Mich,
Check out some of the international human rights treaties and resolutions, if you haven't already. A couple of the more notable ones of late (UDHR?) have named food as a basic human right. It's more often discussed in the context of whether a state (country) has the obligation to provide food to its people to resolve hunger (as opposed to the right to grow your own), but the inclusion of food there supports the fundamentality of the thing.
What are your plans with this research, if you don't mind me asking? Law review article? I have a vision of starting an organization that gets a plaintiff's case together and then looks for a plaintiff, the right person in the right federal district (i.e. - the right federal judge and appeals court) to sue on the basis of growing food as a fundamental right. (The goal, for others reading, would be for a judge to make a conclusion of law and issue an opinion finding that the right to grow food is a fundamental right deserving of strict scrutiny, and that any ordinance restricting that right must pass strict scrutiny and be narrowly tailored to a government interest, making outright chicken bans overbroad and not narrowly tailored). Would you have any interest in collaborating? I'm also a former TV/communications professional. I'm in South Bend, IN. Where in MI are you?
-Scott P.
Nothing against you personally, but such "rights" (ie "rights" to food, "rights" to medical care, "rights" to housing, etc. etc.) are not rights at all. Your rights end when they begin to infringe on others. You can NOT provide any of those rights without enslaving others. For any government to provide any of these "rights", it must first put a gun to someone elses head, threaten/impose violence, and take what they have produced to give to one who has not. True honest to goodness rights do not impose any obligations on others.
All these arguements that there needs to be some "law" or rule saying what specifically is allowed and what is not is absurd. Just as the cow on the balcony arguement is absurd. However, if someone wants to keep a cow on the balcony, by all means go ahead. But such actions carry responsibilities. If so much as one drop of urine falls upon the downstairs neighbor or his property, the cow owner/keeper is responsible. If so much as one spec of feces falls upon the downstairs neighbor or his property, the cow owner/keeper is responsible. If heaven forbid, the balcony and the cow fall upon the downstairs neighbor or his property, then the cow owner/keeper is responsible. People should have the right to anything they dang well please; right up to the point that it infringes upon another or the property of another.