The new federal food safety law exempts small farms and food processors from complying with costly rules, designed primarily to regulate agribusiness and keep food safe. But state laws and other federal statutes continue to make it tough for small operators to sell directly to consumers. Here in Maine, a handful of communites have tackled this problem by passing ordinances exempting local farmers and food producers from all state and federal oversight.

Heather Retberg and her husband Phil raise grass-fed organic beef, lamb and pastured pork at Quill's End Farm in Penobscot. Retberg has come out of a stiff wind and into her greenhouse to chat. It's hard not to be captivated by the farm's newest residents, who scamper back and forth in a pack, a few feet away.

"The piglets, this is their paddock. So you can't see--there's a fence behind them, it's an electric fence. They just came on Friday. They are so spankin' cute," she says.

The Retbergs are raising 22 pigs this year. They have laying hens, and they milk cows and goats. They sell everything out of a farm store attached to their house.

One thing they're not selling this year is meat chickens. A few years ago, after they'd gotten a retail license, a state inspector paid them a visit, "and just asked where we had butchered our chickens," Heather Retberg says. "And we had done it at a friend's facility that is a USDA regulated, but a state-inspected, facility. But he said that wasn't a legitimate option."

Essentially, to slaughter less than 1,000 birds legally on their farm, the Retbergs would need to spend between $30,000 and $40,000 to build their own slaughterhouse. As they came to this realization, they got a letter from the state, telling them the way they were selling milk was illegal too.

So after trying, without sucess, to get lawmakers in Augusta to address their concerns, Heather Retberg and handful of other farmers and supporters came to a realization.

"The thing that makes sense to do is to go to our neighbors," Retberg days. "They're the people that are buying food from us anyways, they're the people that are saying, 'Give me any paper to sign! Call your chicken lobster bait! I don't care! Sell you're milk to me and call it pet food! Whatever we need to do to get this, we'll do it.' So that was the beginning of writing the ordinance."

So far, three Maine towns--Blue Hill, Sedgwick and Penobscot--have passed versions of the Local Food and Self-Governance Ordinance. It basically says small farmers and other food producers in these communities can bypass state and federal food safety regulations and sell their products directly to consumers.

"Yes, they have valid points--absolutely," says John Bannister, "And I think that's one of the reasons that this thing passed with almost near-unanimous support."

Bannister's family has run a grocery store in Blue Hill since 1965. Bannister also sits on the Board of Selectmen. He says many his constitutents are tired of the long arms of the federal and state governments, reaching into every corner of their lives.

But while he empathizes with them, he couldn't support an ordinance he believes is superseded by state and federal law. "Oh gee, we've been issued some form from some lawyer from the state, or from the fed, and they want us to have our lawyer to respond, which, of course, then begins to cost money," he envisions. "We're not going to spend taxpayer money on a fight you can't win."

Shortly after the vote in Blue Hill, a letter showed up which seemed to validate Bannister's concerns. It was from the Maine Department of Agriculture. It basically said state and federal law trumped the ordinance, and anyone abiding by the local law would face fines and other sanctions.

Small farmers, though, say the passage of these measures are symbolic victories that will hopefully lead to changes in the law down the road.