HR 8374 – https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/8374
Proposed Constitutional Amendment on Right to Food
Earlier this year Representative Thomas Massie proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states:
The right of the people to grow food and to purchase food from the source of their choice shall not be infringed and Congress shall make no law regulating the production and distribution of food products which do not move across state lines.
To date, Rep. Massie has not filed a resolution for the proposed amendment; he’s considering whether to make an edit to the bill.
The amendment would effectively repeal the disastrous Supreme Court ruling in Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942) as that case applies to intrastate food production and distribution. In Wickard, the Supreme Court effectively held that feeding your own farm animals with wheat you had grown was subject to marketing quotas Congress had set under the 1938 Agricultural Adjustment Act, setting a precedent that has helped give the federal government extensive jurisdiction over intrastate commerce.
Passage of Massie’s proposed amendment could lead to significant decentralization of food production and distribution as well as deregulation of intrastate food commerce.
While the amendment is a long shot to pass, it could have the effect of galvanizing efforts to pass similar constitutional amendments at the state level. Tennessee had a right to food amendment, similar to the one Maine voters passed in 2021, that was one vote shy passing out of committee in 2024. In other states looking to pass right to food amendments; the Massie amendment could give them a boost. Passage of the amendment would mean the repeal of the 1967 Wholesome Meat Act (WMA) as it applies to intrastate commerce; this act has been largely responsible for the transformation of the meat industry into an oligopoly where four firms control 80-85% of the market. Passage would lead to the Poultry Products Inspection Act no longer applying to intrastate commerce; four firms control around 60% of the market in that industry. Likewise, the Egg Products Inspection Act would no longer apply to intrastate commerce. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) would no longer apply to those producing and selling within a state, meaning those producers would no longer be subject to the onerous FSMA regulations, such as the “Preventative Controls”, “Produce Safety”, and “Additional Traceability” rules.
