maine farms
JOURNAL OF MAINE FARMLAND TRUST • 2024
In January 2022, I became a Maine Farmland Trust member for the first time—and as my fingers brushed through the deliciously matte pages of the 2021 issue I received in the mail, transfixed by its poetry, photography, and diversity of relationships to the land and what we grow upon it, I knew this was somewhere I wanted to be. It’s a dream come true to co-edit this year’s journal alongside Ellen Sabina, as I prepare to take hold of both reins next year. (It’s a shame this year’s cover doesn’t feature a pair of Belgian draft horse hooves, because I know I have enormous shoes to fill!)
Succession planning—and the freedom to evolve what you’ve been handed—is a precious gift. I’m grateful for Ellen’s support and guidance, as well as her encouragement to trust in my own creative decisions. And as I dug deep into MFT’s history with the changemakers you’ll meet in “What’s the Difference?” and recognized the values of community and stewardship that still echo through Maine’s farms in “Growing a Future Rooted in the Past,” I saw the same theme reflected over and over again: find people who share your vision, build structures and tinker with them together, invite new people in, and trust that the change that comes after you will push things forward in ways you couldn’t have imagined.
As you’ll read in “Greener Pastures,” not every farm is lucky enough to experience a seamless handoff, but regrowth—and new kinds of growth—can be possible with hard work and the resources to shape it. “Ripe for Growth” and “Embracing the Fungi” show us just how vital those resources are to the farms and farmers who are “in it” right now, building and tinkering with the structures that they’ll one day pass on to the next farmer. And “A Complex Crossroads” reveals how farm structures aren’t the only structures that demand our attention; we must invite in new collaborators and creativity to shift the systemic structures that affect our agricultural future, like affordable housing and labor.
As a Maine Farmland Trust member, you are part of the succession plan—and the continuing evolution—of Maine’s farming future. Thank you for sharing the vision and growing with us over these last 25 years. As we look to the next 25 and beyond, who will you invite in? I hope you’ll share this issue with someone you trust to carry our work forward, in ways we can’t yet begin to imagine.
Emily Gherman-Lad Assistant Director of Engagement, Communications
editor
Emily Gherman-Lad
Ellen Sabina
design
Might & Main
writing
Emily Gherman-Lad
Kirsten Lie-Nielsen
Kathryn Miles
Kathryn Olmstead
Laura Poppick
Nora Saks
photography
Chris Battaglia
Zack Bowen
Ian MacLellan
Tara Rice
Tristan Spinski
publisher
Maine Farmland Trust
97 Main Street, Belfast, Maine 04915 (207) 338-6575 | mainefarmlandtrust.org info@mainefarmlandtrust.org
Printed on 80# Finch Opaque Bright
White Smooth by J.S. McCarthy Printers, Augusta, Maine
All material © 2024 Maine Farmland Trust
The Maine Farms journal is a publication of Maine Farmland Trust, a statewide non-profit that protects farmland, supports farmers and advances the future of farming.
Cover: Walking among the woodlot mushrooms at Tiny Acres Farm in Montville. Photo by Ian MacLellan. Current Page: Autumn fields at Fine Line Farm in Searsmont. Photo by Tristan Spinski.
the field
snippets from the farming landscape
Permanence
by Russell Libby (1956-2012)
Tonight I marked sixteen sugar maples with year and circumference, four nearly large enough to tap, twelve to encourage upwards by thinning.
The permanent ink is supposed to last, but so too was Francis Gordon’s farm, and two of the largest trees grow from his cellar hole.
I hope to taste the syrup of the sap of these trees. tumbled-in stones caution against permanent plans.
— from What You Should Know: A Field Guide to Three Sisters Farm
watch seeds of change a film by Maximilian Armstrong
In a place where life is routinely defined by shame and despair, good food can be a gateway to meaning, wellness, and dignity.
Filmed over the course of two years, Seeds of Change chronicles the intersecting stories of lifelong organic farmer Mark McBrine and several incarcerated men in Charleston, Maine as they grow their own food on a five-acre prison garden unlike any other. 27 minutes | seedsofchangefilm.com
read a gardener at the end of the world
In March 2020, Margot Anne Kelley was watching seeds germinate in her greenhouse. At high risk from illness, the planning, planting, and tending to seedlings took on extra significance. She set out to make her pandemic garden thrive but also to better understand the very nature of seeds and viruses. As seeds became seedlings, became plants, became food, Kelley looks back over the last few millennia as successions of pandemics altered human beings and global culture. A Gardener at the End of the World explores questions of what we can preserve—of history, genetic biodiversity, culture, language—and what we cannot. It is for any reader curious about the overlap of nature, science, and history.
| margotannekelley.com
by the numbers: how are Maine farms faring?
In February, the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service released the 2022 results from the Census of Agriculture, which is conducted every 5 years. While there are some positive trends, the data underscore the challenges facing Maine agriculture—and why we all must continue to act together to protect farmland, grow farmland access, and support farmers.
farms and farmland
Maine farms and farmland are continuing to decline: 564 farms and 82,567 acres of Maine farmland fell out of agricultural production between 2017–2022.
During the same time period, the market value of farmland jumped by 44% , making it even harder for farmers to access available land.
farm businesses
Some good news: Maine farms have been increasing their total sales over the past two decades. Between 2017–2022, the total value of sales for Maine farms increased by over $200 million, and the average sales per farm increased by 40%
However, 75% of Maine farms still had fewer than $25,000 in total sales in 2022. And farm production expenses rose by 24% in the last five years, affecting the bottom line.
farmers
Maine’s farmer population continues to age, while younger farmers struggle to enter the field. 39% of Maine farmers are age 65+, an 18% increase from 2017. Meanwhile, only 24% of farmers are under age 45, an increase of <2% , pointing to the need for targeted succession planning and farmland access support.
While the number of Maine farmers decreased by 3% in the last 5 years, the proportion of female farmers is mostly holding steady, and there was a slight increase in the number of farmers of color.
BY KATHRYN OLMSTEAD
When Maine Farms editors realized the 2024 edition of the journal would mark the 25th anniversary of Maine Farmland Trust, the theme of an Aroostook County magazine began to resonate. “Touching the past en route to the future” was a slogan for Echoes: Rediscovering Community, published quarterly from 1988 to 2017. Focused on positive values rooted in the past with relevance for the present and the future, Echoes suggested that knowledge of rural experiences can help us live in modern society.
“I love that your magazine was committed to recording, interpreting, and weaving together the particular culture of Northern Maine,” wrote editor Ellen Sabina in an invitation to contribute to Maine Farms. “I think it's so important not to dwell on the way things were, but to understand the past, and see how our communities have grown and changed.”
Ellen and I wove together ideas for an anniversary article based on an Echoes column titled “A Sense of Community.” Published in 1993, it traces changes in Aroostook agriculture up to that year and speculates on the possibility of influencing the future by preserving “the best of the past” in stories highlighting qualities of rural culture. We decided to share the article with a few current Aroostook County farmers to prompt their views on how the future has evolved.
As a transplant, I wrote in Echoes No. 20: I found in northern Maine a culture similar to that which built this country. Aroostook County had retained qualities that once characterized the entire nation, when agriculture drove its economy and people were inherently self-reliant. My neighbors remembered days when families provided for most of their needs and bartered homemade goods and services for things they could not produce themselves. Acquiring money was not as important as being productive, and many families had been relatively unaffected by the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Later they would be told they were “poor” by those who measured wealth in dollars and acquisitions. They began to look outside themselves and their communities for prosperity instead of drawing on their own personal and natural resources for strength and survival. Agriculture began to decline, and independence was eroded. Potato farmers were encouraged to increase production to feed people in distant places.
Inexperienced in marketing on a national scale, they depended on local brokers and remote buyers to sell their fresh crop, and on local processors to buy potatoes for canned and frozen products and starch. Demands for high yields required new and expensive equipment and loans for financing. When overproduction pushed the price of potatoes below the cost of producing them, the farmer had to learn to look to the federal government for assistance.
The need to stay ahead of debts and meet market demands superseded the need to take care of the land for future generations. Soil eroded, and organic matter disappeared, as expensive fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides were used to maintain production.
Could a small quarterly publication strengthen values like independence, ingenuity, productivity, and friendliness enough to reverse the belief that solutions to problems come from outside the community? Could a magazine focused on real people and life as it was once lived convince people to look to the past for the future?
After reading this column thirty-one years later, farmers in Mapleton, Houlton, and Caribou observed that northern Maine still attracts residents seeking small, safe, friendly communities, while its farms assure their futures with practices that enhance soil productivity.
“I wish I could have known a time when farming was for self-reliance and the community,” said Jacob Buck of Maine Malt House in Mapleton. “The market nowadays seems more aggressive with the mindset that if you are not growing you are dying.” Stressing the importance of economies of scale, he notes “the markets are not controlled within our County or even our state, but are primed by the agricultural conditions around the globe.”
Nonetheless, Buck is encouraged by the growing popularity of regenerative practices like longer rotations, fallow years, and multispecies cover crops “for the sake of better soil health which lends itself to less disease and higher yields.”
He is one of a number of Aroostook County natives who stayed or returned “with a desire to get back to the way it was ‘back when’ ...community shops, an increasing desire for self-reliance, local food and safe neighborhoods to raise our kids in.” He said many other high school friends expressed an interest in moving home, but today's tangible measures of success
“often override the value of quality of life.”
Angela Wotton, District Manager for the Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District based in Houlton, shares Buck’s enthusiasm for the growing interest in soil-enhancing practices. “People are trying things and finding out what works,” she said, citing grants to support planting covers of grasses, legumes, and forages that mimic nature. She said today farmers realize they cannot continue practices that deplete the soil.
She also sees people moving back to learn skills of rural heritage in “one of the last places” where it is possible. Recognizing the need to preserve farmland, she said, “Maine Farmland Trust has the tools for smart development.”
For Joan and Frank McElwain of Caribou, a farmstand provides an alternative to the scenario outlined in the Echoes article. Frank recounted the transition to a cash economy from the days when his grandparents’ farm supported the family. When his father was pushed to double in size and invest in mechanization, more storage, more trucks, and harvesters, he said “No.” He
A sampling of covers with photos by Gordon Hammond, and an iconic cover photo of a potato picker by Brook Merrow, reprinted courtesy of Echoes magazine.
elected to stay small, open a farmstand, and rent acreage to other farmers, a model retained today in McElwain’s Strawberry Farm. Of course, the model requires income from full-time jobs off the farm and is as much a community service as a source of income. But the McElwains embrace the hard work and relish the pleasure the farm gives customers who enjoy high quality, local food, and a variety of activities: educational farm tours, Farmer’s Club memberships, story walks, and a B&B.
“It has evolved into a family experience with the joy of being able to pick your own food,” Joan said, praising the growth of agritourism in The County, one of a number of trends in Maine since the Echoes column appeared in 1993 (when Buck was one year old).
Beyond embracing practices to enrich the soil and teaching tourists to value farming, Aroostook farmers have also diversified crops to include broccoli, buckwheat, soybeans, oats, hay, and grains, like barley. Buck Farms had always grown barley in rotation with potatoes, selling it for malting in Canada.
When a Belfast brewer told the third generation of Bucks he’d been buying malt from Germany, “A light bulb went off,” Jacob’s brother Josh told a reporter
in 2016. They began malting barley themselves, established Maine Malt House in 2015, now grow 2,300 acres of grain, and supply malt to more than 80 breweries.
Could a small quarterly publication strengthen values like independence, ingenuity, productivity...? Certainly, Echoes can’t take credit for inspiring innovations of the past 30 years, but those values from the past continue to nurture the future of agriculture in Aroostook County.
“A Sense of Community” is republished in True North: Finding the Essence of Aroostook , islandportpress.com. Back issues of Echoes are available at echoesofmaine.net.
kathryn olmstead is a writer, editor, and former University of Maine journalism professor who divides her time between Aroostook and Penobscot counties.
RIPE FOR
G R O W T H
BY LAURA POPPICK | PHOTOGRAPHS BY TARA RICE
Maine farmers are leveraging federal funding to invest in their businesses and communities
During a heat wave in late June, two dozen Icelandic sheep and their lambs huddle beneath fans whirring from the rafters of a barn in Troy. Temperatures hover around 95 degrees outside, breaking records in some parts of the state. But the woolly residents of Moorit Hill Farm have found respite from the heat in their fan-cooled quarters; and the caretakers of these animals have found respite from rising energy costs thanks to a new 70-panel solar array that now powers the barn fans and everything else on the farm.
Beyond raising their flock of cream and taupe Icelandic sheep, Moorit Hill farmers Josh Emerman and Elizabeth Goundie also run a fiber mill where they spin some 4,000 pounds of wool into yarn in a year. As one of only four such mills in the state, they sustain a steady six-month waitlist and fulfill a need that may not otherwise be met for the small- and mid-
sized fiber producers that they serve. But spinning those thousands of pounds of wool demands energy to run their customizable mill machines, heat the hot water baths to treat the wool, power mini splits to keep the operation climate-controlled, and so on.
As Emerman and Goundie watched their energy bills steadily rise over the past couple of years, they considered transitioning to solar energy, but they weren’t sure how they would afford such an upgrade. They reached out to Belfast-based SolarLogix to explore their options and learned that the USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) offers grants that help farmers and other rural businesses transition to more energy-efficient systems by paying for half of the cost of an upgrade. With the other half of a solar array financeable with a low-interest loan from Brunswick-based Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI), the
prospect of making the transition became more feasible for the couple. “When we looked at those numbers, it made a lot of sense,” says Emerman. With help from SolarLogix in writing up their grant, they successfully secured $65,000 in REAP funds last fall, installed their new 41kW array on the roof of their barn in February, and have since watched their energy bills plunge from an average of $820 per month to just $55, plus interest on their loan. Their savings will help them expand their flock while also maintaining their mill as they ride out heatwaves and other energy-intensive unpredictabilities of farming. “Profit margins are incredibly small, so anything we can get helps,” Goundie says.
They are one of dozens of farms and other rural businesses across the state that have taken advantage of a surge in federal funding made available by the Biden administration in recent years. Beyond REAP, a number of other grant programs have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into Maine’s rural communities that have collectively helped farmers expand revenue
streams, strengthen local food systems, and bolster rural economies. From supporting a new halal meat processing facility run by Five Pillars Butchery in Unity, to expanding operations at longstanding institutions such as Jordan’s Farm in Cape Elizabeth, the widespread demand for these federal funds has demonstrated just how hungry Maine farmers are for capital to help sustain and grow their operations. And while such financial support can only carry a farm so far in a given year, the benefits will ripple into surrounding communities for years to come.
“A rising tide really does lift all boats,” says Rhiannon Hampson, the USDA Rural Development Maine State Director who also runs a small family farm in Thomaston. As a member of the farming community herself, Hampson understands the interconnectedness of rural businesses and how deeply they rely on one another for financial success. From the diesel she buys to fuel her tractor, to the grain she purchases to feed her animals, she knows that she could not run her farm without the goods provided by others in her community, and that those goods may not be available were it not for demand from farms
Opening Image On a hot day, Josh Emerman and Elizabeth Goundie of Moorit Hill Farm wait in one of the pastures for their Icelandic sheep to come out of the barn, where their 70-panel solar array was installed, to graze. The hotter temperatures make it harder to coax the sheep out from the fan-cooled shade inside. Above Elizabeth works at the spinning machine in Moorit Hill Farm’s fiber mill, where all of the machinery and climate control is powered by the solar array.
like her own. “We are truly in this together, and so having people be successful in one place breathes success for the rest of us,” she says.
In the case of Moorit Hill Farm, their $65,000 REAP grant is not only helping them meet the needs of their 75 clients, but has also created a new source of potential passive income in the form of solar credits that they hope to sell to help pay off their loan. They are now also able to market their farm as entirely solar-powered, which suits their values as individuals and as farmers. “We try to do everything as environmentally friendly as we can here,” Goundie told me as we checked out their 70-panel array glinting in the sun on the roof of their barn. While they enjoy running their mill, they haven’t felt great about the energy it consumes, and feel better about it now knowing that it is running on renewable energy.
Theirs is one of more than 200 REAP projects funded in Maine since the start of the Biden administration, made possible by more than $2 billion appropriated for the program with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. The Biden administration’s focus on small-scale, regional food systems and rural communities represents a marked shift from the federal attitude toward farming over the past several decades, says Bradley Russell, Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Program Director at CEI. Since the 1970s, farm policy has largely been driven by a “get big or get out” mentality. The resulting policies built an efficient agricultural system, Russell says, “but not a resilient system, and a system that in many cases didn’t serve the rural areas of the country.”
When the Covid-19 pandemic hit and supply chains broke down in 2020, the weaknesses of that consolidated food system became all the more apparent. This new wave of federal support will better position food systems to weather such disruptions, Russell says. Through her role at CEI, she’s helping Maine farmers navigate and access these newly available funds so that our local communities can reap the benefits intended from this new attitude within the White House. “It’s a huge shift, and we just want to make sure that Maine is able to best take advantage of that shift,” Russell says.
Federal support has made all the difference for Herbal Revolution, a midcoast farm that produces herbal tonics, elixirs, teas, shrubs and body products made from ingredients grown
on three acres in Union. Last fall, Herbal Revolution secured a $250,000 Value-Added Producer Grant (VAPG) from the USDA to help expand their distribution to a national level—the second such grant they have received since 2020. “Both have been incredibly instrumental in helping support our growth and expansion,” says Kathi Langelier, who launched Herbal Revolution in 2010 and now employs a staff of nine that works primarily out of her production facility located a couple of miles down the road from the farm.
When I visited Herbal Revolution on another scorching June day, Langelier welcomed me with a cool glass of strawberry daiquiri (sans alcohol) blended with a flavorful Digestive Tonic made from lemongrass, lemon balm, dandelion root, and other gut-calming herbs harvested from her fields. She currently sells her products in some 200 stores ranging from small boutiques to larger chains like Whole Foods, and would like to continue to expand her reach across the country. But such national growth requires upfront capital to pay for costs like distributor fees, demonstrations, travel to trade shows—not to
Elizabeth and Josh stand with one of their Icelandic sheep in the fan-cooled barn.
mention the additional cost of bottles, packaging, and staff time required to produce more product. Her recent VAPG funds have allowed her to land two of her products in Fresh Thyme, a chain of 70 natural foods stores centered in the Midwest. She’s now in the process of ramping up production of her Fire Cider Tonic—a spicy blend of garlic, onions, ginger, rosemary, and other immune-boosting ingredients— and her Energy Tonic—a mix of beets, nettles, red clover blossom and leaf, oat-tops, and more—to meet the demand of those stores. She’s slated to roughly double her production of both items this year, from 8,000 to 18,000 bottles for her Fire Cider Tonic and about 3,000 to 6,000 for her Energy Tonic. “This has exponentially helped my business and grown my business,” Langelier told me as I enjoyed my daiquiri, calmed by the Digestive Tonic that she had mixed in.
The quality of Langelier’s products have earned her numerous awards over the years, including from the American Herbalists Guild and the International Herb Symposium. But quality alone cannot sustain a business. Her long-term success also depends on
smooth coordination with buyers and distributors who are, in turn, managing dozens of business relationships of their own. Grants like VAPG can provide a buffer of stability when navigating the ups and downs of expanding to a national level, Langelier says.
Beyond pure financial support, these federal funds also provide a boost of moral support, says Hampson with the USDA. They demonstrate that there is a place for small- and medium-sized farms in this state and this country, and that these farms are valued within their communities.
The benefit of that morale boost, Hampson says, is immeasurable. “It feeds into something that helps you keep going.”
laura poppick is a science and environmental journalist whose stories have appeared in The New York Times, Audubon, Scientific American , and elsewhere. Her debut book Strata: Stories from Deep Time will be published by W.W. Norton in July 2025.
Above Herbal Revolution’s Fire Cider Tonic is one of the value-added products they make, and includes a carefully measured blend of dried herbs and spices, with some of the ingredients coming directly from the farm down the road from the production facility, pictured here. Opposite Page Kathi Langelier with garlic from the farm, which will dry in the barn to be used in future Fire Cider Tonics.
FU NG I EMBRACING THE
The
expanding market for mushrooms and value-added fungi products has helped Maine mushroom farms grow
BY KIRSTEN LIE-NIELSEN | PHOTOGRAPHS BY IAN MACLELLAN
Erin Donahue and David Andrews, the ambitious young couple who brought their tiny house to Maine in 2020, cultivate over 2,000 logs of Shiitake mushrooms, Oyster mushrooms, Chestnuts, Lion’s Mane, and more. Their goal is to fill the damp, shady forest at Tiny Acres Farm in Montville with 10,000 fruiting logs, a full garden that complements the extensive vegetable farm they have spreading across the open fields of the property.
“We try to treat it like a traditional vegetable garden,” explains Andrews, “where it’s like, here are the rows and there are crib stacks with labels. There are perennials, there are annuals,
it’s just like vegetables. It just gets its own treatment, like you would treat a greenhouse different from a field garden.”
While mushrooms have been grown, foraged, and consumed for millennia, the mushroom grower has not always been considered a serious gardener. Donahue and Andrews remember growing up in a “myco-phobic” culture, but they believe that attitude has shifted in recent years.
“The last five years, we’ve really seen a flip in mentality,” says Donahue, “to people being more okay with mushrooms, and curious about mushrooms.”
Maine is home to several mushroom farms, and the state’s fungi come in a variety of flushes.
Italian Oyster mushrooms at Mousam Valley Mushrooms.
Clockwise from top left Inoculated logs from the mushroom woodlot at Tiny Acres Farm. An aerial view of the Tiny Acres Farm woodlot mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms growing on logs at Tiny Acres Farm. Erin Donahue, co-owner of Tiny Acres Farm, stacks Shiitake mushroom logs after dunking them in ice cold water.
When Emily Sharood Dickinson, her brother Robert Sharood, and father John Sharood had the idea for Mousam Valley Mushrooms in 2012, there were few competitors in the state. Today, Mousam Valley Mushrooms are in Hannaford Supermarkets, Whole Foods, Market Baskets, and in stores including the Portland Co-Op and Rosemont Food Market, and are being featured on local restaurant menus.
“The specialty mushroom market has grown year over year, every single year, since we’ve been in business,” she explains, sitting in the office of Mousam Valley’s headquarters in Sanford, Maine. “It’s incredible for a market to have sustained growth like that. And our predictions, our estimates are for it to grow and expand even more.”
Unlike Tiny Acres’ woodland lot, Mousam Valley has carefully climate-controlled rooms of fruiting mushrooms scattered throughout over 20,000 square feet of a converted cattle barn.
“I think consumers are becoming more aware, and they want to be more aware of how their food is grown,” says Dickinson about the growth of the mushroom market. Enthusiasm for organic, locally grown produce continues to expand, and mushrooms provide the perfect meat alternative for the growing segment of the population that is vegan or vegetarian.
Mushrooms grow in a fertile substrate which is inoculated with spores. Depending on the kind of mushroom and its growing preferences, this growing medium can be loaming soil, old logs, manure, sawdust, or mixtures of those materials. Mycelium is the active, living mushroom culture, while substrate with mycelium growing in it is known as a spawn.
Maine Cap N’ Stem has made spawns, substrates, and cultures its business. Erik Lomen and Christopher Campbell began the company in 2014 and recently moved from a warehouse in Gardiner to a 75,600-square foot building in Lewiston. Substrate creation and inoculation is a niche area of mushroom farming, allowing Cap N’ Stem to serve mushroom farms across Maine and the United States with their product.
“There’s no glamor in this,” Lomen admits. Unlike the peaceful forests of Tiny Acres and the damp fruiting rooms of Mousam Valley, the warehouse space at Cap N’ Stem is loud and the air is crowded with the sweet smell of fungus and fermentation. Anarchist art and caricature drawings decorate the walls of the busy workspace. Lomen explains that they are set apart by a willingness
to work with fungus farmers when things go wrong with blocks, and they’re willing to experiment with genetic labs to find the best spores. Speculating on the growth of the mushroom industry in Maine, Lomen is matter-of-fact.
“We are growing because the industry is growing,” he says, and the demand for mushrooms, spawns, spores, or cultures has steadily increased since Cap N’ Stem was started.
The most recognizable Maine mushroom farm is North Spore Mushrooms, out of Portland. North Spore launched in 2014, the brainchild of three former college buddies from the College of the Atlantic. The company started by growing and harvesting mushrooms for local restaurants. After securing financing through LaunchPad Maine and Greenlight Maine, the business looked into diversifying for long-term growth. Now their grow kit bags are available across the country, making popular holiday gifts and helping introduce people to growing their own culinary mushrooms.
But North Spore’s product line does not stop there. They also carry cultures and inoculation kits, products for indoor cultivation, and now offer tinctures, teas, and capsules for those interested in the medicinal properties of mushrooms.
Medicinal mushrooms’ growing popularity eclipses the increased interest in culinary mushrooms. Most mushrooms have medicinal properties, and while some of the most effective medicinal mushrooms are edible, not all are tasty. They are often consumed in teas and coffees. Innovators have created medicinal gummies, jerkies, and infused drinks, all of which have a much longer shelf life than fresh mushrooms. Capsules and powders allow people to consume medicinal mushrooms as part of their daily vitamin regimen. The market for medicinal fungus is expected to grow by 10% from 2020 to 2030.
Louis Giller is the Customer Service Specialist and Educator at North Spore Mushrooms, and he’s been passionate about fungi for food and medicine since studying Environmental Studies at the University of Boulder. He believes North Spore’s involvement in mycology events around the country, as well as the extensive education information
Lion's Mane (top left), Shiitake (top right), and Italian Oyster mushrooms (bottom left) at Mousam Valley Mushrooms. Emily Sharood Dickinson, CEO of Mousam Valley Mushrooms, holds a particularly large Italian Oyster mushroom (bottom right).
Shiitake mushrooms fruiting in the carefully climate-controlled rooms at Mousam Valley Mushrooms.
on their website and social media, help to make mushrooms more accessible to a larger market.
“These medicinal mushrooms, functional mushrooms, nootropic mushrooms—pick a buzzword,” he says, “They aren’t just crystals. There is a lot of medicine here, and there is a lot of great research.”
Perhaps the most exciting opportunity for mushroom growers in Maine is the number of options for the potential mycologist. Some mushrooms thrive in logs stacked in quiet woodlands, some are best grown in carefully sterilized indoor environments. There are over 2,000 edible mushroom varieties, many of which have significant medicinal properties and can be prepared from substrate to plate. And as Maine’s climate continues to change, the importance of crops that can thrive in controlled indoor spaces grows. Because a mushroom substrate can produce a “flush” or growth of mushrooms several times— usually between three and five—a small space can still produce a significant, ongoing harvest.
At Mousam Valley’s ever-expanding headquarters, Emily Sharood Dickinson has her eyes on the future of Maine’s mushroom crops.
“I think that in the coming years, Maine will be known for its blueberries, lobster, and mushrooms,” she says.
kirsten lie-nielsen is a freelance writer focused on climate change, sustainability, and modern agriculture. She is the author of two books on homesteading and animal husbandry, is a regular contributor to Modern Farmer, Civil Eats , The Boston Globe , and also works as the Assistant Editor at the magazine Edible MAINE . More of her work can be found at hostilevalleyliving.com and instagram.com/hostilevalleyliving.
Top Erik Lomen, founder and co-owner of Maine Cap N' Stem, demonstrates the Fenrir custom bagging system they've built for controlling the composition of mushroom growing blocks. Bottom A peek at the composition of a CVG substrate block filled by the Fenrir system at Maine Cap N' Stem.
TABLE - to -
Shiitake Noodle Stir Fry
Chef Rob Dumas has cooked in kitchens of all sizes, from submarine mess halls to the White House. In 2019, he joined the University of Maine School of Food and Agriculture. Working with Maine farms and Maine students, Dumas helps Maine farms to develop and test recipes and connects students and teachers with Maine-grown produce.
“We want to plant the seed for future generations of chefs, cooks, and restaurant owners here in Maine,” Dumas says of his work, “to think about how special Maine’s food system is, and how special Maine foods are.”
Dumas has also helped local food producers with the complicated world of recipe development and food labeling. At the state-of-the-art Dr. Matthews Highlands Pilot Plant, Dumas creates recipes that highlight Maine and can appeal to markets across the state and beyond.
Here is Chef Dumas’ recipe for a mushroom stir fry, which can be made using locally grown Shiitake mushrooms from Maine farms.
For 4 servings
1 pound Shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
2 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
1 bunch scallions, sliced thinly with whites and greens separated
1 one-inch knob of ginger, peeled and sliced thinly into thin strips
2 heads of bok choi, cut into one-inch pieces
1 tablespoon tamari or soy sauce
1 tablespoon Chinese vinegar or sherry vinegar
1 pound Chinese wheat noodle, such as lo mein or a Japanese ramen noodle
1 tablespoon sesame oil
Neutral oil as needed
Stir Fry Sauce
1 tablespoon per serving bowl tahini
1 tablespoon per serving bowl chili crisp
Stir Fry
1 Bring a pot of water to a boil for noodles.
2 Heat a wok or large sauté pan over medium high heat.
3 Add enough neutral oil to coat the bottom and add Shiitake, cook until browned.
4 Add ginger, garlic, white portion of scallion, and toss well.
5 Add bok choi, tamari, and vinegar. Stir well and allow bok choi to soften.
5 Taste for seasoning. Hold warm.
Noodles
1 Boil noodles while stir frying the Shiitake mushrooms and bok choi.
2 Arrange serving bowls and add tahini and chili crisp to each bowl.
3 Place cooked noodles in each bowl and stir well to dress.
4 Top with Shiitake mixture and green scallions.
Enjoy.
KIRSTEN LIE-NIELSEN | RECIPE BY ROB DUMAS
Image by Zack Bowen. 24
A COMPLEX
CROSSROADS AttheIntersectionofMaine’sFarmland,Farms,andHousing
BYKATHRYNMILES | PHOTOGRAPHSBYTRISTANSPINSKI
a late summer afternoon on Fine Line Farm, a 90-acre farm growing vegetables in Searsmont, and the pace is a hectic one. Tomorrow is the Camden Farmers Market, which means there are cherry tomatoes to pick and sort and leafy greens to wash and package, in addition to the daily tending of the farm’s chickens and large hoop houses.
Sarah Tompkins and her partner Hubert McCabe began the farm about a decade ago. They’d like to expand their operations—to build a larger processing area for their existing produce, along with a certified kitchen that would allow them to offer so-called “valued-added” items like canned preserves and dried fruit. But that would require an increased farm staff, and they’ve been struggling to maintain their current workforce.
Tompkins says that each year some of their most qualified applicants have been forced to go elsewhere after failing to secure housing near the farm. Still others must commute more than an hour each day, an unwelcome extension of the already long days during harvest season.
“That really limits our already limited potential worker pool,” says Tompkins.
A 2022 state law that allows for accessory dwellings would allow Fine Line farm to build some on-site housing for its workers, and Tompkins says they’d like to include an apartment as part of the new processing structure. But while the law allows for the housing to be built, it doesn’t defray the rising costs of building supplies, nor does it address labor shortages and rising hourly wages, all of which may put that apartment out of reach.
Fine Line Farm is far from alone in their plight. Across the state of Maine, both large- and smallscale farms struggle to retain an adequate and
skilled workforce. A growing housing shortage in the state continues to exacerbate their difficulties. The keystone of rural economies, Maine’s farms also preserve biodiversity and mitigate climate change. But for them to survive, the state will need to solve the growing housing crisis in a way that protects the state’s farmland and its workforce.
“Creative solutions to these concrete problems are needed,” says Tompkins. “We all need to have viable options.”
Even under the best of circumstances, farming is an increasingly—and often prohibitively— expensive enterprise. The cost of operating a farm in the US continues to rise, in part because of the high price of inputs like fuel and fertilizer, but also because of the cost of land and building materials. At the same time, USDA Economic Research Service data shows that the debt load
Opening Spread Fine Line Farm as seen from above, owned by Sarah Tompkins and Hubert McCabe, in Searsmont.
Above Hubert McCabe and Sarah Tompkins stand for a portrait behind their home.
is also increasing for farms nationwide, while interest rates have also continued to rise.
The lack of affordable real estate is only intensifying this squeeze. Maine’s farm real estate values are among the lowest in the Northeast region, as tracked in the USDA Land Values Summary. Still, the USDA’s Agricultural Census revealed that between 2017 and 2022, the price of Maine agricultural real estate reached an all-time high, even after accounting for inflation. As of 2022, the median value of a Maine farm was about $650,000, which is well beyond the reach of most new and young farmers.
Historically, farming was largely a family business, with one generation handing down both acreage and dwellings to the next. But that has changed significantly in recent decades. Over 40% of the nation’s farmland is owned by people over 65, which means that up to 370 million acres of farmland could change hands over the next couple decades. But many farmers
reaching retirement don’t have successors ready to take over, increasing the possibility that the land will be sold for development.
Skyrocketing real estate prices have created a development land grab, and farmers looking to establish or expand their operations often find they are unable to compete with developers who buy up parcels for new construction.
A recent study conducted by the American Farmland Trust found that new low-density residential areas—developments composed primarily of single-family dwellings often built upon sprawling suburban lots—are one of the primary drivers of lost agricultural land. Here in Maine, we are losing farm acreage at an alarming rate: Between 2012 and 2017, Maine lost ten percent of land in farming, or about 150,000 acres, and another 82,000 acres between 2017 and 2022. Meanwhile, it’s not just farmers and their employees who are feeling the crunch, but also other Mainers looking for housing.
A residential housing development sits on what was once farmland outside of Buxton.
It’s a problem that only promises to intensify in coming years as the state begins to reckon with a growing housing crisis. Even before the pandemic, Maine was experiencing a housing shortage. Seasonal homes are in high demand here, which makes it more difficult for year-round residents to acquire reliable housing. Maine also has a disproportionately high number of aging dwellings that required significant investment or renovation in order to remain habitable.
The shortages created by these factors increased dramatically during the pandemic: As more and more Americans began working remotely, the state saw a dramatic spike in residents, many of whom earn significantly more money than the average Mainer. Meanwhile, global production and shipping disruptions resulted in a dearth of accessible building materials worldwide. The cost of available homes in the state spiked, with many selling both well above listing price and for cash, which boxed out many first-time and even middle-income buyers, who must qualify for mortgages.
A recent study completed by the Governor’s Office and the Department of Economic and Community Development found that the state will need an estimated 80,000 new homes by 2030 to compensate for both the historic shortage as well as the current shifts in population. What remains to be seen is whether those homes will be within the economic reach of people like farmers and farm employees. Currently, a Maine household must earn at least $100,000 annually to afford the mortgage on a median-priced house in the state. Further exacerbating these issues are shifts in employment trends across the state. Retirement-age individuals are one of the largest growing groups in Maine, which also means that the pool of available workers continues to dwindle. Post-pandemic, the state’s overall labor force is at one of its lowest points, which means more job vacancies, many of which are at or near minimum wage. Given the high price of housing, those jobs are also harder than ever to fill, and a concomitant decrease in available rental units only deepens these challenges.
That’s particularly true in Maine’s agricultural sector, where workers (and often farmers themselves) make significantly less than, say, their counterparts in the logging and freight industries: The average median wage Maine farm workers make is about $14.80 an hour,
and many farmers make less than that, according to data compiled for a 2023 Maine Technology Institute assessment. With annual salaries well below the requisite for most mortgages are the state, home ownership remains out of reach for many farmers and their employees. And with few rentals available in rural areas, it becomes more difficult to find and hire farm workers.
Rhiannon Hampson is Maine’s State Director for Rural Development at the USDA. She and her husband also own and operate Grace Pond Farm, a small organic livestock and dairy farm in Thomaston. Hampson says that Maine’s rural character, which has historically bolstered its farm economy, is now making it harder than ever to address both the housing and labor shortages.
Given Maine’s small, rural population, says Hampson, “it’s hard to cashflow the kinds of infrastructure improvements needed in a state with comparatively fewer farms and bodies.”
Increasingly, farmers across the state are also relying upon the H2-A Agricultural Worker Visa Program to address the growing workforce crisis, says Eric Venturini, Executive Director of the Wild Blueberry Commission of Maine. However, that visa program requires employers to provide housing, which means that many blueberry growers are unable to hire visiting workers through this program.
The same is true in the Northeast’s dairy industry, says Will Lambek, a staff member at Migrant Justice, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Vermont and founded and led by a community of immigrant farm workers in the Northeast.
“The dairy industry in the Northeast has come to rely upon and be sustained by a community of immigrant workers,” says Lambek. “And overwhelmingly, it’s an undocumented workforce.”
Without the protections of the H2-A Agricultural Visa Program, these workers are often crowded into on-farm housing across the state.
The state’s aging housing stock means that conditions continue to deteriorate, and Lambek says he’s also hearing more stories about houses falling apart, along with pest infestations like rodents and bedbugs. “Oftentimes, the farm owners are also struggling to find housing, and they’re also struggling with occupational safety working side by side with their workers. So in a lot of ways, farm workers and owners have a lot of the same interests and experiences.”
For conditions to improve, says Lambek, the entire agricultural supply chain must change
so that farmers and workers alike are paid a fair wage. In the meantime, Migrant Justice has created programs like Milk With Dignity, in which companies pay a premium to farmers who commit to workers’ human rights, including the housing conditions they provide. But so far, the only large-scale buyer to sign on is Vermont’s Ben and Jerry’s.
Everyone I spoke to for this story agrees that the growing housing and labor crises are intimately linked to food and climate security. Without skilled and well-housed farm workers, a rural state like Maine can’t feed its population, nor can it meet the carbon goals required to slow global warming.
That’s one reason organizations like Maine Farmland Trust have increasingly turned to
innovative initiatives like the “Option to Purchase at Agricultural Value” (or OPAV) easement, which helps ensure that farms are sold to other active farmers. But these and similar programs require large amounts of capital, as well as farms for sale.
And while these easement programs will help with the existing farm real estate stock, they aren’t targeted at housing for farm workers. That’s one reason Maine State Senator Mattie Daughtry introduced legislation last year, known as LD 2169, which tasks the state’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future to develop programs that allow Maine workers, including farm employees, to find affordable rental properties or to become homeowners.
“Through the process of crafting the bill, it became clear that one group in dire need of housing were farm workers and farmers,” says Senator Daughtry, a longtime farmer and member of the Brunswick Farmers Market.
A housing development currently under construction outside of Westbrook. Low-density residential development is one of the primary drivers of lost agricultural land.
She says she’s heard from many of the other vendors at the market that the lack of affordable housing has made it difficult to hire and retain workers. “We need to protect local agriculture, and that can’t happen without housing,” says Daughtry.
Doing so will also require collaborative relationships between stakeholder groups.
Traditionally, land conservation and affordable housing organizations have done their work in silos, rather than partnering together. That needs to change, says Nancy Smith, chief executive officer of the nonprofit organization GrowSmart Maine.
“We must address the current housing crisis without undoing the good work underway to address the climate crisis, and without creating the next crisis of access to farmland and food,” Smith says.
She’d like to see more Maine communities adopt smart-growth approaches that preserve open spaces and farmland by focusing on compact development strategies. Such planning could include designated agricultural districts and new ordinances that both limit maximum lot size and create greater density for new residential construction. Not only will doing so preserve Maine’s rural and wilderness character, it will also minimize infrastructure costs, including the construction of new roads, along with water and sewer lines.
Blending the priorities of conservation and affordable housing organizations is also an important step. Increasingly, rural areas are adopting the community land trust (CLT) model as a solution. First begun during the civil rights movement as a way of ensuring that rural African American farmers could buy and
An aerial view of Fine Line Farm in Searsmont, taken during the fall harvest.
maintain farmland, these non-profit organizations help to create and preserve affordable housing while also protecting valuable land. Most CLTs work by placing land in trust and then leasing or selling the homes on that land. Doing so keeps the price of the homes low and ensures that the land will remain protected.
Mount Desert Island’s Island Housing Trust is one such organization that’s demonstrated the viability of this shared mission. They’ve partnered with Maine Coast Heritage Trust to preserve key tracts of land on the island while also providing affordable housing to year-round residents.
Marla O’Byrne, executive director of IHT, says there are appealing applications for this model in the agricultural sector.
“CLTs can do a lot to help farmers stay where they are,” says O’Byrne. “And that in turn helps local businesses and their communities. It’s about economic development.” Not only does
reliable housing allow farm workers to create stability for their families, it also cuts down on emissions, since workers aren’t having to drive an hour or more to their place of employment.
And as climate change continues to stress the global food system, resilient farms also improve the collective public health of the state as well. Local farms don’t just provide food security, they also reduce the carbon footprint it takes to reach our dining room tables, while sequestering carbon and providing important habitat for Maine’s wildlife.
“This issue expands beyond farms and farmers,” says Fine Line Farm’s Sarah Tompkins. “We all need to be working together to find viable solutions.”
kathryn miles is an award-winning journalist and the author of five books, including Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders . She lives (and gardens) in Belfast, Maine.
Wilbur, one of two resident dogs living at Fine Line Farm, naps in the path in the vegetable field.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? Learning from 25 years of agricultural changemakers
INTERVIEWED BY EMILY GHERMAN-LAD
This year, Maine Farmland Trust celebrates its 25th anniversary, supporting a network of 550+ farms and on the cusp of reaching 60,000 acres of protected farmland. But as we look to the future we’re growing together, what can we learn from our past?
To find out, I dug deep into the proverbial box of photos from the attic to piece together some of the moments in our history that led us to where we are today. And I sat down with members of the MFT community who have helped to shape Maine’s food and farming system in different ways to hear their thoughts on what has changed and their hopes for the future.
It takes all of us to create solutions to the evolving challenges in Maine agriculture. Whether by adding new and different models to keep farmland open and accessible to more farmers, expanding resources for the diversity of farms that nourish our communities and the land, or strengthening the infrastructure of our local food system to sustain farmers and consumers alike, the actions we take every day are growing the future of farming, inch by inch.
What will that future look like 25 years from now? Maybe you’ll be one to tell us.
emily gherman-lad is the Assistant Director of Engagement, Communications at Maine Farmland Trust.
Caitlin Frame, Andy Smith, and son Linus at The Milkhouse in Monmouth, 2016. Caitlin now serves on MFT’s Board of Directors. Photo by Jenny McNulty.
How has farmland protection in Maine evolved in the last 25 years?
How has the conversation changed since the early days?
There was a lot of skepticism. Some farmland owners would say, “Well, farming is dying anyway, we need to sell for the highest price we can get. It’s sad, we hate to see it, but that’s just the way the world goes.” Often farmers were more excited about FarmLink, because in their hearts they really did want to see their farms continue as farms. Our early membership, the original Board, we were all just excited to finally make some attempt to stop the loss of farmland. Over the ensuing years, I did see farmers come to embrace the idea of farmland protection as part of a panoply of tools for their retirement as well as for the good of agriculture.
How has MFT’s easement model evolved?
Easements were originally designed with a lot of room for interpretation, for the benefit of the farm whenever possible. When MFT started to get into Buy/Protect/Sell, we saw that the new owner would not necessarily agree with the restrictions. We began to make easements more specific, so successor owners could take comfort in knowing what they were getting into. And we worked with farmers on what they wanted excluded, so that some less agriculturally-valuable land could be unencumbered for their future needs or that of a successor.
What do you hope we’ll see in the next 25 years?
I certainly hope that farmland protection continues—and that it will continue to adapt as we learn from our mistakes and assumptions. And I hope that MFT will continue to support agriculture as a whole. I remember telling John Piotti, “We're a land trust! Other orgs can support businesses.” But in retrospect, I'm so glad that he had those visions. As a lawyer, I wasn't working in the field as broadly, and of course he and Russell Libby exchanged a lot of ideas and helped mold what we are. We're a land trust, with a big plus—all the other things. I'll get teary, but I'm just so proud of what MFT has continued to be.
LouAnna Perkins, Janika Eckert, and Rob Johnston celebrate the donated easement at Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Albion, 2005.
MFT’s Board of Directors, 2001. Front: LouAnna Perkins, Doug Albert, Paul Birdsall. Back: Steve Page, Frank Miles, Russell Libby, Bambi Jones, Susan Morris, Adrian Wadsworth, Chris Hamilton, Bill Bell, Collin Therrien.
LOUANNA PERKINS
Maine Farmland Trust’s founding Executive Director, 2000–2007, and Senior Legal Counsel, 2007–2021. Pictured here with VP & CFO Kristin Varnum, one of MFT’s first hires, who has served as Interim President this year.
How are farmers growing resilience to new and evolving challenges?
JIM BUCKLE AND HANNAH HAMILTON
Husband-wife duo behind The Buckle Farm, an organic diversified vegetable farm in Unity. Jim also served on the state's PFAS Fund Advisory Committee.
How did you find the land to start your farm?
Jim had been interested in this farm many years prior, and when it went up for sale in 2014, we called MFT. MFT offered a multi-year lease until we could access a USDA Farm Services Agency loan and complete the purchase in 2018. It’s tough to afford farmland, not to mention insurance costs, holding costs, property taxes, and the huge investments you need to make once you’re on the land. We have to make it easier to access farmland, especially with the high prices we see now.
A lot has happened in 10 years! How have you adapted to the challenges thrown your way?
At first, we ran ourselves ragged trying to do everything for everyone. Through MFT’s Farming for Wholesale program, we built a business plan that helped us focus on what was profitable, what our markets responded to best, what our soils grew best, and what aligned that to what we wanted to do. Then the pandemic hit, but we realized that with a good business plan and even just one customer, we could still grow. When we learned we had PFAS in our water, it was a devastating blow. But we had to stop asking why and start looking for a way to bounce back. MFT and MOFGA’s farmer safety net and the State PFAS Fund saved us. Climate change has also changed the way we prioritize soil health. Building a more manageable and predictable business, and all these supports, have been huge for our resilience. Now, we’re beginning to think about how we can pass the farm on to the next farmer.
What gives you hope for the future of farming?
Although PFAS has been painful, angering, difficult, it’s incredible to see Maine in the spotlight: We work hard and we solve problems, we try to make an environment where farmers can be successful, and we don’t give up on them. To pony up over $60 million for PFAS in a relatively low-income state is huge. And on a more personal level, seeing people buy their winter’s worth of potatoes and onions from us, or neighbors coming over to help—it’s the little stuff that keeps us going. For agriculture to continue, it’s going to take a lot of farmland conservation, farmer support, and policies that benefit agriculture and communities together.
MFT’s first Farming for Wholesale (now known as Farming for the Long Haul) cohort participates in a workshop, 2016.
Photo by Erin Tokarz.
Farmer Sue Hunter with UMaine researchers Rachel Schattman, John Zhang, and Ling Li at the PFAS in Agriculture: Maine Regional Meeting , 2023.
How have the arts impacted the local food and farming movement?
How has the culture around local food and farms changed in the past few decades?
Thanks to the hippie era “back to the landers,” in the 1970s people who hadn’t been farmers began farming, often at a small scale. They grew food and infrastructure for the movement to continue, forming MOFGA and the Common Ground Fair, and later on, Maine Farmland Trust. In the 2000s, a new generation started farming: millennials, who added new energy and fuel to the local food scene. They became vendors at farmers markets, accelerated the CSA movement, and they Instagram their efforts—which has been an underappreciated but important part of bringing visibility to the variety in our local food system.
How do you think that art and other creative media have influenced that culture shift?
Michael Pollan’s book The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle played a big role in opening people’s eyes to the benefits of local food. And Kingsolver’s book showed it was possible to live on a “hundred-mile-diet” even if you weren’t rich or a great gardener. Lots of other writing shows a changed sensibility about smaller-scale farming, including Maine Poet Laureate Julia Bouwsma’s poems about living off-the-grid. Events like “Open Farm & Studio Day” in Bowdoinham also highlight connections between the arts and farming by showcasing them together.
Are there new storylines that you see emerging around local food and farms?
As the farms that started 10+ years ago have hit their stride, their early idealism seems tempered by the work, which is natural. But their attitudes are also being re-shaped by the climate crisis, which adds a sense of urgency and uncertainty. On a more upbeat note, enthusiasm for local food isn’t going away, and I’d love to see more artists celebrate that. Maine-based foraging expert Rachel Alexandrou, for example, brings plant knowledge and a performative spirit to both her foraging classes and her art installations.
MARGOT ANNE KELLEY
Author of five books about people's relationships to the natural world. Vice Chair of MFT’s Board of Directors. In 2020, her writings as a (virtual) Literary Arts Resident at MFT’s Joseph A. Fiore Art Center led to her newest book, A Gardener at the End of the World . Photo by Sonia Targontsidis.
Rachel Alexandrou (left) and Maggie Wilson (right) don vegetable dresses by Jacinda Martinez (center) at the Joseph A. Fiore Art Center, 2019. Photo by Chip Dillon.
Maine Fare: Food for Thought dinner & conversation with chef Sam Hayward and a team of guest chefs, 2017. Photo by Russell French.
Clockwise from top left
Tom Drew of HB Farms in Woodland talks farmland protection and business planning with former MFT staff Nina Young, 2013.
A Belfast Co-Op employee poses with a Maine Harvest Bucks voucher, 2016. MFT spun off the food access program to Good Shepherd Food Bank in 2022. Photo by Jenny McNulty.
Shatema Brooks stacks local grains and produce at the Unity Food Hub, 2015. Photo by Lily Piel.
Former MFT President & CEO John Piotti with Ron Howard, former Aldermere Farms General Manager, at the “Forever Farms” launch party at Erickson Fields in Rockport, 2011. Photo by Bridget Besaw.
Seynab Ali, Mohamed Abukar, and Batula Ismail break ground at the New Roots Cooperative Farm in Lewiston, 2016. The cooperative purchased the farm from MFT in 2022 after a multiyear lease. Photo by Jenny McNulty.
How has the market for Maine-grown food changed?
Colleen, you worked for MFT to launch the Unity Food Hub in 2014. What was its vision?
A lot of farms were seeking markets, especially farms that were too big to only sell through direct markets, but too small for large-scale commodity markets. The Unity Food Hub aimed to create efficiencies for both “ag-in-the-middle” farmers and customers. Farmers could sell to a wider customer base through partnering food distributors and an aggregated CSA model, and could access a shared wash/pack, storage, and retail facility without making expensive investments on their own farms. MFT also encouraged the success of other distributors outside the hub, because the vision was really to strengthen the local food and farming economy.
Adrienne, as a farmer, what were some of the needs that remained? Entering wholesale, it’s hard to let go of the control over your market that you have when you sell direct to customers. MFT definitely involved farms in the Unity Food Hub, but when we started Daybreak Growers Alliance, we really needed a farmer-driven perspective on distribution. It’s been interesting to see how much the wholesale marketplace in Maine has changed, especially in Waldo county. Back then, it felt like there were a lot of farms and not much outlet. Now, at Daybreak we’re sourcing from farms further afield because there are so many more options for farmers to sell their food.
How have you seen our local food economy and access to local food change in Maine?
adrienne: From a farmer’s perspective, people are less willing to get a traditional CSA as more stores carry local food. I think Daybreak has helped to fill a niche there, filling customer demand for local food and for convenience. I also think MFT has played a role in helping smaller farms to effectively wholesale. Like, when I was first selling produce to the UFH, my wholesale labels were just a piece of duct tape with my name on it. (she laughs).
colleen: Also, the urgency of farmland protection and access has accelerated to a degree where I'd say the biggest bottleneck now isn't necessarily the market opportunities for farms, but the opportunities to secure farmland. Farmland access and succession planning have become even more of an imperative to sustain a robust marketplace that could be moving even more food.
What’s your vision for the future of Maine’s local food and farming system?
adrienne: It’s really a dance. For farmers, it’s finding a viable longterm model to meet wholesale demand while earning a sustainable living from the crops we produce, and finding a way to balance that with affordability for our customers. And continuing to diversify
COLLEEN HANLON-SMITH AND ADRIENNE LEE
Co-owners of Daybreak Growers Alliance. Colleen (right) also owns Peak Season wholesale food distribution and Adrienne (left) also co-owns New Beat Farm with her partner Ken Lamson.
Photo by Ian MacLellan.
how we distribute food. That adds economic efficiency for farms and helps us to transfer those efficiencies on to customers.
colleen: And the understanding of what happens after food leaves the farm, the path it takes for locally-grown versus imported food. Additionally, I hope that across sectors, we can look more broadly at some of the root issues that might not seem central to farming, like labor or affordable housing. These issues have a big impact on agriculture and need to be addressed to have a truly viable and sustainable food system.
What can public and community investment do for Maine farms?
DON MAREAN
State Representative for 12 years, three years on the Board of Land for Maine's Future (including two as Board Chair), and a variety of elected positions in Hollis. In 2023, Don and his wife Linda protected their own farm, donating the easement to MFT. Photo by Lily Piel.
When did you begin to see a need for more public investment in Maine’s farmland?
In 2004, while campaigning door-to-door for my first term in the Maine House, I saw the dwindling number of working farms and the housing developments that overtook them. I joined the Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee, and the longer I served, the more I saw how critical it was to conserve working lands. The rapid pace of development, especially in Southern Maine and along the coast, called for urgent conservation. Northern, Western, and Downeast Maine also needed creative conservation, as farmers and fishermen struggled to keep working lands liquid and off the market for other uses.
How have you seen Maine communities support farms and farmland?
I think folks are more aware of the decline of working farms, and have begun to see that farms require very few public services, yet provide so many benefits. More towns and cities are including farming and open space in their comprehensive plans as they realize that developing farmland produces only one “crop” of houses, while farming produces crops year after year. With Maine Farmland Trust and local land trusts and funding from State of Maine bonds under the direction of Land For Maine’s Future program, there have been many farms protected, often owned and operated for generations.
Where do we need to make progress together?
As communities review their comprehensive plans and ordinances, input from MFT and local land trusts could really benefit future planning. Statewide legislation can assist local efforts through state statutes and funding for farmland protection, and “discretionary preservation easements” have potential to help save falling barns that could continue to serve us. As we drive around Maine, I hope we all see the need to continue to protect farmland and our agricultural heritage for future generations.
This portrait of Don, by Lily Piel, is from MFT’s 2013 Groundbreakers exhibit honoring Mainers who have helped revive farming.
In 2023, Chris and Dave Colson (center) protected New Leaf Farm in Durham with MFT, Royal River Conservation Trust, and Land for Maine’s Future funds.
A fall hayride at McDougal Orchards—Hanson Farm Inc. in Sanford, 2007. The 283 acre farm was protected in 2005 by MFT with funding from the Land for Maine’s future program. Photo by Bridget Besaw.
emily gherman-lad is the Assistant Director of Engagement, Communications at Maine Farmland Trust.
Clockwise from top left
Nate Drummond and Gabrielle Gosselin of Six River Farm in Bowdoinham, 2008. Alongside several others, the farm was established on the former Kelley Farm, protected with Land for Maine’s Future funding. Photo by Bridget Besaw.
Governor Janet Mills signs Maine’s Healthy Soils Program into law alongside DACF Commissioner Amanda Beal, MFT staff, and partners, 2021.
Chicken slaughtering demonstration at Maine Fare in Belfast, 2015. Photo by Lily Piel.
Climate resilience workshop at Sheepscot General Store and Farm in Whitefield, 2023.
Steve Sinisi and former MFT staff Sarah Hart erect a Forever Farm sign at Old Crow Ranch in Durham, 2011. Photo by Lily Piel.
GREENER PASTURES
BY NORA SAKS | PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS BATTAGLIA
The first time John and Holly Arbuckle laid eyes on Dyer Valley Farm in North Newcastle six years ago, it was March and another nor’easter had just blown through, burying the old Russell dairy farm under several feet of snow. But hidden underneath, the couple knew, were one hundred acres of rolling fields and more than 60 acres of surrounding woods—“a really attractive ratio for pasture-raised livestock,” said John, the head farmer. There was also decent infrastructure: four working barns and a farmhouse built this century.
Rather than starting a farm business from the ground up, the Arbuckles were planning to transplant their existing enterprise in La Plata, Missouri, centered on pasture-raised pork snack sticks, to
a farm in an area with more opportunities for their kids, more potential markets, and more ocean. Holly, a Bowdoin grad who grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, missed the water and living in rural Missouri had been tough, she said, “because the same things that make land prices cheap make it really hard to make a living.” After a two year search for the right farm, it appeared that on Holstein Lane, the couple had finally found it. According to the 2022 U.S Census of Agriculture, there are approximately 7,000 farms in Maine. “But as soon as you said it was the Cowshit Corner farm, everybody knew it,” said Holly. “And what they said was ‘don’t take down the sign.’”
Above With his infant in tow, Matt Kovarik of Black Earth Forest Farm readies the new fencing to let his sheep forage the next parcel of lush grass— the only thing these animals ever eat. Matt and his wife Shannon Lora pasture their 100% grassfed sheep exclusively on leased land where they can practice intensive rotational grazing, whether here at Singing Pastures or on
Anyone who’s seen the tall red and white circular placard next to Route 194 on which a kissy-faced Holstein gestures cheekily toward the words “Welcome to…Cowshit Corner,” knows intuitively that they have stumbled upon a local landmark. Though the signage has evolved, this spot earned that moniker decades ago, back when the barns, and lots of cow manure, sat right by the road. Eventually, the Russells moved the barns and built a one-acre cement manure lagoon out back to contain the manure, but the sign, and sobriquet, proudly live on.
The Russell family had been in dairy for more than 70 years, and at one time were the largest milk producer in Knox and Lincoln counties. Unfortunately, the Russells could not sustain their multi-generation business in the face of rising production costs and volatile milk prices, and stopped milking their herd in 2014. By the time the Arbuckles visited, the farm had been sitting on the market for two years, Holly told me at their
kitchen table. Invasive species were spreading and the land had been overgrazed, “because to try and keep their head above water, they kept adding more and more cows,” Holly explained, sympathetic to the challenges of the dairy industry. Flotsam and jetsam accumulated from decades of farming would also need to be removed, but the Arbuckles were not deterred. With assistance from Iroquois Valley Farmland REIT, a finance company that provides farmer-friendly mortgages, they cut a deal, bought the old Russell place, and prepared to move their lives and farm business halfway across the country.
It wasn’t until the snow had melted and a semi and trailer arrived loaded with all of their possessions (and breeding stock of pigs), that they realized just how much work they had cut out for them to bring the fields back into production. “No grass grew,” John recalls. “It was just cracked blocks of mud and stunted, thorny horse nettle growing in those cracks.” When a biologist with UMaine Extension came to visit, he remarked that it was the worst pasture he’d seen anywhere in the state. “That was a depressing day,” Holly admits.
Were the Arbuckles intimidated? “Not at all,” Holly replied. She and John, a ninth generation farmer who grew up on his family’s conventional farm in Illinois and had by then run several organic vegetable and pasture-based livestock operations, are big believers in regenerative agriculture. “I'm not qualified to build an addition on a house, or fix the engine on a tractor,” John said. “But I can fix biological systems.”
Their top priority was to get animals back on the land, “because in nature, what you always see is animals tightly bunched and continuously moving,” said John. Here, that meant pulse grazing pigs (and a few cows) for the first 14 months. As the pigs snuffle and shuffle around, they break up the crust, drop manure and therefore bacteria, kickstarting microbial activity underground. “Once we’ve got the microbiome coming back… then it becomes a living thing again,” John said, a smile blossoming under his broad-brimmed straw hat as we walked down the farm lane. “It’s not like we’re building the pyramids of Egypt. It’s not this colossal effort. The earth wants to heal.” And indeed, in late July when I visited Singing Pastures, as it’s now called, where bare, parched earth used to be, it was a grassy green expanse. Even bobolinks, a migratory grassland bird species, are returning.
The original Cowshit Corner sign is bold and towers high in the sightline over the road that leads to Singing Pastures.
Above There are only a handful of pigs on-site in Newcastle, as the majority of the pork that become the farm's direct-to-consumer and grocery retail products are raised on pastures further afield in Missouri. But the home farm still requires daily chores, care, and attention from all of the family. Below During the summer months, John Arbuckle often works in the treehouse in front of the home and dooryard, next to the slope of a burgeoning orchard, which makes for a perfect open air office.
Above John draws the cell phone from his pocket to speak directly to his online audience and followers of Singing Pastures before letting the lambs out to graze on the pastureland he leases to Black Earth Forest Farm. Below Cattle belonging to Grace Pond Farm watch the excitement from the pasture behind him.
“Things can bounce back more quickly than people realize,” Holly said matter-of-factly.
The couple also hold the “radical notion” that farmers should be able to earn a middle class income for a middle class number of hours. “First and foremost, my duties are to heal the ecosystem and make money,” said John. “That should be every farmer's first two.” His only piece of advice to others who are thinking about buying a farm—any farm—has nothing to do with soil health or rotational grazing and everything to do with financial planning. “You’re going to need 20 hours of accounting work done first,” John insists. “That’s gonna be your map and compass. Otherwise it’s a gamble…and you’ll probably lose.”
This farm business philosophy might explain why, aside from a couple dozen pigs napping in the shade (and the sheep and cows other farmers leasing land at Singing Pastures are grazing), there weren’t very many animals oinking about the emerald fields that day. For now, the Arbuckles continue to source most of the pork for the craft meat sticks from their established network of Midwestern producers. Not raising a thousand pigs this year has freed him and Holly (the CEO) to focus on things like marketing and expanding their local supply chain. The snack sticks are currently sold through their website, online retailers, and in around 800 brick-andmortar locations across the country, and they’d like to keep growing. So far, thanks to Holly’s grant-writing talents, they’ve been awarded two USDA Value-Added Producer Grants, which John says have been tremendously helpful because they “incentivize smart risk-taking.” The funds have allowed them to launch a new salami product and invest in a sales team, which they hope will benefit the viability of their business in the long run.
While strolling the fields that summer day, John paused the business discussion to admire a particularly comely bouquet of grasses. The time and money it took to transition this iconic bygone dairy into its next life as a certified organic regenerative pig farm were worth it, he says, tenderly parting the canopy of meadow fescue, orchard grass, timothy, and Queen Anne’s Lace to reveal the vetch and clovers rooting down below. Considering that from 2017–2022, Maine lost more than 500 farms and more than 82,000 acres of farmland, the new growth on this land, and in
the local farming economy, is no small potatoes. The last time we chatted in September, John was busy putting up a new sign at the end of the lane: a tiny bird perched atop a plump pig standing on a patch of grass, the Singing Pastures logo. But, Holly promises, that old sign that everyone loves isn’t going anywhere. “I think it will always be Cowshit Corner,” John agreed, “and I’m okay with that.”
nora saks is a freelance journalist in Bath. Formerly an Associate Editor at Down East Magazine and Radio + Podcasting instructor at the MECA Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, Nora’s print and audio stories have been published in Down East , NPR , Here & Now, 99% Invisible , and elsewhere.
John and Holly Arbuckle at the long dining room table in their kitchen discuss the reality behind their farm and business. “Without these sausages and meat sticks that we produce, the rest of the farm and our lifestyle wouldn’t exist.”
For 25 years, you have made this work possible.
Whether you joined us decades ago or just this year, you are growing a vibrant farming landscape and economy that is resilient to whatever challenges lie ahead. Thank you.
Special thanks to the Fruit level business members who helped to power our work this year:
A warm day for the Icelandic sheep at Moorit Hill Farm in Troy. Photo by Tara Rice.