Right to Food Comes to the United States: The Maine Example
- 8 hours ago
- 9 min read
April 2026
By Heather Retberg and Craig Hickman
co-authors of Maine’s Right to Food Constitutional Amendment
Maine is the first and, at the time of publication, the only state in the nation to enshrine the right to food in its state constitution. In 2021, Maine advocates’ efforts led to constitutionalizing the right to food in its Declaration of Rights. Maine’s right to food movement is rooted in the need to address the challenges facing Maine’s communities and its local and regional food system, in addition to increasing access to nutritious food and ending hunger. The six-year-long legislative process that ended successfully at the ballot box in 2021 grew out of Maine’s food sovereignty movement, a decades-long struggle toward greater self-determination over food exchanges in Maine’s communities, re-centering decision making about food policy with people rather than multinational corporations and executive branch agencies of government.
The right to food has yet to be explored and implemented as a policy and legislative instrument in most of the United States, although many states and localities are strategizing and building momentum to incorporate the right to food into their state constitutions and local laws. Creating and expanding state and local right to food legislation provides a pathway to establishing and protecting the right to food across the country. This has raised many questions from advocates, farmers, and others around the country about what the right to food would look like in state and local laws, how it would improve the state of food security and food systems in the United States, and what additional protections come with legal implementation of the right to food.
Eleanor Roosevelt’s words in 1958 “hold the same necessity and urgency in Maine today and weave the thread of advocacy efforts from small towns across Maine to international human rights law”:
“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home–so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person: the neighborhood he lives in; the school or college he attends; the factory, farm, or office where he works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.”
It is said in Maine, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” Because the right to food matters in Maine’s towns, some, “so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world,” and because the right to food matters in “the world of [each] individual person,” Maine sought, “equal justice, equal opportunity, [and] equal dignity without discrimination,” in its pursuit to enshrine the right to food in its Declaration of Rights. Because the right to food has been enshrined in Maine’s Constitution, through the “concerted citizen action to uphold [human rights] close to home,” it can happen elsewhere, in other places, no matter how small or how large.
Maine’s Constitutional Right to Food Amendment
International human rights law supports and confirms the right to food in Maine, but it does not solely define it. Maine’s articulation of the right to food originated in rural towns that first enacted the Local Food and Community Self-Governance Ordinance and expanded town by town across the state. Eventually, this led to movement leaders working directly with legislators at the state level and learning from similar efforts globally. While Maine’s constitutional right to food grew upward and outward from Maine’s communities, it is also aligned with international human rights law and situated in the context of the international right to food and other farmer-led, peasant movements across the globe. Thus far, the legal interpretation of the amendment has been in line with the amendment drafters’ intent. Since its ratification, Maine has sought to clarify the application of the right to food under the current landscape of food law, including the Act to Protect the Right to Food, which went into effect in September of 2025.
The right to food amendment in Maine reads as follows:
Section 25. Right to food. All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food, including the right to save and exchange seeds and the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing for their own nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being, as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.
Defining the right to food, from the ground up, for Mainers and beyond
The below definitions outline the intent of and vision for the amendment by Heather Retberg and Craig Hickman, co-authors of the Right to Food Amendment in Maine. The intent of the drafters of the amendment is that none of these words should be construed to be more restrictive in implementation than their normal dictionary meanings in daily usage.
The amendment can be divided into four clauses. The words in the first clause of the amendment are to be understood by the internationally established definition of the right to food. In clauses two through four, the words are to be understood by their common definitions, expressing Maine’s unique articulation of the right to food protecting food sovereignty, food freedom and self-determination in its Declaration of Rights.
Clause 1: “All individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to food…”
The natural, inherent, unalienable right to food includes the right of all individuals to be free from hunger. Beyond this most basic component of human survival, the right to food also provides that people be able to feed themselves in a dignified manner, having self-determination over their food choices, and in turn their health, physical and mental well-being, and long-term ability to survive and thrive. The right to food requires that a person either be able to feed themselves directly from the land or other natural resources, or be able to acquire or purchase adequate food. More specifically, the right to adequate food should not be understood in a narrow sense which equates it with a minimum package of calories, proteins and other specific nutrients. Adequacy, availability, and accessibility are three of the four essential components of the right to food which, together with sustainability as discussed below, allow for complete realization of the human right to food.
Food should be produced, distributed, and consumed in a way that is sustainable, allowing for present and future generations to have accessible, available, and adequate food. According to the American Society of Agronomy, sustainable agriculture, “...over the long term, enhances the environmental quality and the resource base on which agriculture depends; provides for basic human food and fiber needs; is economically viable; and enhances the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.” Through the lens of food sovereignty, sustainable agriculture includes agroecology. Agroecology is defined as “an integrated approach that simultaneously applies ecological and social concepts and principles to the design and management of food and agricultural systems.”
Michael Fakhri, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2020 to 2026, reflected on its meaning in Maine and beyond:
“[A]t its simplest form, the right to food is people’s ability to access good food through their relationship with the land, or through fair and stable markets…”
“[T]he right to food also means that people have the right to decide as a community what counts as good food and what is nutritious, healthy, culturally appropriate, or ecologically sustainable… “To be free from hunger is to be free from exploitation and oppression.” (Constitutionalizing the Right to Food in Maine, p. 247.)
Clause 2: “…including the right to save and exchange seeds…”
Through the right to food Amendment, Maine acted to secure the resilience of all individuals in Maine by protecting genetic seed diversity and, therefore, its future food supply. The right to save and exchange seeds is vital to the regional resilience needed to strengthen communities in the face of climate change and other emergencies that make community food supplies vulnerable. This right protects all individuals’ ability to save and exchange unpatented seeds with others, protecting biodiversity and strengthening regional food supply chains, ensuring that this essential component of life cannot be defined by the limited seed supply patented by corporations.
As the wording of the amendment suggests, this right protects individuals’ personal use of seeds. This right is not to be interpreted under the idea of “personhood” as it may refer to corporations, but rather solely for human “individuals.” Additionally, the focus on “nourishment, sustenance, bodily health and well-being” further supports this intent and understanding.
The specific words used, “save” and “exchange,” also emphasize the individual and community focus of this right, and actively exclude corporate interests from utilizing it. The amendment uses these words which connote a more personal and individual use, rather than market-oriented words such as “patent,” “manufacture,” and “sell.” Maine’s emphasis on the importance of saving and exchanging seeds in Article 1 Section 25 of Maine’s Constitution mirrors the rights that small farmers across the globe have articulated in Article 19 of the United Nations Declaration on the Right of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP), and connects Maine’s work to farmers across the world, recognizing the essential vitality of saving and exchanging seeds to the future of humanity.
Clause 3: “…the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume…”
This clause ensures that all individuals in Maine enjoy legal protection under the highest form of law to exercise self-determination to grow, raise, harvest, and produce food; additionally to choose what foods to consume to nourish one’s own health. Self-determination and food sovereignty are at the core of Maine’s right to food. These terms encompass the different ways in which individuals may choose to realize their right to food with agency and dignity; whether that involves growing, raising, harvesting or producing food themselves or acquiring food through barter, trade, purchase or other legal means; the right to food protects the power of individuals to grow their own food and to consume what is appropriate to nourish themselves. Under this Amendment, individuals have a right to determine what is best for their health and well-being and to consume food from where they choose accordingly. Individuals who grow or raise food, those who forage and hunt, and those who acquire food through barter, trade, purchase or other legal means should have a seat at the table where decisions regarding their food supply are being made. The government has a role to restrain its own agencies and third party actors that interfere with the individual’s ability to grow, raise, harvest, produce and consume the food of their own choosing and also to promote policies that facilitate greater self-determination.
Clause 4: “as long as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching or other abuses of private property rights, public lands or natural resources in the harvesting, production or acquisition of food.”
“Protected natural resources include wildlife, water, air, and soils. Private property, such as domestic animals and plant crops, is protected against all trespass, as are patents under intellectual property law. Under the right to food amendment, any violation of private property rights or the abuse of public lands or natural resources that violate existing statutes remains prohibited and governed by existing statute. Individuals are still not permitted to forage for food on the property of others. Unless land is posted, Maine operates under an ‘implied permission structure,’ which allows hunting on the private property of others… The right to food is not an invitation to break the laws of Maine.”
Why ‘Acquisition’ and ‘Harvest’?
The words harvest and acquisition are significant as they encapsulate an intentional broadening of the language of the Amendment during the legislative process. An earlier version of the right to food amendment enumerated explicitly that to harvest food included: “hunting, gathering, foraging, farming, fishing or gardening and to acquire food included: “by barter, trade or purchase from sources of that individual's own choosing.”
“Similarly, the words process, prepare, preserve, and acquire were consolidated into the
present language and acquire was re-positioned to the final clause as acquisition. The language was amended in 2019 to condense these verbs that more explicitly connote traditional foodways into the two words, ‘harvest’ and ‘acquisition’. As the resolution was debated between the Maine House and Senate, then Representative Hickman amended the above clauses to be congruent with the other rights outlined in Maine’s Declaration of Rights, understanding that the language must be intentionally broad to not unnecessarily limit the right to food, especially in regard to the eventual terms included: ‘harvest’ and ‘acquisition.’ The concept was that the specificity of the longer list of verbs could unintentionally narrowly define the right” (Constitutionalizing the Right to Food in Maine, Maine Law Review Vol. 76 No. 2, p. 256).
The rights afforded by this constitutional amendment represent a balance between the government’s ability to promote the general welfare, individual freedoms and human rights of the people. Pete Kennedy, a food law attorney, references the “concept of ordered liberty,” a legal standard associated with the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Here, according to Kennedy, the “individual’s freedoms do not interfere with the government’s ability to maintain societal order.” The need to shift this power dynamic led in part to the food sovereignty and right-to-food movements in Maine. The right to food constitutional amendment in Maine undertakes to balance individual liberty, human rights, and general welfare.
The constitutional right to food came to the United States through Maine and has had an extraordinary impact on right to food advocacy across the country. Maine’s articulation of the right to food is one of human rights and individual liberty rights, of positive obligations and negative obligations, an Amendment that stands to both compel and constrain government, to empower greater individual and community food self-determination, dignity, and to empower all individuals in Maine to fully realize their right to food. What has now been accomplished in Maine is achievable across the United States.
