into our house. I don’t know if I was sleeping or awake, but I saw him nonetheless. Later that day, I stood before the unquilted stretch of land and told my beloved of my plans to become a bona fide farmer. He thought I was crazy. Said it was too much. That I'd never keep to it.
Love a challenge. If you tell me I can't do something, I'm determined to prove you wrong.
Five months later, I opened a farm stand on the side of the road right in front of our house and began selling the succulent vegetables our land offered up.
Now, I'm addicted to growing things. I've turned a mere half-acre of our farm into a sweep of organic gardens. Composted manure from around the barnyard, a small tiller for cultivation, a few farm hands, a garden rake, hoe and pitchfork, a mosquito net as necessary, and as many daylight hours as the sun above can muster is all we count on to produce our harvest.
Now, I can't stop opening a new patch of earth to plant some new variety of heirloom tomatoes to round out the cornucopia from Annabessacook Farm: arugula, beets, Belgian endive, collards, kale, mesclun, mustard greens, romaine, Swiss chard, spinach, turnips, corn (the sweetest in the area, say my customers), carrots, celery, fennel, golden beets, radish, basil, chives, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, leeks, onions, scallions, blackeye peas, okra, green beans, soybeans, sugar peas, several varieties of peppers, summer squash, winter squash, gourds, pumpkins, cucumbers, eggplant, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, wild black raspberries, cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon, and anything else I can trick to grow in this northern climate. Can't stop. As though all the energy my father didn't have at the end of his life has fueled me to work from sun up to sundown, planting, weeding, hauling, turning, picking, packaging, selling. Eating.
I'm even making fresh cheese and yogurt and ice cream from the goat milk my beloved massages out of our goat every evening after healing patients all day at MaineGeneral. Baking breads and quiches and pies and cakes and hearty cereals. Preparing meals for B&B guests, private dinner banquets for neighbors and friends.
And we’ve got two new greenhouses. Can't wait to see what they can produce in winter. Before long, we’ll be growing our own wheat, making our own honey, slaughtering our own meat.
::
That's when she told me.
In the last two years of our father's life, when the pancreatic cancer made him too weak to tend his garden, she and my mother had no fresh collards. The rose chafers, Japanese beetles, cabbage worms and whatever else loves this bittersweet brassica had devoured the leaves down to skeletons.
"He simply had no energy, Craig. And we couldn't help because it would have been an admission that we knew he was sick, and since he never told us, we couldn't let him know that we knew."
I simply could not fathom my family back home in Milwaukee went two years without Daddy's collards. Could not fathom why my sister had never told me about it till just then. Could not fathom why my mother had never told me about it at all.
I stood amidst my insect-infested collards and wept.
Losing my father on March 14, 2007, a month to the day after he turned 87, began the most transformative right of passage in my life to date. The man who taught me about discipline, respect, honor, dignity; about how to rise up after being knocked down; how to dream great dreams; how to love; how to live had left this world and left a hole in my soul as big as the lake on which my farm sits.
Two years later, in early spring, when I finally came up from under, I saw my father walk from the side of the road right up the gravel driveway and into our house. I don’t know if I was sleeping or awake, but I saw him nonetheless. Later that day, I stood before the unquilted stretch of land and told my beloved of my plans to become a bona fide farmer. He thought I was crazy. Said it was too much. That I'd never keep to it.
Love a challenge. If you tell me I can't do something, I'm determined to prove you wrong.
Five months later, I opened a farm stand on the side of the road right in front of our house and began selling the succulent vegetables our land offered up.
Now, I'm addicted to growing things. I've turned a mere half-acre of our farm into a sweep of organic gardens. Composted manure from around the barnyard, a small tiller for cultivation, a few farm hands, a garden rake, hoe and pitchfork, a mosquito net as necessary, and as many daylight hours as the sun above can muster is all we count on to produce our harvest.
Now, I can't stop opening a new patch of earth to plant some new variety of heirloom tomatoes to round out the cornucopia from Annabessacook Farm: arugula, beets, Belgian endive, collards, kale, mesclun, mustard greens, romaine, Swiss chard, spinach, turnips, corn (the sweetest in the area, say my customers), carrots, celery, fennel, golden beets, radish, basil, chives, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, leeks, onions, scallions, blackeye peas, okra, green beans, soybeans, sugar peas, several varieties of peppers, summer squash, winter squash, gourds, pumpkins, cucumbers, eggplant, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, wild black raspberries, cantaloupe, honey dew, watermelon, and anything else I can trick to grow in this northern climate. Can't stop. As though all the energy my father didn't have at the end of his life has fueled me to work from sun up to sundown, planting, weeding, hauling, turning, picking, packaging, selling. Eating.
I'm even making fresh cheese and yogurt and ice cream from the goat milk my beloved massages out of our goat every evening after healing patients all day at MaineGeneral. Baking breads and quiches and pies and cakes and hearty cereals. Preparing meals for B&B guests, private dinner banquets for neighbors and friends.
And we’ve got two new greenhouses. Can't wait to see what they can produce in winter. Before long, we’ll be growing our own wheat, making our own honey, slaughtering our own meat.
::
I stand on my father's shoulders. He whispers music over mine as I open the
earth, loving her—tenderly, deeply, desperately—and whisks mosquitoes away from
my ears so I can hear his music more clearly.
He shows me the way.
I've never been more committed to anything in my life. Never been happier. There is simply nothing like living off the land and nothing simpler. Knowing exactly where your food comes from because you produce it yourself.
My customers appreciate every bag of spinach, jar of granola, or crown of broccoli they get from the farm. And I appreciate them. Their concerns and requests, their own gardening triumphs and failures. Our exchange of ideas and recipes and tricks. I never would have imagined I would become such an integral part of a local food chain. Never would have imagined I could sell thousands of dollars of organic produce and homemade foods in a single season directly to patrons without vending at a farmer’s market or supplying a restaurant. Never would have imagined folks would stop by simply to thank me for doing what I do even though they buy their produce at another local farm. I think now of Michael Pollan's words from his must-read book In Defense Of Food, “In a short food chain… [f]ood reclaims its story, and some of its nobility, when the person who grew it hands it to you.”
He shows me the way.
I've never been more committed to anything in my life. Never been happier. There is simply nothing like living off the land and nothing simpler. Knowing exactly where your food comes from because you produce it yourself.
My customers appreciate every bag of spinach, jar of granola, or crown of broccoli they get from the farm. And I appreciate them. Their concerns and requests, their own gardening triumphs and failures. Our exchange of ideas and recipes and tricks. I never would have imagined I would become such an integral part of a local food chain. Never would have imagined I could sell thousands of dollars of organic produce and homemade foods in a single season directly to patrons without vending at a farmer’s market or supplying a restaurant. Never would have imagined folks would stop by simply to thank me for doing what I do even though they buy their produce at another local farm. I think now of Michael Pollan's words from his must-read book In Defense Of Food, “In a short food chain… [f]ood reclaims its story, and some of its nobility, when the person who grew it hands it to you.”
Think about that.
I’m going to say it again: In a short food chain
food reclaims its story, and some of its nobility, when the person who grew it
hands it to you.
Face-to-face.
And so it was that when I told one of our regular
customers the story of my father's collards, my sister's recent heartbreaking
confession, we all shared a moment of spontaneous silence in his memory. And I
swear to God, within a week, my collards were on their way to the biggest,
sweetest, greenest collards I'd ever grown.
Friday, May 3, 2013
State News Update
Maine’s Departments of Environmental Protection and Agriculture,
Conservation and Forestry are helping farmers who want to do their part
to protect water quality by releasing $3 million for agriculture
improvements loans.
The two State departments, in partnership with the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) and the Maine Municipal Bond Bank, have expanded the Nutrient Management Loan Program, developed to fund construction of containment and handling facilities for milk room and manure waste. Since its inception in 1999, that program has made 14 loans totaling $1.3 million.
The DEP-administered Clean Water State Revolving Fund will provide up to $3 million for FAME to finance the loans with farmers able to borrow up to $450,000 at a fixed interest rate of 2 percent for up to 20 years.
“Agriculture is a $1.5 billion industry in Maine, and the thousands of people who work in it have the important responsibility of stewarding 1.25 million acres,” said Governor Paul R. LePage. “I thank these two agencies for coming together with FAME and the bond bank to increase the sustainability of Maine farms and our state. This expanded loan program is good news for our natural resources and for our economy.”
Loans will fund agricultural projects that mitigate nonpoint source pollution by reducing or treating agricultural runoff and improving or maintaining water quality through irrigation system improvements and the use of irrigation reservoirs to maintain in-stream flows and water levels.
Eligible improvement projects include repairs to or installation of roof runoff structures, water and sediment control basins, composting facilities, anaerobic digesters and irrigation system water conservation. DACF will review the proposed projects for eligibility and to ensure they are completed in accordance with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Services design criteria.
“Maine’s farmers know firsthand the great value of clean water and the importance of minimizing agricultural runoff,” said DEP Commissioner Patricia W. Aho. “Thanks to our increased funding commitment, these important partners in protection will be able to better steward the land and water they depend on for their livelihood while investing in the future of the farms that feed Maine people and our economy.”
“These loan opportunities will lead to investments in agricultural infrastructure,” added DACF Commissioner Walt Whitcomb. “Long-term agricultural viability protects Maine water resources.”
Since 1989, the Maine Clean Water State Revolving Fund has provided over $650 million in low-interest loans for projects that improve water quality and protect environmental and public health, largely to publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities.
Maine Greenhouse and Nursery Day is May 4
Greenhouses, nurseries and garden centers statewide will be celebrating on Saturday, May 4 as the industry kicks off Maine Greenhouse and Nursery Day.
For the fourth year, several dozen family-owned businesses will hold special events to highlight the fun and joy of gardening in Maine. Planned activities for the events include giveaways, door prizes, raffles, plants and balloons for children, container-planting demonstrations, personal tours, expert speakers and mini workshops. Participating greenhouses and nurseries also will preview spring introductions and share their expertise by offering gardening tips, information on plant varieties and ideas for window box and landscape design.
The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry licenses and inspects more than 1,307 businesses selling plants in Maine. The Department also certifies plant exports, regulates imported plants and assists growers with plant pest problems.
For more information about Maine Greenhouse and Nursery Day, click HERE
For more information, contact Mary Lou Hoskins at (207) 848-5453, email: greenc@gwi.net
The two State departments, in partnership with the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) and the Maine Municipal Bond Bank, have expanded the Nutrient Management Loan Program, developed to fund construction of containment and handling facilities for milk room and manure waste. Since its inception in 1999, that program has made 14 loans totaling $1.3 million.
The DEP-administered Clean Water State Revolving Fund will provide up to $3 million for FAME to finance the loans with farmers able to borrow up to $450,000 at a fixed interest rate of 2 percent for up to 20 years.
“Agriculture is a $1.5 billion industry in Maine, and the thousands of people who work in it have the important responsibility of stewarding 1.25 million acres,” said Governor Paul R. LePage. “I thank these two agencies for coming together with FAME and the bond bank to increase the sustainability of Maine farms and our state. This expanded loan program is good news for our natural resources and for our economy.”
Loans will fund agricultural projects that mitigate nonpoint source pollution by reducing or treating agricultural runoff and improving or maintaining water quality through irrigation system improvements and the use of irrigation reservoirs to maintain in-stream flows and water levels.
Eligible improvement projects include repairs to or installation of roof runoff structures, water and sediment control basins, composting facilities, anaerobic digesters and irrigation system water conservation. DACF will review the proposed projects for eligibility and to ensure they are completed in accordance with USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Services design criteria.
“Maine’s farmers know firsthand the great value of clean water and the importance of minimizing agricultural runoff,” said DEP Commissioner Patricia W. Aho. “Thanks to our increased funding commitment, these important partners in protection will be able to better steward the land and water they depend on for their livelihood while investing in the future of the farms that feed Maine people and our economy.”
“These loan opportunities will lead to investments in agricultural infrastructure,” added DACF Commissioner Walt Whitcomb. “Long-term agricultural viability protects Maine water resources.”
Since 1989, the Maine Clean Water State Revolving Fund has provided over $650 million in low-interest loans for projects that improve water quality and protect environmental and public health, largely to publicly owned wastewater treatment facilities.
Maine Greenhouse and Nursery Day is May 4
Greenhouses, nurseries and garden centers statewide will be celebrating on Saturday, May 4 as the industry kicks off Maine Greenhouse and Nursery Day.
For the fourth year, several dozen family-owned businesses will hold special events to highlight the fun and joy of gardening in Maine. Planned activities for the events include giveaways, door prizes, raffles, plants and balloons for children, container-planting demonstrations, personal tours, expert speakers and mini workshops. Participating greenhouses and nurseries also will preview spring introductions and share their expertise by offering gardening tips, information on plant varieties and ideas for window box and landscape design.
The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry licenses and inspects more than 1,307 businesses selling plants in Maine. The Department also certifies plant exports, regulates imported plants and assists growers with plant pest problems.
For more information about Maine Greenhouse and Nursery Day, click HERE
For more information, contact Mary Lou Hoskins at (207) 848-5453, email: greenc@gwi.net
