Food Sovereignty

Ruby reports from Oakland, CA about the local and national battle for food sovereignty.
Around the country city folks are battling for their rights to grow, raise and sell locally produced foods. If you haven’t heard yet about Julie Bass of Oak Park, MI she’s the one that could face jail time for growing vegetables in her front yard.  There have also been recent crackdowns on goat shares, a workaround  the prohibitively expensive raw milk certification process that has been used by small and home-based dairies in past years.  Underground food venues have also been in the news as the SF Underground Market and other  food sharing projects  come up against the law.
If you are looking for a new place to live the urban homesteading life,  you might consider moving to Sedgewick,  Maine where the battle cry for Food Sovereignty has been heard loud and clear. ” The town unananimoulsy passed an ordinance giving its citizens the right to produce, process, selll, purchase and consume local foods of their own choosing.  This includes raw milk, locally slaughtered meat and just about anything else you can imagine in a decided bucking of state and federal laws.”  But stay away from Albany New York.  There the chicken ban still reigns, as the mayor recently vetoed yet another attempt to legalize backyard flocks claiming that “a more comprehensive plan will identify best practices, and include community input that develops a roadmap toward building a truly sustainable Albany.”
This sounds much like the situation in Oakland, CA.  While we are currently allowed chickens and other animals, the process for clarifying the law looks to be a lengthy one. At the recent  Community Meeting of the Oakland Planning Commission attended by over 350 people and addressing several aspects of Oakland food policy including the debate about animals and how to regulate home sales of food goods, the process for changing policy was outlined.  After another community meeting we go on to policy drafts and public hearings before anything gets added to our city code, this could take a year or more.  The good news is that city planner Eric Angstadt is on our side and once the policy is in place, the regulation will be all in one place in the city code, clearly stated for all Oakland residents–no more digging through archaic portions of the code to get the answer or differing answers depending of which department answers the query.
We have no doubts that the struggle for food sovereignty in our cities will continue, especially as more and more people begin homesteading .