The Boston Globe's Alex Beam has a column about local governments resisting excessive government regulation of locally produced food:
Roughly a year ago, Sedgwick, Maine, enacted a "Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance." Invoking the Declaration of Independence and the Maine Constitution, the ordinance declared that "Sedgwick citizens possess the right to produce, process, sell, purchase, and consume local foods of their choosing. . . . We hold that federal and state regulations impede local food production and constitute a usurpation of our citizens' right to foods of their choice."
Soon after, several other Maine towns followed suit. The contagion spread to two towns in Vermont and, improbably, to Los Angeles County, population 9.8 million. The County's Board of Supervisors is considering a "Resolution recognizing the rights of individuals to grow and consume their own food and to enter into private contracts with other individuals to board animals for food."
I love this issue because it gets granola types on the left — not always your stereotypical campaigners against big government regulations — aboard on FDA and USDA reform, on devolution of power from Washington, on the right of contract, on deregulation, and on understanding how regulation often benefits large and powerful companies at the expense of smaller new entrants.
