CHAPMAN, Maine — Voters in Chapman approved Aroostook County’s second food sovereignty ordinance Monday evening, creating a pathway for town residents to buy and sell their own foods without state oversight.
Chapman is now the 30th town in Maine with such an ordinance and the second one in Aroostook County, following Westmanland. Maine’s 2017 food sovereignty law lets municipalities adopt an ordinance that allows direct-to-consumer sales of food without state regulatory oversight.
In practice, the ordinance means that people in Chapman can legally purchase locally grown or processed food from neighbors who may not have a commercial, state-licensed kitchen, said Isaac Nelson, a farmer in Chapman who spearheaded the ordinance effort.
“Hopefully people will have a reason to come out to Chapman and see that we’re not just a bedroom community,” Nelson said.
The farmer said he was inspired to propose the ordinance out of a frustration with the high costs of state-licensing for regulated kitchens as his family was looking for value-added products they could sell to their local community.
“We own a bunch of apple trees and we’d like to sell applesauce,” Nelson said. “In order to do that, you’d have to build a second stand alone kitchen.”
Under the food sovereignty ordinance, people can visit Nelson’s Baird Farm, purchase homemade applesauce or even participate in an applesauce-making event at the farm, Nelson said.
He added that he thinks the ordinance could also help people earn extra income by selling homemade foods on a small scale.
The ordinance only applies to food producers within the town and applies to sales from their home or farm, but those sales are open to anyone.
“Anybody can come from anywhere they want, and as long as they buy it from there, it’s all legal.”
-
- Homemade applesauce at the Nelson family’s Baird Farm in Chapman. (Courtesy of Baird Farm)
