Commentary
Something significant is happening at the state level.
In 2021, the people of Maine approved a constitutional amendment establishing a state-level right to food. It guarantees citizens the ability to grow, raise, harvest, produce, and consume food of their choosing. The measure passed with strong voter support. Tennessee lawmakers are now advancing similar protections, seeking to guarantee that residents can grow food at home without undue interference from local governments.
The idea is no longer fringe. It is entering constitutional language.
These state efforts reflect something deeper. Across the country, families are questioning whether it should require permission to grow vegetables in their own yard, raise chickens on their own property, or sell eggs to a neighbor who willingly wants them.
For much of early American history, the Interstate Commerce Clause was understood narrowly, applying to trade that actually crossed state lines. Over the twentieth century, particularly during the New Deal era, its interpretation expanded dramatically. Federal authority grew to encompass activities that were entirely local if they could be said to indirectly affect interstate commerce. Agriculture and food production fell squarely into that expansion.
Today, food production and sales are regulated at nearly every level, even when the food never leaves a single community.
Which raises a simple question: Should it be this way?
I do not believe our Founders could have imagined a future where Americans would need permission to grow tomatoes in their front yard. I do not believe they anticipated homeowners’ associations prohibiting vegetable gardens. I do not believe they foresaw a world in which selling homegrown food to a willing neighbor could trigger regulatory violations.
If they had, I suspect they would have written protections against it.
Food is more fundamental than nearly every other right we defend.
If we cannot eat, we cannot speak. If we cannot eat, we cannot defend ourselves. If we cannot eat, the rest of our liberties are theoretical.
The right to produce food predates government. It predates constitutions. It is woven into survival itself.
This should not be partisan.
The right to grow food on your own property. The right to buy food from a farmer you trust. The right to sell what you raise directly to a willing buyer.
These are human rights in the most practical sense.
Families like mine, and thousands of others across the country, are simply trying to feed themselves and their communities. We raise animals. We grow vegetables. We harvest, prepare, and sell food locally. We know our customers. They know us. They understand what they are purchasing. They choose it freely.
When informed adults voluntarily exchange food within their own community, liberty should be the default.
In 2023, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) proposed a federal constitutional amendment protecting the right of Americans to grow food and to purchase food from the source of their choice, and limiting Congress from regulating food that does not move across state lines. His proposal brought the conversation to the national level.
For years, I have also been drafting and redrafting a Right to Grow Food amendment. I have sent it to anyone I thought might listen. I have refined the language, strengthened it, and asked whether this is something that could gain real traction.
State-level amendments show that it can.
What if we combined the momentum in Maine and Tennessee, the federal proposal introduced in Congress, and the broader concern many families feel about overreach?
Here is what that unified amendment could look like:
Amendment XXVIII – Right to Grow, Produce, and Purchase Food
Section 1. The right of the people to grow, raise, harvest, produce, obtain, purchase, and consume food of their choosing shall not be infringed.
Section 2. No federal, state, or local law, regulation, ordinance, zoning restriction, homeowner association rule, or corporate policy shall prohibit or unduly burden the cultivation of plants, the raising of animals, or the production of food on private property with the consent of the property owner.
Section 3. Congress shall make no law regulating the production, distribution, or sale of food products that do not move across state lines.
Section 4. Reasonable regulations narrowly tailored to protect against demonstrable and direct threats to public health and safety may be enacted, provided such regulations do not effectively prohibit personal food production, barter, or voluntary exchange among informed and consenting adults.
Section 5. Congress and the States shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This does not dismantle the modern food system. It does not eliminate grocery stores or inspections. It does not prevent anyone from participating in large-scale agriculture. It simply protects another pathway.
For those who want to take personal responsibility. For those who want to grow their own food. For those who want to buy directly from people they trust.
The most recent constitutional amendment was ratified in 1992. It addressed congressional pay. It has been more than three decades since we amended the Constitution.
Perhaps it is time to ask whether something more fundamental deserves protection.
No single lawmaker can carry this alone. Not in Maine. Not in Tennessee. Not in Washington. Not any one representative. Not me.
Constitutional amendments do not begin with politicians. They begin with citizens who decide something is worth insisting upon.
If this matters, then it must be discussed everywhere. In homes. In farm communities. In suburbs. In cities. On social media. In town halls. Around kitchen tables.
We the people must push this forward.
We must bring the conversation to the forefront of society and keep it there. We must speak about it until it is no longer dismissed as niche or impractical. We must articulate why the right to grow food, sell food, and buy food from those we trust is foundational.
Because if we truly understand what we are protecting, it is worth the effort.
This is not about dismantling one system. It is about preserving the freedom to build another.
A movement is more powerful than any individual lawmaker. More powerful than any single article. More powerful than any single state resolution.
If enough citizens decide that real food, voluntary exchange, and personal responsibility are worth constitutional protection, momentum will follow.
Amendments are rare. They are difficult by design.
But perhaps that is because they are meant to protect what is essential.
Food is essential.
And essential rights are worth defending.
