Producer/Host: Amy Browne
Engineer: John Greenman
“Every individual has a natural and unalienable right to food and to acquire food for that individual’s own nourishment and sustenance by hunting, gathering, foraging, farming, fishing or gardening or by barter, trade or purchase from sources of that individual’s own choosing, and every individual is fully responsible for the exercise of this right, which may not be infringed” — that’s the language in a proposed amendment to Maine’s Constitution that’s currently being considered by the legislature. Today on the WERU News Report we’ll discuss that proposal and other food sovereignty initiatives with guests Betsy Garrold of Food for Maine’s Future and Bonnie Preston of the Alliance for Democracy. We talk with them first, then open the phone lines and invite listeners to join the discussion.
Betsy Garrold is President of the Board of Directors of Food for Maine’s Future, which is an organization that was formed eight years ago with the merger of GE Free Maine and the Independent Food Project. She is a lobbyist in Augusta for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. She homesteads in Knox just a few minutes from the MOFGA Common Ground Education Center.
Bonnie Preston is a retired librarian who is on the National Council of the Alliance for Democracy, a group which seeks an end to corporate rule through systemic changes, including strengthening community control through local ordinances. She has spent the last five years working with Heather Retberg (another resident of this area) promoting the Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance, which has passed in 13 towns so far and has been chosen as a major campaign for Alliance for Democracy.