By Emily Peyton

A coalition is forming to amend the state constitution to guarantee food security and land stewardship.

Constitutional Amendment: Right to Farms, Food and A Future
Proposed Article — Right to Clean Food and Stewardship

“All individuals possess a natural, inherent, and unalienable right to clean, wholesome, and unadulterated food, free from involuntary chemical contamination or toxic drift that materially impairs bodily integrity or ecological vitality.

The People retain the inherent right to grow, raise, produce, harvest, store, and save seed and food of their choosing, provided such actions do not constitute trespass upon private property or public lands.

The People reserve the natural, unalienable right to steward land in furtherance of regenerative and ecologically sound agricultural practice, and the public servants of Vermont shall protect, uphold, and abide by these rights in fulfillment of their constitutional duty to secure the common benefit and to further sustainability in the State of Vermont.”

This builds on precedent established by Maine’s 2017 Food Sovereignty constitutional amendment, affirming the right of people to grow, raise, and produce their own food.

At the Statehouse, a coalition is forming to bring forward a constitutional amendment which will take another biennium before it can be introduced, but the time is now to promote it. The primary purpose for it is to fulfill this goal: to put Vermont at the helm of progress, to initiate a growth of small- and medium-scale organic farming, to encourage and expand local gardens, and to totally dedicate ourselves to the cause of sustainability in harmony with Nature.

The goals that larger global entities describe will be served better and more thoroughly by expanding our food productivity when we do it with organic, permaculture, and non-toxic practices. Our children should have the opportunity to learn how to produce the food they need, and organizations like Meadows Bee Farm should be integrated, in its format, into afterschool programs all across the state, using a Cub Scouts-style approach to sustenance.

The global think tanks tackling these issues offer solutions that have yet to include the most fundamental one: living soil sequesters carbon best, and it is built through organic and open pasture practices. Vermonters, more than think tankers in suits and clean shoes, understand that the backbone of climate remedy is rebuilding living soils and mycelium networks through pastured animals and dense small-scale efforts, yielding up to 1000% more per acre while restoring the health of our people and our land.

Without addressing the hypocrisy of Roundup’s presence in our stores, and of war enveloping our globe while selling their “smart” anything, it is clear that a direct relationship with Nature is important to Vermonters uniformly.

Let’s look at the fundamental outcomes of the goal, as stated by John Rodgers, our Lt. Governor, to become the Breadbasket of New England with a toxin-free approach:

a) Rising health—where health improves, prosperity follows. Organically grown and pasture-raised food is nutrient-dense, unlike most products on shelves that contain poisons and toxins—substances that national politicians excuse and attempt to protect with liability shields, despite overwhelming evidence of harm to humans, plants, animals, and water. Vermonters across the aisle understand the importance of organic agriculture and are ready to lead. If we want to turn cancer rates around, the place to begin is with organic food, grown as Nature would have it.

b) Rising prosperity for farmers and gardeners—the organic food sector is growing globally, with the global organic market valued at over $200 billion and projected to continue significant growth in the coming years. Vermont already enjoys a reputation for excellent soil, and thus higher-quality products. By dedicating ourselves to becoming an organic Breadbasket of New England, we place ourselves on the map and become a more desired place to live, to visit, and to buy from.

c) Creating purpose that overcomes apathy and suicide in our youth. Backing this goal means investing in our next generations, helping to uplift their prospects by offering the many skills that are involved with farming and great gardening. It means putting farmlands outside of property taxation, outside of gentrification, outside of reduction, and into many caring hands. It means making use of the great yards and open, non-yielding spaces, such that our state transforms into a cornucopia. It means an increase in all the businesses that will create products of the highest quality, coming from organic practices upon the most life-filled soil of the most forward-acting state.

When we are there, we will no longer ship foods back and forth across the ocean to feed ourselves. We will no longer have the mental health issues, the prison population to pay for, the medical bills, and the welfare. Committing ourselves to this goal will bring into contrast organizations that hide malice against a living world with a pretense of wholesomeness, because they will fight this hard and with lots of money. Organizations that we have come to equate with caring for the natural world and good health will reveal the mask they wear, for they will fight us. Let them. For this Constitutional Amendment is not just a goal, it’s instrumental to the wellbeing of Vermont on every level.