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Agriculture Commissioner Urges LePage To Sign Food Sovereignty Bill

Agriculture Commissioner Walt Whitcomb says the emergency bill passed by the Legislature will prevent a crisis in Maine agriculture.

“The bill that passed over the course of the spring and summer was a huge disruption. In fact, it might have been one of the worst efforts to stop the growth of Maine agriculture, with the best of intentions, perhaps,” he says.

Whitcomb says he is urging Gov. Paul LePage sign the bill, which meets federal objections to Maine’s food sovereignty law. Without the changes to address food safety, he says the feds would have taken over the state’s food inspection for meat and poultry, and several slaughterhouses would have been put out of business. The original bill allowed cities and towns to regulate food production, processing and direct sales to consumers, which were regulated by the state and federal governments.

Whitcomb says the bill is a good compromise.

“Above all we need to make sure that the customer gets well-handled beef, just like they expect when they go to a supermarket outlet. We’ve got to ensure that we have quality standards in what we do or we will never grow our industry the way we want to,” he says.

Journalist Mal Leary spearheads Maine Public's news coverage of politics and government and is based at the State House.