Maine Policy Review Winter/Spring 2011

Winter/Spring 2011 ¡ Vol. 20, No. 1 ¡ $15

Maine Policy Review

Special Issue:

Food

Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center The University of Maine

MAINE POLICY R

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 1

PUBLISHERS MARGARET CHASE SMITH POLICY CENTER Linda Silka, Director

MARGARET CHASE SMITH LIBRARY Greg Gallant, Director

EDITORIAL STAFF EDITOR Ann Acheson Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR Barbara Harrity Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

PRODUCTION Beth Goodnight Goodnight Design

WEB SITE MAINTENANCE BJ Kitchin Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

DEVELOPMENT Eva McLaughlin Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

COVER ILLUSTRATION Robert Shetterly

PRINTING J. S. McCarthy Printers

Maine Policy Review (ISSN 1064-2587) publishes independent, peer-reviewed analyses of public policy issues relevant to Maine.

The journal is published two times per year by the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine and the Margaret Chase Smith Library in Skowhegan. The material published within does not necessarily reflect the views of the Margaret Chase Smith Library or University of Maine.

The majority of articles appearing in Maine Policy Review are written by Maine citizens, many of whom are readers of the journal. The journal encourages the submission of manuscripts concerning relevant public policy issues of the day or in response to articles already published in the journal. Prospective authors are urged to contact the journal at the address below for a copy of the guidelines for submission or see our Web site.

For reprints of Maine Policy Review articles or for permission to quote and/or otherwise reproduce, please contact the journal at the address below.

The editorial staff of Maine Policy Review welcome your views about issues presented in this journal. Please address your letter to the editor to: Maine Policy Review • 5784 York Complex, Bldg. #4 • University of Maine • Orono, ME 04469-5784 207-581-1567 • fax: 207-581-1266 http://mcspolicycenter.umaine.edu/?q=MPR

2 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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THANKS TO …

Major Sponsor

Margaret Chase Smith Library Patrons

*Broad Reach Fund *Elmina B. Sewall Foundation Benefactors

*Hannaford Charitable Foundation *Johnny’s Selected Seeds

*Maine Community Foundation *The David & Eleanor Rukin Philanthropic Foundation

Donors

*JoAnne & Michael Bander Family Fund *Eleanor Kinney

Karl Turner & Susannah Swihart Linda Silka & Larry Smith

Contributors

*Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) H. Allen & Sally Fernald Merton G. Henry Richard C. Hill Roger Katz William Knowles Barry K. Mills & Susan G. Mills

Peter Mills Maine Department of Environmental Protection Maine Department of Labor, Center for Workforce Research & Information Maine Development Foundation Maine Education Association Maine Forest Service, Forest Policy & Management Division

*Maine Initiatives The Potholm Group (TPG) Evan Richert *JoD Saffeir Lee Webb *Linzee Weld And anonymous Contributors

Hussey Seating Company Marge Kilkelly & Joe Murray Philip McCarthy H. Paul McGuire Sylvia Most & Alan Cardinal

Lars Rydell Basil Wentworth And anonymous Friends

Friends

Tracy B. Bigney Michael R. Crowley Evergreen Communications Maroulla S. Gleaton David Hart

*With special thanks for their targeted support for Volume 20, Number 1, special issue on food.

Volume Twenty of Maine Policy Review is funded, in part, by the supporters listed above. Contributions to Maine Policy Review can be directed to the Margaret Chase Smith Foundation, 10 Free Street, P.O. Box 4510, Portland, ME 04112. Information regarding corporate, foundation, or individual support is available by contacting the Foundation.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 3

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SPECIAL ISSUE: FOOD INTRODUCTION:

It’s Growing Season for Maine’s Food System Deborah Felder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

FARMING Farms and the Working Landscape John Piotti . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Maine’s Food System: An Overview and Assessment

COMMENTARY:

D. Robin Beck, Nikkilee Carleton, Hedda Steinhoff, Daniel Wallace, Mark B. Lapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Russell Libby . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Economic Contribution of Maine’s Food Industry Todd Gabe, James C. McConnon Jr., Richard Kersbergen . . . . . . . 36

Economic Impact of Organic Farming in Maine

An Abundant Food System Getting What We Pay For: An Overview of Federal Agricultural Policy Mary Ann Hayes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Maine’s Dairy Relief Program Tim Drake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Jed Beach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Growing Maine’s Foodscape, Growing Maine’s Future Laura Lindenfeld, Linda Silka . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Welcome to Portland; Now Let’s Eat Hilary Nangle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

FISHING Toward aWorking-Waterfront Ethic: Preserving Access to Maine’s Coastal Economy, Heritage, and Local Seafood Robert Snyder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

COMMENTARY:

Building a Sustainable Seafood System for Maine Robin Alden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood: The Maine Consumer Perspective TO OUR READERS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Catherine V. Schmitt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 6

By Land and By Sea Amanda Beal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAYS Food and the Urgency of Now

GOOD FOOD FOR ALL Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

Kevin W. Concannon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Dora Anne Mills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Bringing Local Foods to the Farm Bill

Healthy Food Access and Affordability

Chellie Pingree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

OUR AUTHORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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245

Gus Schumacher, Michel Nischan, Daniel Bowman Simon . . . . . 124

Hunger in Maine Donna Yellen, Mark Swann, Elena Schmidt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SPECIAL ISSUE: FOOD Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

Local and Regional Food Systems: A USDA Priority

Michelle Vasquez Jacobus, Reza Jalali . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Virginia Manuel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Local Food for Lewiston

Micmac Farms: From Community Garden to Four-Season Farm and Retail Outlet

Kirsten Walter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Jane Caulfield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

New Foods For Thought: Maine Food Producers Add Value through Innovation

ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY Historical Perspectives on Resource Use in Food Systems

Betsy Biemann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

On Slow Money

John M. Jemison Jr., Amanda Beal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Linzee Weld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Resource, Environment and Energy Considerations for Maine Food Security in 2050 and Beyond

Crown O’ Maine Organic Cooperative

Amanda Beal, John M. Jemison Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Food Safety Alfred A. Bushway, Beth Calder, Jason Bolton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Leah Cook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES Farm to School

Meat and Poultry Processing Henrietta E. Beaufait . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Amy Winston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Kitchen Gardens: From the White House to Your House Jean English, Douglas Fox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237

THE FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE Maine’s Food-Related Workforce: Characteristics and Challenges Valerie J. Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

COMMENTARY:

When the Politics of Food and Politics of Immigration Collide—Who Wins?

Barbara Ginley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture Molly Anderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM Financing Maine’s Food Enterprises Ron Phillips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

The Renaissance of a Food-Based Economy in Skowhegan Amber Lambke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

Unity Food Hub: Creating New Opportunities for Local Farms Michael Gold . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Franklin County: Agriculture as a “Sleeping Giant” Tanya Swain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Maine’s Connected Food System: On the Web and Online Barbara Ives, Sam Merrill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Seafood Pies with a Social Purpose Jeff Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Paths towards Food Self-Reliance: Community Food Councils Ken Morse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 5

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

, s r e d a e R Dear

winding season is g ens n ti n la chen gard rite. P it k w I in s a d x o g, este mer equin son is being harv is somehow fittin e m u s e th st past state. It of Main f the sea We are ju e first produce o arkets around the this special issue t has t th m d en ojec down, an n hitting farmers’ wth, that we pres system. As this pr journal a ee ro d and has b of renewal and g and Maine’s foo ed into more than of the e d n th o r m p fo ti tu e d s is to a and in th t it h oted the scope eople tha view dev Policy Re I’ve been telling p in its size and in oth d, guest develope almost a book, b und, our , we F is h it c a e — e R issu on food e Broad vered. erry of th ose a special issue e quickly came P a e r topics co d n prop w. W and A ing ttle narro t everyth eb Felder ear ago to When D to us almost a y a, but perhaps a li touches on almos nging ra m ide ame editors, c as an interesting and the food syste ational economy— the environw , n d s it e o d c t r n fo h state a thoug in d resou cus on both the how a fo energy an more are covered cal to realize in our lives and in d food safety to y lo and man an sinesses, t importan , food insecurity, rce. These topics w food-related bu s around itie lth kfo ne from hea ess, and the wor g case studies of hilanthropic activ n in p s ti u s te e b a r d priv ment, ith inte eavors, an , along w this issue l community end roup of na diverse g government, d n a e and regio e food system. g r th mble a la fit agencies, state thers. (A food and ed us asse lp e npro and o h e v a ors h s from no ople; journalists; self-reported e it v d ti e t ta s n e e u s e The g on s; repre s or are siness p consultati academic unity; bu ve garden authors— ilanthropic comm ers, and many ha rea Perry for their efforts to h r rm nd and the p writers are also fa eb Felder and A r helping us in ou rganizations o D r fo e u to d o th l k an few of e to than h direct giving are gratefu is issue together k e li W o ) ls a .” s g “foodie utting th ort it. We would rt throu p ance in p eir suppo of the issue. th d te u and guid nal funds to sup rt sly contrib itio at the sta never raise add uals who generou e “Thanks” page ieces, I’m the p g n id th ti iv s n d e o r and in noted these inte at your reaction is , who are ading all e r e th riad d n a or grants e . We hop ing about the my ect it is issu in a th g a n o y a g nd ew t aff rkin After wo k of food the sam ights and understa and practices tha s , in s in ie th c w going to lture, poli u gain ne d that yo ystem and the cu n a , e m a s s f the food aspects o art of it. p and are a

6 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011



Best,

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

My Creed . . .

is that public service must be more than doing a job efficiently and honestly.

It must be a complete dedication to the people and to the nation with full recognition that every human being is entitled to courtesy and consideration, that constructive criticism is not only to be expected but sought, that smears are not only to be expected but fought, that honor is to be earned but not bought.

Margaret Chase Smith

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 7

THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

The Margaret Chase Smith Essay

Food O and the Urgency of Now

by Kevin W. Concannon

n the last Sunday in January of this year, I walked across the National Mall to the National Archives building to view President John F. Kennedy’s first Executive Order, issued the day after his inauguration. Staring at the original signed document that initiated and authorized the modern food stamp program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), I was deeply touched realizing how far-reaching and vital to our country’s most vulnerable people this order and its successive versions in food assistance programs have been to the health and well-being of millions of Americans.

Personally moved by the extent of poverty that he witnessed in West Virginia during his presidential campaign, and seeing the hunger and deprivation firsthand, JFK privately resolved to take action as president as soon as he had the official capacity to do something significant. He signed the Executive Order within 24 hours of his swearing in ceremony.

Now, 50 years past the signing of that Executive Order, federal and state government food-assistance programs reach one out of four Americans at some time during the year. While Americans and Mainers rarely experience the severe hunger and extended deprivation still widespread in the poor countries of the world, even here too many people of all

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ages experience periods of hunger and food insecurity in the midst of plenty.

With the exception of the years of the Great Depression when hunger was widespread, federal and state government food and nutrition programs have never been as urgently needed as now, in the extended jobs recession of the past three years. And, the same urgent need can be said of the thousands of food pantries and emergency kitchens operated by community and faith-based groups across the country in response to hunger and food insecurity.

FOOD AMIDST PLENTY

T

he importance of food in so many aspects of our lives and in our communities is hard to overstate. Essential to our individual health and survival, food and its production, preparation, and consumption also shape much of our community life in agriculture, family life, communal events, and local economies.

The same can be said about the social impacts of food. And food is one of the most influential determinants of one’s health.

Across the country, there is a resurgence of interest in all aspects of food, its healthy features, its production, access to healthy food, and the positive impacts of locally grown and produced food. And,

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THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

organic farming is benefiting from among the highest levels of community and individual support. In Maine the widespread rebirth and support for locally grown and produced food is a most promising development for communities and for the Maine economy. Locally grown (“native” to Mainers) can be enjoyed in homes, restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, and from farm stands and farmers’ markets.

THE PARADOX OF HUNGER AND OBESITY

E

arlier this year, I participated in the official launch of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) 2010—the nation’s blueprint for healthy eating—issued every five years since 1980.

The DGA 2010 is the most science-based edition of the guidelines and will influence and inform dietitians, nutritionists, families, chefs, health care providers, schools, food manufacturers and processors, and will command the engagement of public food and nutrition entities for many years.

Importantly, the DGA 2010 recommend more plant-based foods, less processed food, more whole grains, more leafy greens, more vegetables, more fruits, lean meats, less fat, less sodium, more legumes, more seafood, and smaller portions of food for most of us. And, a better balance between the calories we consume and the calories we expend through exercise and activity.

For the better, in conjunction with public and voluntary food-assistance programs, there is a concerted and expanding effort to educate and promote healthier foods, less processed foods, more locally grown and produced foods.

Farmers’ markets, farm-to-school programs, and “Know Your Farmer— Know Your Food,” are all reflections of policies and programs intended to support healthier eating throughout the lifespan.

Renewed interest in home gardens, organic farming, healthier eating, farmers’ markets, school gardens, native fruits and vegetables, and even the ability for households to purchase fruits and vegetable seeds using food stamp benefits are all hopeful signs of reversing and altering our overreliance on processed foods and a return to healthier eating.

The focus on healthier foods comes at a time of heightened, justified concern in Maine and across the country on the prevalence of obesity and related heath conditions that are due to obesity. Healthier foods combined with proper exercise obviously help one’s quality of life. But they also help prevent avoidable healthcare costs due to obesity-related conditions.

I have seen the impacts of locally grown and caught healthy foods in nutrition programs. But I am also mindful of the “green” dividends from locally produced farm and sea products. Maine is well positioned to further exploit the foods produced and caught in the state, and I look forward with enthusiasm to growth in Maine and beyond in healthier eating and increases in locally grown foods. 

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Kevin Concannon has served as under secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services in the U.S. Department of Agriculture since 2009. He has had a lengthy and distinguished career in public service. Over the past 25 years, he has served as director of state health and human services departments in Maine, Oregon, and Iowa. He has championed expanded services, improved access, alternatives to institutions, consumer choices, affordable health care, diversity in workplace and programs, and modernization of public information technology systems.

Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 9

THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

Bringing I Local Foods to the Farm Bill

by Chellie Pingree

first moved to Maine as a teenager, and like many who came in the same era, I had a copy of Helen and Scott Nearing’s Living the Good Life in hand. It was 1971 and big business (and big subsidies) was just starting to define American agriculture. I had chosen a different path, however, and with a degree in human ecology and the small and sustainable model the Nearings described in mind, I started an organic farm on the island of North Haven, Maine (population 381).

That early effort was a success—not only was I able to sell produce locally, but the sheep I raised supported a knitting and yarn business that created jobs in our tiny community and a product that was sold nationally.

At the same time, we were living in the era of Earl Butz, President Nixon’s Secretary of Agriculture, who was telling American farmers to “get big or get out,” and our self-sustaining agriculture system was anything but mainstream.

Here we are 40 years later, and Maine has become an excellent example of how much the public has caught up. “Knowing where your food comes from” has become the subject of conversations everywhere.

Parents, teachers, and grandparents are deciding they’d rather get the food for their family from a local farm where they can know the farmer.

With many measures, Maine is going against national trends. We have increasing numbers of younger farmers; the number of farms is growing; and more than half of Maine families report that they buy at farmers’ markets, farm stands, or community-supported agriculture (CSAs) often. And, they are doing so for all of the right reasons: to support their local farmers and economy, to get fresh food and a good price. All good practices

10 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

for our economy, our health, and our environment—and we should encourage even more of it!

As a matter of national policy, the time has come to acknowledge this new attitude. The time has also come to acknowledge that some of the agriculture practices, particularly those supported and practiced nationally, are bad for the environment and public health and have become unsustainable. Congress will reauthorize the Farm Bill in the next two years, and I believe it’s time to add a local foods title and begin to rebuild a real food system in the U.S. Most of the Farm Bill will inevitably benefit big agribusinesses and giant production farms. But a local foods title would focus on consumers and small, local farmers, supporting them and breaking down the barriers they face.

A local foods title should make it easier for farmers to get their food to consumers. There is a lot that could be included in this including supporting infrastructure improvements such as local slaughterhouses or creating and encouraging distribution networks.

A Farm Bill written for the practices we want to encourage today would make it easier for EBT cards—the standard method for distributing food stamp benefits—to be used at farmers’ markets, helping low-income families gain access to the kind of foods that will help them to stay healthy, and farmers to sell more. A local foods title could support the training and education of young farmers to help revitalize the local farming industry and provide technical assistance to implement common-sense food safety rules.

Perhaps one of the most important goals of a revised Farm Bill would be to finally make it easier for schools to

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THE MARGARET CHASE SMITH ESSAY

purchase and prepare real food in cafeterias—an incredibly fertile ground for changing food policy and eating habits.

I’ve visited a number of schools in Maine that have built greenhouses and introduced fresh vegetables to their students.

When you hear a middle school student gush about this new thing called “kale” that she has discovered, you begin to think that maybe we’ve been tricked into believing that all kids will eat are chicken fingers and Pop Tarts. There are better options, and a local foods title should include expanded flexibility to allow schools to spend more of their federal money on fresh, locally produced food.

Schools also need help recreating the infrastructure that allows them to get back to cooking food—not just opening cans and heating them up on a stove.

Getting back to a real, sustainable food system in this country will take some work. But the desire among Maine people to have access to safe, healthy food and Maine farmers to provide it shouldn’t be underestimated. As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, I speak with excitement about this topic to a lot of groups. Whether it’s the local banker, garage mechanic, teachers, or mothers and fathers, it is clear that wanting to know what you are eating and where it came from is a lot more mainstream today than it was in 1971. It will have been worth the wait if we can make the changes we need. -

Chellie Pingree was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2008, where she serves on the House Agriculture Committee. She lives on Turner Farm on the island of North Haven, where she owns the Nebo Inn and Restaurant.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 11

INTRODUCTION

It’s Growing Season for Maine’s Food System

by Deborah Felder

E

verybody knows about food, but what exactly is a food system? Because we all have to eat, we all have personal stories and personal relationships with food. But a food system is not about individuals. It’s a complex system of pathways, connections, and policies that determine not only the health of our citizenry, but the health of our planet and the fate of future generations. Like the transportation system, there are many entry and exit points, paved highways, back roads, tolls, and one-way streets in our current food system.

For consumers, it may seem simple: buy food, cook it, serve it. Or if you’re a backyard gardener: compost, plant, preserve. All of us can list some of the players in the food system: farmers, chefs, truckers, grocery store owners. But what about stockbrokers, genetic engineers, soil conservationists, cardiologists, legislators, or immigrant-rights organizations?

Decision-making about the kind of food system we have versus the kind of food system we might like to have happens in the corridors of government, in corporate boardrooms, on financial trading floors, in scientific laboratories, and through international trade agreements. With so many food choices and food options, we can be lulled into believing we are in control or that as consumers, we are “voting” with our pocketbooks and with our forks. But a food system isn’t just about “what’s for dinner?” It is also about what’s not for dinner. A food system that leaves most of the world still hungry or placated with cheap, empty

12 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

calories is a system that leads nowhere. A food system that creates “dead” ecological zones, depletes freshwater, exploits workers, causes diabetes, or worst-case scenario, actually poisons people is not what we expect from a trip to the grocery store.

DECONSTRUCTING DINNER

W

ith summer coming, we may be planning to regale out-of-state friends with a Maine shore dinner. Lobster, corn on the cob, baked potatoes, a side salad, blueberry pie and ice cream for dessert. Yum. Everything on the plate is from Maine. Also on the plate are the issues and challenges inherent in building a comprehensive food system for our state. Lobster is a Maine brand with worldwide recognition. Yet the industry confronts the loss of working waterfronts, the lack of processing facilities, the high cost of fuel, and fluctuating prices. With corn there’s the question of organic versus local versus genetically modified; corn for food or corn for biofuel, animal feed, or high-fructose corn syrup? Potatoes are the symbol of Aroostook County and Maine’s number one commodity crop.

With potatoes, we come right up against the federal Farm Bill and how it defines large-scale versus smallscale farms, subsidies, and pricing. For larger farmers, there are challenges with consolidation and the loss of farmland, but there is also innovative research and development (e.g., potatoes to plastic), and value-added opportunities (e.g., vodka).

Salad is seasonal, but in Madison, Maine, they are growing tomatoes year-round. Smaller operations are doing the same with lettuce and salad greens.

Consumers can support Maine farmers by purchasing community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares or visiting farmers’ markets. More of these vendors now accept food stamps. Hannaford, Walmart, and other large food chains are adding more local food to their inventory. Whole Foods and Trader Joes are doing a vibrant business in Portland while smaller specialty markets are popping up all around Maine. Do we have sufficient transportation and distribution mechanisms in place, and are we growing enough to meet demand?

Do wholesale prices support farmers’ costs?

Regarding dessert, it’s becoming possible again in Maine to use locally grown wheat ground in a Maine

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INTRODUCTION

New We quote are at here... a gristmill for bread and piecrust. Blueberries are a recognized health food full of antioxidants. Maine-made ice cream, milk products, and cheeses are award winning and delicious. But even here there are behind the scene consequences. The majority of Maine blueberries are raked by migrant farm workers. Are their wages adequate and their working conditions safe? Are the migrant workers who harvest our crops equal partners in Maine’s food system? For that matter, how many people working in the food system (farmers, fishermen, food preparers, processors, waitresses, dishwashers, sales clerks) make a living wage or have health insurance?

As for eggs, should we choose brown, white, free-range, antibiotic-free, organic, or caged? Eggs, chickens, and poultry-processing plants used to be abundant in Maine. Saving Maine’s dairy farmers is also high on the food-system agenda. Dairy farms face high land, infrastructure, and maintenance costs, plus a perishable product, fluctuating demand, cost controls, and uncertain supply chains. Cornerstone dairies and innovative partnerships are working against enormous odds to ensure a future for Maine’s dairy industry.

However you slice and dice it, Maine foods, whether haddock, chicken, beef, apples, clams, broccoli, maple syrup, or honey, are facing ecological, historical, economic, and man-made challenges. Even a committed locavore eating only Maine-grown or Maine-caught food can be detoured with difficult choices while navigating the food system. But most of us don’t eat only local food. Estimates suggest that only 10 to 20 percent of consumers’ food dollars are spent on Maine food. The rest of Mainers’ diets are fraught with even more complex inputs and outcomes that have serious consequences to our health, the safety of our food supply, our environment, and even ultimately our global security. Agriculture is the number one producer of greenhouse gases and the foremost user of the world’s freshwater supply. Pesticides, toxic run-off, and climate change are worrying food producers and consumers alike. The cheap food to which Americans have become accustomed is costing a good deal in terms of health and environmental consequences. Our dependence on fossil fuels as the primary engine in our food supply is unsustainable, and new models are demanded. We are at a moment in time when the food system has landed front and center on the nation’s consciousness. From

kitchen gardens to the White House, we are ready to redefine and reform the food system.

MAINE HAS ALL THE INGREDIENTS

moment in time when the food system has landed

front and center In 2010, Michael Pollan, often considered the guru of the on the nation’s food system, wrote in the New York Review of Books, “The consciousness.

Food Movement, Rising.” It has been rising in Maine for quite From kitchen some time. Across the state there are entrepreneurs, community gardens to the groups, nonprofit organizations, research and development orgaWhite House, we nizations, investors, trade associations, public policy leaders, are ready to redefoundations, advocates, educators, artists, chefs, physicians, fine and reform the nutritionists, state and federal agencies all working to build food system.

Maine’s food-system highway.

Twelve years ago, when I was director of Maine Initiatives, we began a small grant program to support sustainable agriculture and community food systems called “The Harvest Fund.” At that time, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., already had a strong Fisheries and Working Waterfront Program in place and had just begun the Maine Farms Program headed at that time by John Piotti. MOFGA (Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association), today the oldest and largest organic-farming-membership organization in the country, was already years into its thousands-of-people-a-day Common Ground Fair. A few restaurants, such as Fore Street in Portland, were local-sourcing their food.

Entrepreneurs such as Des Fitzgerald (Ducktrap River Fish Farm), Jim Amaral (Borealis Breads), Jim Stott and Jonathan King (Stonewall Kitchens) were beginning to capitalize on the “natural goodness of Maine” at the same time that Oakhurst Dairy took a stand against corporate giant Monsanto and banned natural bovine growth hormone from its milk products. Visionaries such as Eliot Coleman were extending the Maine growing season, and

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 13

INTRODUCTION

FIGURE 1: Elements of a Food System 2

The explosion of interest and action around the country in the Farm / past two decades for more Processing Fish Inputs humane, ecologically sustainable, safe, economical, and communitysupported food systems has put Maine at the forefront of the food movement. Interest in Maine’s Support System food system has created innovative Policymakers collaborations and partnerships to 4 Government Agencies address hunger, food access, Nonprofit Organizations Nutrient / Distribution: working landscapes, marketing, Trade Associations and Co-ops Ecosystem Wholesale Educators and Researchers distribution, job training, infraManagement Funders, Lenders, and Investors structure, value-added products, Grassroots Volunteers and institutional buying.

Consumer Education and Marketing Farm, Fish, and Food Incubators Organizations and communities are mapping the food system, addressing food equity, food 6 5 deserts, and food destinations.

Regions of our state such as Consumer Distribution: Skowhegan are defining themDemand Retail selves as food hubs. Food-policy councils are taking root in towns such as Oxford and Lewiston/Auburn. Growth in Source: Adapted from Vermont Farm to Plate Strategic Plan consumer demand for local products has led to a spiraling growth in farmers’ markets, CSAs/CSFs (farm/fish share a few colleges and schools were experimenting with programs), farm-to-school, farm-to-table, institutional buying local, building greenhouses, or growing gardens. buying, and cooperative ventures in Maine. Farm-toProtecting Maine’s wilderness was a strong value at that school and farm-to-institution programs are both time, but farmland preservation was just beginning to national and statewide in scope. Maine has become receive attention. Organizations such as the Island a food destination for tourists and locals alike. Our Institute were moving away from a national fisheries universities and community colleges are offering degree management perspective and looking locally for expertise programs in sustainable agriculture and culinary arts. and cultural-preservation strategies. Ted Ames, a There is talk of a magnet agriculture high school. lobsterman and co-founder of the Penobscot East Innovative strategies to preserve farmland are in place.

Resource Center, was awarded a McArthur genius award Investors and entrepreneurs are supporting and creating for his groundbreaking work fusing science and local fishexciting new products with worldwide distribution. ermen’s knowledge to map and protect essential fish habiThe health care field is beginning to make the link tats. The Western Mountains Alliance published a local between poverty, diet, obesity, heart disease, and food tourist map. Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Fedco diabetes. “Veggie prescriptions” are a new addition to Seeds had strong consumer loyalty. Wolfe’s Neck Farm the medical toolbox. Social service agencies are joining was raising organic beef. The food movement was rising. forces with farmers to grow and deliver fresh produce Today in every corner of Maine, people are at work to homebound seniors, laid-off workers, and people building a better food system for their communities. in need. Immigrants and refugees are planting new 1

7

Production / Harvesting

14 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

3

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INTRODUCTION

varieties of crops, opening markets, and expanding Maine’s cuisine. A state that once had a slaughterhouse in every region, kitchen gardens in every yard, grist mills, fish- and poultry-processing plants, and a centuries-old tradition of “putting food by” is re-inventing a 21st-century version of what it means to be food selfreliant and food secure. The food system is a creative economy—creating jobs and redefining Maine.

A RECIPE FOR MAINE

I

n this issue of the Maine Policy Review, we delve into what a real food system for Maine would look like. There are many “good” news stories to tell, and we only cover a few. There are also many challenges. Use of food stamps and food pantries is up, as is food insecurity and hunger. We still have far to go to achieve good food for all. Commodity farmers and small farmers confront different obstacles as do the groundfishery, aquaculture, and lobster-fishing industries. Infrastructure, processing, and distribution systems are not up to scale. There are numerous economic challenges. While many of the necessary actors in the food system are in place, Maine is not yet operating with a single, unified vision. Like all states, we are part of a national and global food system subject to public policies and corporate interests that are not always in the state’s best interests.

As public-policy initiatives at both the state and federal level heat up, the federal Farm Bill, food stamp re-authorization, climate change, green jobs, energy policy, transportation, food safety, preventative health, environmental protection, immigration reform, and trade policy can all be viewed through the lens of a sustainable food system. Maine is in a region of the country with a long history of agriculture and marine resources. We can use the current momentum to support policies that promote local economies and statewide growth. Additionally, Maine is part of a larger regional food system, and we need to continue to work collaboratively with our New England neighbors and learn from their endeavors.

As an example, over the past three years, Vermont has brought together stakeholders in the food system along with key legislators, the governor, and state agencies to create their “Farm to Plate” initiative, a comprehensive 10-year strategic plan for Vermont’s

food system. The plan looks up and down Vermont’s food chain and includes economic indicators, investment priorities, workforce-development strategies, increased consumer demand, targeted national and international markets, access to healthy food, nutrient management, education, policy, and regulation improvements. This effort was bipartisan and was carried out over two administrations. Other states are doing the same, for example the “Michigan Good Food Charter,” Northeast Ohio’s, “The 25% Shift,” and the “Good Food for All Agenda” in Los Angeles. New York City has launched “FoodWorks,” a vision to improve the city’s food system, which sets out a “ground-togarbage approach unprecedented in the history of our city” addressing agricultural production, processing, distribution, consumption, post-consumption, hunger, obesity, preserving regional farming, local food manufacturing, decreasing waste and energy usage.

The explosion of interest and action around the country in the past two decades for more humane, ecologically sustainable, safe, economical, and communitysupported food systems has put Maine at the forefront of the food movement.

In 2007, the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Collaborative and the Urban Design Lab at Columbia—using architects and modelers, planners, academics, and other experts—sought answers to the childhood-obesity epidemic. Initially, they thought prevention and wellness programs might be the answer and were surprised to discover that the root cause lies in our current food system. They came to the conclusion that food and health are intricately linked and that to support programs addressing childhood obesity and the prevention of chronic diseases, there must be a national food system based on access, affordability, quality, and health.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 15

INTRODUCTION

Reforming and redesigning our food system so that it accurately weighs the true costs of cheap food and cheap labor, along with the high costs to the environment and human health, is the issue of our times. Current systems that treat food and water as commodities or individuals as mere consumers will not sustain us as we approach a world population of seven billion—twice as many people as there were in 1960. As the Beatles said, we need to “come together, right now.”

In 2005, the Maine legislature established the Maine Food Policy Council with 12 recommendations to ensure the availability of an adequate supply of safe, wholesome, and nutritious food to its citizens. These recommendations are an important first step, but just a first step. As public input around the 2012 federal Farm Bill gets underway and with a new state administration and new commissioners of the Department of Agriculture and Department of Marine Resources, Maine is poised to take this groundswell of interest in the food system to the next level. Together, the private, nonprofit, and public sectors can create good food, good jobs, and a good future for Maine. -

16 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Deborah Felder is a program consultant to the Broad Reach Fund, which has been supporting foodsystems work in Maine for the past six years. She came to Maine from New York City in the 1970s as part of the back to the land movement and has been working for nonprofit organizations and philanthropy ever since. Her colleague at Broad Reach, Andrea Perry, was also a guest editor for this issue.

Andrea grew up in Aroostook County and is a former program officer at the Maine Community Foundation.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 17

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

Maine’s Food System: An Overview and Assessment

by D. Robin Beck Nikkilee Carleton Hedda Steinhoff Daniel Wallace Mark B. Lapping

From an agrarian and seafaring past, Maine’s food system has seen profound changes over the past two centuries. Grain, milk, livestock, fish, potatoes, vegetables and fruits adorned the family table and came from small, family farms. Today, most people in Maine don’t know where their food comes from.

Many are dependent on federal, state and local “emergency food systems” such as food stamps, food pantries, and childhood nutrition programs. Foodprocessing facilities, distribution systems, and valueadded products are in short supply. Nevertheless, Maine has a diversity and abundance of food products. In this article, the authors provide a historical overview and current analysis of Maine’s food system, highlighting encouraging trends and opportunities for the state.

18 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011



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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

I

n the middle of 1979, largely as a result of soaring diesel fuel prices, independent truckers across the nation launched a strike. New Englanders saw the shelves of groceries and supermarkets largely empty of foodstuffs, fresh vegetables and fruits, and other commodities. Consequently, residents of the region soon learned several things. First, the vast majority of food consumed in the region came from somewhere else. Second, most of the food available to New Englanders came into the region on trucks. Third, the region’s farms produced a surprisingly limited variety and quantity of food as they had come to specialize in ever fewer commodities, such as milk and eggs. It is not surprising, then, that among the first federal investigations into the causes and consequences of the truckers’ strike was one led and conducted by a then recently elected member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Maine’s Olympia Snowe (U.S. House of Representatives 1979). Maine people came to understand that the foods on the grocery shelves were all that was available!

How did this come about? For one thing, no region of the country is as dependent on imported food as New England, located at the end of the food pipeline, according to a June 15, 1979, article in The New York Times by Peter Kihss. Additionally other vulnerabilities existed—and persist to this day—that made Maine especially sensitive to any disruption in its food supply. To appreciate why this remains the case in Maine, it is necessary to understand that food itself is part of a larger system. Embedded within this system are many steps and processes, and to accurately assess the Maine food system, one must appreciate how food is raised, where it comes from, how it is turned into the products that we consume, how we acquire our food, and how we dispose of it. As with any system, such as transportation or health care, the food system has components, which necessarily flow together and interact. Seeing food as a system potentially allows public policy to address any “holes,” deficiencies, or market failures that might be corrected thus increasing the well-being of Maine people. The current predicament of the Maine food system was not always the case.

New quote Prior to the here...

Civil WHAT WE ATE, WHAT WE EAT1

War, the typical

meal was rarely rior to the Civil War, the typical meal was rarely eaten eaten outside of outside of the home and the typical Maine home was a farm. the home and the The Maine farm at this time was approximately 100 acres typical Maine home in size with about half of it in pasture. Maine farms produced was a farm. more than five million bushels of grain, 3.5 million bushels of potatoes, and pastured more than one million livestock animals for milk and meat (U.S. Census 1850).

Virtually every household kept a milk cow, and the average farm kept seven. The Jersey cow, which would change the face of New England dairying, was a novel and rare breed. Almost every home had access to apple trees, and most farms had at least a modest orchard.

The man in the household tended the farm, while the home and especially the kitchen was the focus of the woman’s workday. She spent a significant portion of each day during the warmer months making butter and cheese. She cooked on a wood range and stored foods in crocks in a cellar. The Mason jar had barely been introduced, and the ice chest had not yet been widely adopted. Instead, drying, salting, smoking, and fermenting preserved most foods. All other foods were eaten on a seasonal basis.

In this period, dinner—the mid-day meal—was the main meal. The plate most likely held Indian corn, potatoes, or baked beans. Potatoes were fried in lard, tallow, or bacon fat, or boiled in stews. Corn was boiled as pudding or baked as the primary flour in breads. Apples, in various forms, were also a staple.

They were made into cider—the ubiquitous Maine beverage—vinegar, molasses, or dried for sauces and pies. The slave trade and the ships sailing into New England ports made cane sugar a cheap and relatively abundant commodity in early New England, but maple sugar was always a plentiful staple (while maple syrup

P

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 19

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

was a seasonal treat), and nearly every homestead had a beehive for honey and wax production. If it were warm outside, there were often leafy greens, peas, snap beans, or—a new favorite—tomatoes with the meal. When the weather was cold, Hubbard squash, turnips, beets, or fermented vegetables may have graced the plate.

Meat was the central food on the plate for two or three meals a day for both the poor and the better off.

Mutton was a Maine favorite, though beef, pork, and chicken were also common. Coastal areas and those on the big rivers were likely to have fish, and inland families often supplemented domestically raised meats with wild game. Cod, usually dried and salted, was a ubiquitous food throughout New England, though much of it was traded to the European market and the Caribbean.

All of these foods came from the immediate land and community. Salt, tea, and leavening were the most frequent off-farm food purchases. While the variety of food consumed by Maine people was limited, ample amounts were generally available to all. Waste was essentially unknown, for any uneaten morsel was either included in the next meal in some form, or fed to a farm animal. The Maine food system—from field to fork and back again—was virtually all contained within the family homestead and the immediate area’s lands and waters.

Fast forward to the 1980s and we reach a period of enormous change in the food and farming system. At this time, the “get big or get out” revolution… pushed farmers to increase tillage and yield, or leave farming altogether.

Jumping ahead several generations, by 1935 the Maine meal and the landscape supplying it had changed considerably. Although only about one-quarter of the state’s land was in farms, the size of the average farm had increased to 120 acres. The number of people 20 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

actively engaged in farming had fallen dramatically from just a generation before (U.S. Census 1940). The introduction of cars and trucks and improved roads, together with the wide-scale use of tractors, an increase in the use of chemicals, and refrigeration, all brought significant changes to farms and homes in Maine.

The opening of Aroostook County by rail and the development of chemical fungicides boosted potato production to the point that Maine was the largest producer in the nation, producing more than 50 million bushels annually. Oats were a significant crop, but all other grains grown in Maine declined markedly in the years between the wars (U.S. Census 1940).

Other chemicals and fertilizers and use of hybrid seeds became commonplace in food production, and the canning of corn, beans, and blueberries was undertaken on an industrial scale (Frederic 2002). Almost every farming town had a canning facility, and many Maine people found wage work in the agribusiness sector.

Raising broiler chickens and egg production became large-scale operations. Farmers were producing for middle men who sold these commodities in urban markets, thus extending the supply chain from Maine ever farther.

Most Maine cattle were milk cows and heifers, and larger dairy farms emerged to supply both local and distant markets. In 1935, the typical Mainer drank nearly a gallon and a half of milk each week (USDA 1941). Unlike in the past, Mainers began to purchase their milk at groceries or have it home-delivered— pasteurized, homogenized, and bottled! The quality of milk, along with other foodstuffs, was subject to review by evolving federal and state regulatory regimes.

With only one in five Maine people working or living on a farm, it was much more likely that the man sitting down at the table for dinner worked away from the home; he likely could not describe where the raw ingredients for the meal came from (U.S. Census 1940). The woman of the home may have had a kitchen garden and even a few laying hens and perhaps a pig. Overall, however, the majority of the foodstuffs she prepared came from a local shop. She prepared meals on a gas range and used an icebox to store perishables. She preserved food from her garden in canning jars. Yet, the home remained the primary location where food was eaten, as only one-third of Maine

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

people reported any expenditures for food eaten away from home (USDA 1941). Supper had become the most substantial meal of the day, as men and perhaps women worked away from the home during the mid-day. The meal itself was likely composed of the same basic foods that were consumed a few generations before. The one clear shift in the actual diet was away from the use of grain corn and toward cheaper grains produced in the West. Overall, this period saw a remarkable change in the local Maine food system: most of what was now consumed in Maine was increasingly produced, processed, and distributed from outside of the state and transported into Maine. This pattern would become even more exaggerated in the years ahead.

Fast forward to the 1980s and we reach a period of enormous change in the food and farming system.

At this time, the “get big or get out” revolution of the Reagan years pushed farmers to increase tillage and yield, or leave farming altogether. Nationally the typical farm size doubled, and the diversity of crops produced on a single farm declined as specialization became the hallmark of much of American agriculture.

At the same time, the number of American farmers also declined and the amount of off-farm inputs to farming rose dramatically, as did fuel use for increasingly large tractor fleets. In Maine, these same trends existed and prevailed until recently when we actually started seeing an increase in the number of farms.

Currently, only seven percent of the overall acreage in Maine is devoted to agriculture, and less than two percent of the Maine workforce is directly engaged in farming (USDA NASS 2009).

Unlike in decades past, many of the meals Mainers currently consume are not eaten at home. Nearly half of all meal expenditures are accounted for in places other than the home (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2010).

Little of the food on the Maine plate comes from within the state. This situation is pointedly made by the reality that in almost any community with a supermarket “one can find grapes from Chile, apples from New Zealand, oranges from Brazil, processed meats and cheeses from Europe and even ‘organic’ fruits and vegetables from Central America. Food in the United States travels an average of 1,300 miles and changes hands a half-dozen times before it is consumed” (Lacy

2000: 19). A 2006 study for the Maine Legislature noted “the ingredients for the average Maine meal travels [sic] 1900 miles from field to fork, which is 25% more than in 1980…. Maine currently produces only about 20% of its food needs” (Maine Department of Agriculture 2006: 9).

What, then, is on the typical Maine plate today?

Essentially, we do not know. While there are clear trends in our food culture, which seem to be based on income as much as any other factor, there is a wide variation within these trends. Though chain restaurants have softened differences in regional food preferences, New England people still prefer red hot dogs with skins, beef over other meats, haddock and cod over tilapia and catfish, and white potatoes and McIntosh apples. In short, some longstanding and regional preferences persist (Lisa Fernandes, personal communication, 2010). Still we have a vast array of food options and possibilities in our diets now. What is clear is that more of our foods are processed, more of it is purchased in supermarkets and groceries, we are eating less and less at home, and the vast majority of food comes from places other than Maine and New England.

In terms of access and nutritional indicators, many Mainers are less healthy and more food insecure than ever before. More than 60 percent of Maine adults and 15 percent of Maine youth are overweight or obese, and 40 percent of the calories consumed by children and adolescents come from added fat and sugars (Maine Department of Agriculture 2008). The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that 15 percent of all Mainers are food insecure (Nord et al. 2010). For children, the Hunger in America 2010 report puts the numbers who are food insecure at approximately 21 percent, or one out of every five Maine children (Mabli et al. 2010).

WHAT FOODS DOES MAINE PRODUCE?

M

aine food comes from both the land and the sea. Beyond its initial value, agriculture remains an important source of employment for Maine people, with slightly over 15 percent of all Maine jobs in 2002 tied to farm and farm-related employment (USDA USDA ERS 2002). As of 2007, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Census indicated that

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 21

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

TABLE 1: Farms in Maine by Size and Value of Sales

2007 Total Number of Farms

8,136

2002 7,196

1997 7,404

Farms by size 1 to 9 acres

1,046

918

773

10 to 49 acres

2,383

1,861

1,747

50 to 179 acres

3,019

2,506

2,802

180 to 499 acres

1,178

1,334

1,545

500 to 999 acres

330

393

393

1,000 to 1,999 acres

131

135

113

2,000 acres or more

49

49

31

Less than $2,500

3,924

3,634

2,978

$2,500 to $4,999

838

777

978

$5,000 to $9,999

848

682

864

$10,000 to $24,999

949

727

914

$25,000 to $49,999

479

387

485

$50,000 to $99,999

328

310

400

Farms by value of sales

$100,000 to $499,999

574

513

642

$500,000 or more

198

166

143

Source: USDA ERS (2010a)

FIGURE 1: Maine’s Top Commodities, 2009

(Percentage of total cash receipts) Grains 2%

Hay 2%

Other 16%

Cattle and calves 2% Maple products 2% Apples 2% Wild blueberries 7% Aquaculture 8%

Potatoes 24%

Greenhouse or nursery 10% Chicken eggs 11% Dairy products 15%

Source: USDA ERS (2010a)

22 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Maine had slightly more than 8,000 farms (Table 1)2; this is an increase over the previous 10-year period.

It appears that the number of farms in the state has stabilized over the last several years; the average size of a Maine farm, however, has been decreasing. Nearly two-thirds of all Maine farms are less than 100 acres in size, and approximately 70 percent of all farms in Maine earn less than $10,000 annually from farm sales (income is often supplemented by off-farm work). Table 1 shows a breakdown of Maine farms by size and value of sales.

Even as crop acreage has declined, Maine continues to grow approximately 80 different crops.

The top commodities in 2009 were potatoes, dairy products, chicken eggs, greenhouse/nursery products, aquaculture, wild blueberries, apples and maple products (Figure 1).

The single top-grossing agricultural commodity in Maine remains the potato. Maine ranks eighth in the nation for potato production, but has only about four percent of the market share (Planning Decisions, Inc. 2003). In 2009, 55,000 acres of potatoes were planted, with the great majority (68 percent) going to value-added processing such as french fries; about 13 percent to table stock; and the remainder for seed stock, starch, and fodder (NASS 2011). Potato production takes place on more than 475 farms, most of which are located in Aroostook County. Potatoes accounted for approximately 15 percent of all crop land in Maine and, according to the 1997 Census of Agriculture, accounted for just under a quarter of all agricultural receipts generated in the state (Maine Potato Board 2009).

Maine’s second largest farm commodity sector is dairying. There are about 300 dairy farms, ranging in size from 10 to 1,700 cows, that produce nearly 600 million pounds of milk—or approximately 70 million gallons—per year (Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine 2009).

Dairy production accounts for 700,000 acres of fields and pastures throughout the state. The number of dairy farms has been in steady decline over the years, indicative of the long-term crisis in New England’s dairy industry.

Seafood constitutes the fifth largest food commodity sector in Maine. More than 60 percent of

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

FIGURE 2: Preliminary Maine Commercial Landings,

Mahogany Quahog 2% Sea Urchin Northern Shrimp 2% Groundfish 2% 3% Soft Clam 4% Seaweed 5% Atlantic Salmon (aquaculture) 6%

American Lobster 35%

Blue Mussel 7% Other Species 8% Atlantic Herring 26%

(Total: 222,619,948 as of 6/30/10) Source: Data collected jointly by Maine Department of Marine Resources and National Marine Fisheries Service.

FIGURE 3: Total Maine Food Commodity Exports,

2006–2009 (Millions of Dollars) $160

$140

$120

Millions of dollars

commercial landings in Maine are lobsters and herring, with mussels and, increasingly, farmed salmon and other fish also contributing to the catch (Figure 2).

Maine exports a number of food commodity items. Though declining relative to other export commodities, lobsters remain the largest food export from Maine by value. Several other commodities have shown a slight increase in the amount of exports they generate (Figure 3).

The current growth in interest in local Maine foods by consumers, distributors, institutions, and the commercially important tourism/restaurant sectors has been an important development for Maine agriculture.

According to Michael Norton, an official at Maine’s largest supermarket chain, “local will become the way.

Sourcing closer is good because it cuts transportation costs, but ultimately Hannaford chooses based on quality because that’s what consumers want” (personal communication, 2010). Mike Balzinelli, another supermarket executive, pointed out that “10 years ago we would do truckloads of corn out of Florida and Georgia; now the vast majority is local corn. Why? Local farms are working more with what merchandisers are looking for. They’re willing to grow what they know we’ll buy. Initially we asked farmers what they had to offer at the beginning of the season; now we talk ahead for the next season, about what to grow. Many local farmers sell to us year after year” (personal communication, 2010). Further, there has also been strong growth among Maine’s local organic producers, many of whom are small and seek to fill particular niches in the market. One recent Maine Department of Agriculture study notes that, “Maine is a regional leader in organic production and has the potential for substantial growth both within the State and throughout the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic region” (Maine Department of Agriculture 2008: 8). Table 2 shows that over the last several years growth in this sector has been substantial.

As significant as the farm sector is to the state of Maine, it accounted for only 13 percent of the total $3.35 billion in annual economic activity generated by the entire Maine food system in the 1990s. Both food retailing and food processing were far larger portions of the economic activity generated by the food system than farming (Grandee 2002). Since then, the farm portion of the overall Maine food system has continued

by Live Pounds, 2009

$100

Lobsters Farmed salmon Potatoes

$80

Chicken Molluscs $60

Cranberries

$40

$20

$0

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2006

2007

2008

2009

Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2009)

Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 23

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

TABLE 2: Maine Organic Agriculture

Number of certified operations Crops (acres) Pasture and rangeland (acres) Total acres

2006

2007

2008

319

351

635

34,675

32,854

40,737

5,262

6,286

8,247

39,937

39,140

48,984

Source: USDA ERS (2010a)

to decline as a percentage of the total. This is consistent with farm income statistics across the nation. As former Maine agricultural commissioner Stewart Smith has remarked, “this system also results in farmers being increasingly trivialized within the food and agricultural system” (2000: 1). (For additional discussion of the economic impact of Maine’s food system, see the article

by Gabe, McConnon and Kersbergen, this issue.)

FOOD PROCESSING IN MAINE

W

hen raw agricultural or fishery commodities are turned into end-products they are said to be processed. Processing is a value-added activity and occurs when, for example, grains are transformed into flour and bread, or raw lobster is turned into lobster carpaccio as Shucks Maine Lobster does. At one time, especially as it relates to vegetable and fruit canning, Maine had a robust processing sector. But that sector has declined sharply, with only two major canneries in operation, B&M Beans and Looks Gourmet Foods. As the study A Food Policy for the State of Maine has concluded, “the deterioration of Maine’s food processing infrastructure both for agricultural and marine products over the past twenty years has reduced our ability to add value to local foods” (Maine Department of Agriculture 2006: 9). And a recent report devoted to strengthening the once highly significant poultry industry concludes “the lack of available poultry processing appears to be the most significant barrier for Maine’s poultry producers” (PolicyEdge 2011: 2).

Perhaps the most contemporary example of this decline was the closing of the Stinson Seafood Plant in Prospect Harbor in the spring of 2010, the last sardine cannery in the United States. Approximately 130 jobs were lost when the plant closed. According to an article

by David Sharp in the February 19, 2011, Portland 24 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Press Herald, Live Lobster of Chelsea, Massachusetts, has purchased the plant from Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, with plans to process lobster once the plant has been renovated. Generally speaking seafood processing continues to be a small segment of the larger live seafood industry, though Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine Lobster and Sea Hag Seafood of St. George are two examples of firms seeking to process and market valueadded lobster products (Schmitt 2009; Davis 2011).

The lobster industry “offers tremendous potential for a high-value business,” assuming that the appropriate investments in management, innovation and marketing are made (Moseley Group 2009: 23).

The decline in Maine’s food-processing infrastructure is the result of many factors, but generally speaking, as food processing has become more industrialized and concentrated, local capacity has declined.

The Maine Department of Agriculture licenses some 3,000 processing businesses (Maine Department of Agriculture 2008). In terms of sales, some of the largest-grossing processors in Maine are Stonewall Kitchen, Morse’s Sauerkraut & European Deli, and Cherryfield Foods. Among the largest processors in terms of employment are McCain Foods, B&M Foods, Jasper Wyman & Son, and Cherryfield Foods. In the area of animal slaughtering and processing, Pineland Farms is the largest both in terms of sales and employment, followed by Noon Family Sheep Farm, and Angostura International.

The dairy and creamery industry has four major Maine processors along with a number of smaller ones that produce ice cream and specialty cheeses (Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine 2009). According to an article

by Sharon K. Mack in the March 1, 2009, Bangor Daily News, HP Hood, one of the larger processors of Maine organic milk under the label of Stonyfield Organic Milk, dropped some suppliers in northern and eastern Maine due to a perceived oversupply of raw milk. These 10 organic dairy farms joined with the Maine Farm Bureau and Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) to establish Maine’s Own Organic Milk Company (MOO Milk), a unique company also supported by the Maine Department of Agriculture. The milk is processed at Smiling Hill Farm, and distributed by Oakhurst Dairy and Crown

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

TABLE 3: Licensed Food Processors in Maine

Total Home Processor

641

Commercial Food Processor

490

Maple Syrup

257

Beverage Plant

226

Bakery

179

Cider /Juice Plant

36

Slaughterhouse

19

Food Salvage (Processor, Retail, Broker)

10

Custom Meat Processor

6

Food Salvage

4

Commercial Meat Processor

4

Smokehouse

1

Source: Maine Department of Agriculture, Division of Quality Assurance and Regulation

O’ Maine. The mission of the company is to ensure that organic farmers receive an equitable price for their milk, in part by keeping them part-owners of the firm (www.moomilkco.com). Hood’s initial dropping of the organic producers may well be indicative of a current softening in the organic milk market, which according to one recent study “has become a haven for smaller family-operated farms that could not, or would not, continue getting bigger” (Dalton et al. 2008: 19).

The one bright spot in Maine’s value-added food processing lies in the area of potatoes, where McCain Food, Penobscot Frozen Foods, Basic American, and Frito-Lay all purchase and process potatoes within the state (Maine Department of Agriculture 2008). The concern over the dwindling infrastructure and capacity for local food processing has led the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) to initiate support for the financing of local firms in this sector (www.famemaine.com). The vast majority of the foods that are processed in Maine—better than 60 percent—are exported to domestic markets outside of the state. A 2002 study suggests that for every $1,000 spent in the processing sector, $1,698 is generated in the form of labor, supplies, and other inputs, including the commodity itself (Grandee 2002).

The list in Table 3 shows both the types of processing carried out and the number of businesses

TABLE 4: Home-based Licensed Food

engaged in a commodity’s processing. The largest single category is home-based food processors. Home-based food processing appears to be on the rise. Currently the predominant food commodities for licensed home-based processors are baked goods, jams and jellies, and fruits and vegetables. Table 4 shows the breakdown of homebased processors by type of product.

FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Processors in Maine,

by Product Type1

Product Type

No. processors

Other Types

329

Cakes Pies

293

Bread

231

Jams Jellies

128

Canned, Processed

76

Fruits, Vegetables

75

Maple Syrup

18

Fruit Juices

7

Vacuum Packed Products

5

Meat raw

4

Meat Ready to Eat

4

Crabmeat

3

Seafood Ready to Eat

3

Water

3

A

Soft Drinks 2 s Michael Rozyne, a national expert Ice 1 on food systems has put Seafood raw 1 it, food “distribution 1. Some licensed home processors are counted is everything involved several times as they produce several products. in physically getting Source: Maine Department of Agriculture, Division product in front of the of Quality Assurance and Regulation customer. The visible parts of distribution are the ones made of concrete, steel, and rubber: the trucks, warehouses, walk-in-cooler, stores, and kitchens.

The less visible component is the set of relationships and structures that govern what products move where and how, and who decides” (Rozyne 2000: 1). Maine has witnessed a substantial growth in linking farmers and consumers through direct marketing efforts, such as community-supported agriculture (CSAs), farm stands, pick-your-own operations, farmers’ markets, home deliveries, and the all-important farmer-toinstitution connection. Still the vast majority of people obtain their food at supermarkets and groceries with no direct awareness of, or connection to, where their food was produced.

The retail sector is of primary importance in understanding the food-distribution system. As of 2008, Maine had 1,325 food stores, composed of

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 25

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

FIGURE 4: Number of Retail Food Outlets, by County and Type 300

Wholesale clubs Mass merchandisers Drug stores Supermarkets Convenience stores

200

150

100

50

1,061 convenience stores, 208 supermarkets, 139 drug stores that sold some foods, 97 mass merchandisers, five wholesale food clubs, and others. Food sales through these outlets amounted to $3.74 billion (Nielsen Company 2010). In 2010, Maine’s largest retailers were Hannaford Brothers, with 51 stores and 44 percent of the market share; Walmart Supercenters, with 12 outlets and an 18 percent market share; and SuperValue/Shaws Supermarkets, with 23 stores and an 18 percent market share. The state’s 97 independently owned retailers make up much of the remaining market (Griffin Publishing Co. 2010). Figure 4 shows the distribution of food stores by county and type.

The retail food sector of the distribution system is fiercely competitive and has been characterized by a good deal of consolidation over the past several years.

Walmart, which sold little or no food two decades ago, has emerged as the single largest retailer in the nation (Lapping 2005). As noted in a January 17, 2011, New York Times article by Stephanie Clifford, other firms, such as Target, dollar stores, and several major drug store chains, are also getting into the food-retailing

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da ga

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Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2009)

26 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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business at considerable levels.

Maine also has a significant wholesale distribution sector. There are different types of wholesalers to serve different industries.

General-line wholesalers sell a wide variety of food products to retailers that lack transportation and storage capacity. General-line food service wholesalers, such as Sysco, sell both dry and perishable foods and foodstuffs to public and private institutions, such as hospitals and universities.

Supermarkets not connected to their own distribution centers and smaller grocery and convenience stores rely on wholesale distributors to supply their businesses.

Associated Grocers of Maine, headquartered in Gardiner, was one such wholesaler. A cooperative that started in 1953 with just 44 members, it grew to support more than 300 stores throughout the state. Now facing dissolution, Associated Grocers’ stores covered Maine from the Pine Tree Country Store in Kittery to St. John’s Surefine in Fort Kent. Its recent demise now threatens the existence of many small-town groceries.

As in retailing, food wholesaling has also been subject to consolidation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1997 Economic Census, in 1997 Maine had 378 wholesale traders of grocery and related products, with sales of $1.9 billion, and 18 general-line grocery wholesalers, with sales of $298 million. Ten years later, according to the 2007 Economic Census, the number of wholesale traders decreased to 296, with overall sales increasing to $2.2 billion. The number of general-line grocery wholesalers dropped to eight, though sales grew to $748 million. In 2010, the largest wholesalers in Maine were Hannaford Brothers/Distribution Center with a 46 percent market share, C&S Wholesale/ Distribution Center with a 21 percent market share, and Walmart/Distribution Center with 19 percent (Griffin Publishing Co. 2010).

Maine public institutions—schools, universities, community colleges, correctional facilities, veteran’s homes, mental health institutions, and others—rely on regional distributors, such as Sysco Systems and PFG Northcenter to meet their needs. Foodservice directors

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

often prefer working with just one or two distributors because of time constraints, food-safety concerns and other factors. The large regional distributors usually do not offer foods produced in Maine—with the exception of apples, milk, potatoes, eggs and seafood— because of concerns over supply availability, consistent packaging, and liability insurance certifications (Coburn 2004). The result is that a significant proportion of the food in Maine’s institutions is not from local producers. However, many states, including Maine, are now requiring public institutions to purchase certain percentages of their food supply from local sources. A 2004 study indicated that among the most common Maine foods consumed in the state’s institutions are fluid milk, seafood, potatoes, apples, wild blueberries, sweet corn, and other seasonal fruits and vegetables (Coburn 2004). Greater levels of institutional purchasing have the potential to change how regional distributors source their supplies and increase the amount of locally produced food in our public institutions, and the Maine diet in general.

With the rise of market demand for local organic foods, the Crown O’ Maine Organic Cooperative (COMOC) emerged in 1996. Located in North Vassalboro, COMOC is supplied by organic farms and CSAs throughout Maine and supports natural food stores, organic food markets, buying clubs, and a number of restaurants, which are generally located in tourist areas and some of the state’s larger communities (www.crownofmainecoop.com). Other Maine distributors of local foods include Farm Fresh Connection, Native Maine Produce & Specialty Foods, Luce’s Meats, Maine Farm’s Brand; Farm2Chef.com, Nova Foods, and The Turkey Farm.

Direct sales to consumers by farmers are also a growing trend in Maine. Two types of institutions are largely responsible for this: CSAs and farmers’ markets. CSAs have been described as a form of “subscription marketing” (Bliss 2003: 13). There are several varieties of CSAs so they tend to be highly idiosyncratic in nature. What is common across all CSAs is the direct relationship between the farmer and the consumer. Customers enter into a relationship with a farmer to provide up-front financial support in exchange for shares of what is produced over the course of the growing season. By buying shares, local

consumers share in the risk that farmers must absorb.

In return, shareholders are provided with a certain amount of fresh, high-quality produce, typically some or all of which might be grown organically. In a number of cases, consumers may not only provide capital for the farm operation, but may also participate in on-farm activities alongside the farmer, such as harvesting. Laura DeLind, one of the foremost students of CSAs, enumerates a number of the benefits of CSAs for farmers. These include a more secure market because the burden of risk is shared; the provision of investment capital in the farm; and access to, and connection with, consumers who appreciate the farmer’s understanding and knowledge of the land and animals on the farm. Consumers find the following benefits: access to fresh foods typically harvested the day they are distributed; education about how foods are produced and how animals are raised; understanding how commodities might be used in new ways; and an active role in a local system that builds relationships, a sense of community, and preserves farmland by supporting farmers (DeLind 2010). Some Maine CSAs offer a wide range of products, while others, such as the “Out on the Limb Apple CSA” in Palermo, specialize in many varieties of one item.3 MOFGA’s 2010 CSA directory lists more than 125 throughout the state.

After several decades of decline, farmers’ markets have grown in popularity. Nationally the number of farmers’ markets appears to have bottomed-out in 1970 at approximately 300. By 2000, aided in part by the federal Farmers-to-Consumers Direct Marketing Act of 1976 and then the WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Act of 1992, the number increased to more than 3,000 (Brown 2001, 2002). According to a news release on the USDA’s web site (www.usda.gov), by 2010 the number of farmers’ markets has exploded to more than 6,100.

Most markets are located on publicly owned land such as municipal parking lots or village greens, school premises or community centers.4 A common fixture of the summer-time townscape, increasingly markets are becoming year-round operations. Allison Brown’s research on farmers’ markets across the nation finds that they have some common characteristics. These include increasing linkage of farmers’ markets with an urban population; high levels of repeat patronage by

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 27

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

consumers; patronage by those who live in or near communities with established markets; overwhelming participation by small-scale farmers who report that sales constitute a significant share of agricultural revenue; prices close to or slightly above those found in nearby supermarkets; substantial spillovers to local businesses from patrons of farmers’ markets; and the overwhelming importance noted by patrons on direct social interaction with producers (Brown 2002).

The growth in the number of farmers’ markets nationally is mirrored in Maine. In 2004, there were just 50 farmers’ markets in Maine; by 2011, the number was almost double (www.mofga.org). A number of established farmers’ markets, perhaps as many as 25, have added winter markets, and nearly all have expanded the variety of foods they offer to include meat products, grains, fish and other seafood. Aided by the Maine Department of Agriculture, MOFGA, the Maine Farmland Trust, and the By Land and By Sea project of the Eat Local Foods Coalition, participation in farmers’ markets has been growing across the state. According to Lisa Fernandes, the Eat Local Foods Coalition has also been helping to develop a Maine food map and supporting Internet sales and buying clubs to stimulate more options for accessing local Maine food products (personal communication, 2010). Taken together, these and other efforts aim to shorten food-supply chains as a means to providing greater access to local food, higher incomes for participating farmers, and stimulating economic development (Otto and Varner 2005; Martinez et al. 2010).

The growth in the number of farmers’ markets nationally is mirrored in Maine.

In 2004, there were just 50 farmers’ markets in Maine; by 2011, the number was almost double….

28 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

AN ALTERNATIVE FOODDISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

F

or Maine people who experience food insecurity or who would be food insecure were it not for a combination of federal, state, and local governmental programs and nonprofit agencies, an alternative food-distribution system has developed over time.

According to the USDA Economic Research Service web site (www.ers.usda.gov), food security means that all members of a household can access foods, at all times, for an active, healthy life. Food security includes at a minimum two elements: (1) the ready availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and (2) the assured ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways (i.e., without resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing or other coping strategies). Food insecurity, on the other hand, means that a household’s members are limited or uncertain about the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or are limited or uncertain in their ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.5 The system that has emerged to respond to food insecurity is often referred to as the “emergency food system”; it is largely hidden as is the hunger crisis it reflects.

In 2008, the USDA ranked Maine as the ninth most food-insecure state in the nation. The state’s ranking has grown worse over the past several decades (Nord et al. 2010).6 While there are a number of federally supported food and nutrition programs, the three largest are the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as the Food Stamp Program, the National School Lunch Program, and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). Participation rates in these programs by Mainers have grown over the years.

WIC, which is essentially a nutritional supplement program, is targeted to individual needs. Since 2008, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has reported that the number of Maine families depending on SNAP has grown by 30 percent (gateway.maine.gov/‌dhhs-apps/‌dashboard/). Indeed, the state has the nation’s highest rate of participation in SNAP (Karen L Curtis, personal communication, 2011). The previously noted DHHS web site shows

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

FIGURE 5: Food Supplement Program Annual Monthly Average

Number of Cases, SFY 2006–2010

120,000

that in 2010 monthly participation in the program in Maine approached 27,000 partici100,000 pants. Figure 5 shows the growth in participation in the SNAP/Food Stamp Program in Maine since 2006.

80,000 Closely tied to these programs are the state’s many community food pantries. The majority of 60,000 these locally sponsored institutions are supplied by private and corporate donations and foods provided through the Good Shepherd Food40,000 Bank, headquartered in Auburn. One of the earliest food banks in the country, Good Shepherd was founded in 1981 by JoAnn and 20,000 Ray Pike and operated out of their apartment (Poppendieck 1998). Good Shepherd operates a 0 network that includes more than 600 local pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, youth programs, and other facilities stretching across the entire state. They distribute approximately 12 million pounds of food annually to Maine people (Mabli et al. 2010). While depending largely on donations, Good Shepherd’s Maine Farm, Dairy, and Seafood Initiative purchased more than 300,000 pounds of fresh produce in 2010 for distribution to its member pantries, thereby increasing the amount of these commodities available to their clientele. Food insecurity and programs to address it are discussed in more detail in this issue in the articles by Schumacher, Nischan and Simon, who provide an extensive review of federal programs, and Yellen, Swann and Schmidt, who look at the Maine picture.

Although food insecurity is fundamentally an issue of income and poverty, it also has spatial roots and implications. The concept of a “food desert” has emerged to help explain the relationship between incomes and place. A food desert is a place where residents have poor access to abundant, high-quality, fresh, and healthy foods (USDA ERS 2009). Food deserts may be urban or rural. An area within a city where access to healthy foods requires a walk of more than half a mile or a rural location that demands travel of 10 miles or more are considered deserts (Kaufman 1999; Larsen and Gilliland 2008; Sharkey 2009). A recent study of Cumberland County did not find such “deserts,” but in urban Portland and in several of the county’s outlying rural towns, areas of significant food

113,230 97,500 83,120

82,870

2006

2007

87,220

2008

2009

2010

Source: Maine Department of Health and Human Services

insecurity exist (Campaign to Promote Food Security 2010). Another assessment of rural Maine suggests that a perceived lack of access to a supermarket cannot necessarily be conflated to mean a lack of access to fresh and healthy foods (Hubley 2011). Nevertheless, rural Maine residents who lack access to predictable and reliable transportation face significant hurdles in acquiring fresh and healthy foods (Ver Ploeg 2010). Currently no accurate statewide assessment of food deserts exists.

FOOD WASTE

T

he amount of food that is wasted worldwide is staggering, perhaps as high as 40 percent (Godfray et al. 2010). Unlike the situation in developing countries, where most waste occurs on the farm, in transport, or in processing, food waste in countries such as the United States takes place at the foodservice and consumer levels. According to a news release from 2004 from the web site foodproductiondaily.com, a study conducted by the University of Arizona suggests that as much as one-half of all food in the U.S. goes to waste. No accurate picture exists of food waste in Maine.

Though much of Maine’s waste is disposed of in landfills, the Maine State Planning Office and other

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 29

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

agencies seek to diminish the amount of waste by encouraging a number of waste-to-resource programs.

For example, on-farm waste reduction occurs within the context of nutrient management planning (NMP), which is mandatory on many animal-based farms. It deals largely with manure handling and other residuals.

In the processing sector, waste fry oil is increasingly being recycled and turned into biodiesel fuels that can be used in heating and cooling systems. For example, according to an article by J. Hemmerdinger in the December 12, 2010, Portland Press Herald, Barber Foods of Portland ships used fryer oil to Maine Standard Biofuels, which converts the liquid into biodiesel and returns it to Barber to burn for heat in the winter. By far, the food waste that is most conspicuous, however, is the food itself, both that left in the fields and that which is disposed of in garbage.

As the subject of public policy, the Maine food system has largely been ignored.

We have segmented it, rather than seeing it as an integrated and cohesive whole….

Gleaning is an activity that reaches back to biblical times and perhaps beyond. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension operates the major gleaning program in the state. Through its Master Gardener program and the Maine Harvest for Hunger Initiative, volunteers glean commercial fields and community and home gardens. Started in 2000, the effort occurs in 15 counties of Maine and almost a million pounds of produce have been “rescued” and contributed to local pantries and soup kitchens (Barbara Murphy, personal communication, 2010). Whether damaged, of less than market grade, or simply left in the fields because of a market glut, the amount of food potentially available for gleaning remains huge, perhaps as a consequence of the logistical, labor, insurance, handling, transportation, and storage issues involved.

Composting represents the most common form of turning food waste into environmentally sound and 30 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

useful materials, especially as an amendment to build soil fertility and quality. According to Mark Hutchinson of UMaine Cooperative Extension, the demand for high-quality compost is strong throughout Maine and some local firms export compost throughout the country (personal communication, 2010). The University of Maine Cooperative Extension, in cooperation with the Maine Department of Agriculture, the Maine State Planning Office, and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, operates the Maine Compost School located at the Highmoor Farm in Monmouth. Here workshops and short-courses are offered and research is conducted that support communities, farms, and firms with their organic wastemanagement operations. Through its certification program, the Maine Compost School has helped to create the infrastructure of a new industry based upon solving an important environmental problem while also helping to create new economic opportunities.

A case in point is provided by the experience of the Harraseeket Inn in Freeport, which has an extensive composting program. “The inn was producing 40 cubic yards of waste a week—and paying someone hundreds of dollars each month to haul it away.” Now “what started as a cost-cutting measure for the inn has blossomed into a closed-loop system: Food scraps are collected on-site and trucked to a local farm. There, they are turned into compost, which the farmer then applies to the fields where produce for the tavern is grown. Today the inn produces less than 8 cubic yards of waste a week, saves hundreds of dollars—and, in some ways, the environment” (Andresen 2009: 3). As the composting industry grows and matures and new firms are established—such as Organic Alchemy Composting of Portland, which works with the local restaurant and institutional sectors—the potential exists to remove even more food from the overall Maine waste stream exists.

CONCLUSION

M

aine’s consumers have a vast array of food choices from all over the world, and we take advantage of them. From prepackaged and processed snacks and meals at grocery and convenience stores, to small-scale and locally grown organic vegetables

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

and meats at farmers’ markets and CSAs, the variety is virtually endless. Yet while we know a great deal about the availability and scale of these goods, and we have data on the nutritional status of a few specific sectors of the state’s population, overall we know little about the details of what Mainers are eating and why they consume what they do. Our food culture—where and how foodstuffs are sourced, how and by whom meals are prepared, and what ritual or ideals surround the consumption of our meals— remain relatively unstudied for the wider population of Maine. Likewise, we are coming to recognize that not everyone in Maine has access to the same choices that most Maine people have in their foods.

As the subject of public policy, the Maine food system has largely been ignored. We have segmented it, rather than seeing it as an integrated and cohesive whole, a “system.” The consequence is that various federal and state agencies have ownership over pieces of the food system, which leaves us with a highly fragmented, largely uncoordinated approach to one of life’s most basic needs. Were the independent truckers’ strike of 1979 to repeat itself, or another serious disruption occur, we would find ourselves in much the same place as before. And that is not an enviable position to be in. -

ENDNOTES 1. Unless otherwise noted the information in this historical section draws from Russell (1976), Day (1954, 1963), and Stavely and Fitzgerald (2004).

2. A “farm” is defined by the USDA as “any place from which $1,000 or more of agricultural products were produced and sold, or normally would have been sold, during the census year” (USDA NASS 2009: viii).

3. The recently established Port Clyde Fresh Catch enterprise indicates that the CSA model has been extended beyond agriculture to include a fisherybased program.

5. The definition used by the USDA essentially derives from Anderson (1990).

6. It is important to note that different agencies employ different statistical sampling methods that have led to some discrepancies in the size of households termed “food insecure.”

REFERENCES Anderson, Sue Ann (ed.). 1990. “Core Indicators of Nutritional State for Difficult-to-Sample Populations.” Journal of Nutrition 120: 1557–1600.

Andresen, Kristen. 2009. “Pay Dirt.” UMaine Today (May/‌June). http://umainetoday.umaine.edu/pastissues/volume-9-issue-3/article-1/ [Accessed April 20, 2011] Bliss, John. 2003. “Journeyperson Program: Helping New Farmers Learn and Network.” Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener 30(2): 13.

Brown, Allison. 2001. “Counting Farmers Markets.”

Geographical Review 91(4): 655–674.

Brown, Allison. 2002. “Farmers’ Markets Research, 1940–2000: An Inventory and Review.” American Journal of Alternative Agriculture 17(4): 167–176.

Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2010. Consumer Expenditure Survey. http://www.bls.gov/‌cex/ [Accessed April 18, 2011] Campaign to Promote Food Security in Cumberland County. 2010. Coalition Report, 2010. Campaign to Promote Food Security, Portland, ME. Coburn, K. M. 2004. Institutional Food Purchasing.

A Report to the Joint Standing Committee on Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry, Second Regular Session of the 121st Maine Legislature, Augusta.

Dalton, Timothy J., Robert Parsons, Richard Kersbergen, Glenn Rogers, Dennis Kauppila, Lisa McCrory, Lisa A. Bragg and Qingbin Wang. 2008.

A Comparative Analysis of Organic Dairy Farms in Maine and Vermont: Farm Financial Information from 2004 to 2006. Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station Bulletin 851.

4. For a listing of Maine’s farmers’ markets, see www. farmersmarketonline.com/fm/maine.htm or www. getrealmaine.com.

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Davis, Georgeanne. 2011. “New Lobster Processing Facility in St. George.” The Free Press (January 27): 1–2.

Lapping, Mark B. 2005. “Toward the Recovery of the Local in the Globalizing Food System.” Ethics, Place and Environment 7(3): 141–150.

Day, Clarence A. 1954. A History of Maine Agriculture, 1604–1860. University of Maine Studies, Second Series No. 68.

Larsen, Kristian and Jason Gilliland. 2008. “Mapping the Evolution of ‘Food Deserts’ in a Canadian City: Supermarket Accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961–2005.” International Journal of Health Geographics 7(16).

Day, Clarence A. 1963. Farming in Maine, 1869–1940.

University of Maine Studies, Second Series No. 78.

DeLind, Laura. 2010. “The ABCs of CSAs.” Paper presented at Nourishing Traditions Conference, Detroit, MI. Frederic, Paul B. 2002. Canning Gold: Northern New England’s Sweet Corn Industry: A Historical Geography. University Press of America, Lanham, MD. Gabe, Todd, James C. McConnon Jr. and Richard Kersbergen. 2011. “Economic Contribution of Maine’s Food Industry.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 36–45.

Godfray, H. Charles J., John R. Beddington, Ian R. Crute, Lawrence Haddad, David Lawrence, James F. Muir, Jules Pretty, Sherman Robinson, Sandy Thomas and Camilla Toulmin. 2010. “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” Science 327: 812–818.

Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine. 2009. 2009 Dairy Task Force Final Report. Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, Augusta.

Grandee, Jesse E. 2002. Economic Impact of the Maine Food System and Farm Vitality Policy Implications.

Office of Policy and Legal Analysis, Maine State Legislature, Augusta.

Griffin Publishing Co. 2010. Griffin Report of Food Marketing 44(10).

Hubley, Teresa A. 2011. “Assessing the Proximity of Healthy Food Options and Food Deserts in a Rural Area of Maine.” Applied Geography. 31: 1224–1231.

Kaufman, Phil R. 1999. “Rural Poor Have Less Access to Supermarkets, Large Grocery Stores.” Rural Development Perspectives 13(3): 19–26.

Lacy, William B. 2000. “Empowering Communities through Public Work, Science, and Local Food Systems.” Rural Sociology 65(19): 3–26.

32 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. 2006. A Food Policy for the State of Maine. Maine Department of Agriculture, Augusta.

Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. 2008. The Agricultural Creative Economy: Needs, Opportunities, and Market Analysis. Maine Department of Agriculture, Augusta.

Maine Potato Board. 2009. Maine Potatoes: A Review of the Industry. Maine Potato Board, Presque Isle.

Mabli, James, Rhoda Cohen, Frank Potter and Zhanyun Zhao. 2010. Hunger in America, 2010: National Report Prepared for Feeding America. Feeding America, Washington, DC. Martinez, Steve, Michael Hand, Michelle Da Pra, Susan Pollack, Katherine Ralston, Travis Smith, Stephen Vogel, Shellye Clark, Luanne Lohr, Sarah Low and Constance Newman. 2010. Local Food Systems: Concepts, Impacts, and Issues. ERR-97, USDA Economic Research Service. http://www.ers.usda. gov/Publications/ERR97/ERR97.pdf [Accessed May 15, 2011] Moseley Group. 2009. Maine Lobster Industry Strategic Plan. Prepared on behalf of the Governor’s Task Force on the Economic Sustainability of Maine’s Lobster Industry Maine Department of Marine Resources, Augusta.

New England Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS).

2011. Maine Potatoes, 2010 Crop, Acreage, Yield, Size, and Grade. NASS, USDA, Concord, NH. Nielsen Company. 2010. Nielsen Company Marketing Guidebook. Nielsen Company, New York.

Nord, Mark, Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Margaret Andrews and Steven Carlson. 2010. Household Food Security in the United States. ERR-108, USDA, Economic Research Service. http://www.ers.usda. gov/Publications/ERR108/ERR108.pdf [Accessed May 15, 2011]

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MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

Otto, Daniel and Theresa Varner. 2005. Consumers, Vendors, and the Economic Importance of Iowa Farmers’ Markets: An Economic Impact Survey Analysis. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Iowa State University, Ames.

Planning Decisions, Inc. 2003. A Study of the Maine Potato Industry: Its Economic Impact. Maine Potato Board, Presque Isle.

PolicyEdge. 2011. Poultry Processing Needs in Maine.

Report to the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. PolicyEdge, Portland, ME. http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/attach. php?id=216851&an=1 [Accessed May 15, 2001] Poppendieck, Janet. 1998. Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement. Penguin Books, New York.

Rozyne, Michael. 2000. Distribution—The Forgotten P. Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, Belchertown, MA. Russell, Howard. 1976. A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH. Schmitt, Catherine. 2009. “Maine’s Seafood Industry: From the Outside Looking In.” Maine Food and Lifestyle 2: 56–58.

Schumacher, Gus, Michel Nischan and Daniel Bowman Simon. 2011. “Healthy Food Access and Affordability: ‘We Can Pay the Farmer or We Can Pay the Hospital.’” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 124–139.

Sharkey, Joseph R. 2009. “Measuring Potential Access to Food Stores and Food-Service Places in Rural Areas in the U.S.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 36(4 Suppl): S151–155.

U.S. Census. 1940. Census of 1940, Statistics of Maine.

U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC. U.S. Census Bureau. 2009. Foreign Trade: State Exports for Maine. http://www.census.gov/‌foreigntrade/‌statistics/‌state/‌data/‌me.html [Accessed April 20, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). 1941. Family Food Consumption and Dietary Levels. Consumer Purchase Study, Farm Series. USDA Miscellaneous Publication 405.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS). 2002. Maine Farm and FarmRelated Employment, 2002. Data set: http://www. ers.usda.gov/Data/FarmandRelatedEmployment/ ViewData.asp?GeoAreaPick=STAME_ Maine&YearPick=2002 [Accessed April 20, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS). 2009. Access to Affordable and Nutritious Foods: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences: A Report to Congress. USDA ERS, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS). 2010a. State Fact Sheets: Maine. http://www.ers.usda.gov/‌statefacts/‌ME. htm#TCEC [Accessed April 20, 2011] U.S. Department. of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS). 2010b. Maine Leading Commodities for Cash Receipts, 2009. Excel Spreadsheet. http://www.ers.usda.gov/Data/ FarmIncome/receipts/Rankings/States/Rk2009ME. xls [Accessed April 20, 2011]

Smith, Stewart N. 2000. Niche vs. Mainstream Markets: The Role of Industrialization in the Agricultural Production Sector. Northeast Sustainability Agriculture Working Group, Belchertown, MA.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS). 2009. 2007 Census of Agriculture Maine State and County Data. USDA, NASS, Washington, DC. http://www.agcensus. usda.gov/‌Publications/‌2007/‌Full_Report/‌Volume_1,_ Chapter_1_State_Level/‌Maine/‌mev1.pdf [Accessed April 20, 2011]

Stavely, Keith and Kathleen Fitzgerald. 2004. America’s Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill.

U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Small Business. 1979. Independent Truckers and the Fuel Crisis: Hearings of the Subcommittee on Energy, Environment, Safety and Research. 96th Cong.

U.S. Census. 1850. Census of 1850, Statistics of Maine.

U.S. Department of the Interior, Washington, DC.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 33

MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM

Hedda Steinhoff is completing her master’s

Ver Ploeg, Michele 2010. “Access to Affordable, Nutritious Food is “Limited in ‘Food Deserts.’”

Amber Waves 8(1): 20–27. http://www.ers.usda. gov/‌amberwaves/‌march10/‌features/‌FoodDeserts. htm [Accessed April 20, 2011]

degree in community planning and development at the Muskie School of Public Service, University

Yellen, Donna, Mark Swann and Elena Schmidt. 2011.

“Hunger in Maine.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 140-150.

of Southern Maine, with a focus on food-systems planning. In her capacity as a graduate assistant, she is working with the Maine Nutrition Network on a number of projects related to food and nutri-

Diana “Robin” Beck is

tion throughout the state.

a graduate of Indiana University and received her master’s degree in community planning and development in May 2011 from the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service. Her graduate program emphasis was on land and environmental planning.

Daniel Wallace, a graduate of Williams College, is a master’s degree candidate in community planning and development in the Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine, where he is pursuing his interest in foodsystems planning.

Nikkilee Carleton, an honors graduate of the University of Southern Maine, is a master’s degree candidate in community planning and development in the Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine. Her research interests include agrarian and land-use history and how traditional and indigenous practices can inform the planning of sustainable rural communities.

Mark B. Lapping is the distinguished university professor and executive director of the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine. Previously Lapping served as the university’s provost/VPAA from 1994 to 2000 and again from 2005 to 2007.

34 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 35

ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

Economic Contribution of Maine’s Food Industry

by Todd Gabe James C. McConnon Jr. Richard Kersbergen

Using existing state and federal data and Maine IMPLAN, a state-of-the-art economic modeling system, Todd Gabe, James C. McConnon Jr. and Richard Kersbergen crunch the numbers to present an overview of the economic contributions of Maine’s food industry. This includes food makers (farms, fisheries, food-processing companies) and food sellers (grocery stores, direct sales, restaurants).

Each play a unique, but interconnected, role in the Maine economy and add up to significant economic impact.

36 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011



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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

New …economic quote here... contriINTRODUCTION

F

ood is one of life’s basic necessities and, as such, people devote a large share of their budget on groceries and dining out. According to the Consumer Expenditure Survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical U.S. household spent $3,753 on groceries and $2,619 on food away from home in 2009.1 This spending by U.S. households, along with expenditures made by businesses and foreign visitors, supported 10.1 million and 3.0 million jobs in the “food services and drinking places” and “food and beverage stores” industries, respectively.2 The combined employment in these two sectors accounted for about nine percent of total private, nonfarm U.S. employment in 2009. Clearly, the food industry is a significant part of the U.S. economy.

The food industry, however, is more than just grocery stores and restaurants, that is, businesses that sell food. Food processors are a relatively large part of the U.S. manufacturing industry. In 2009, U.S. food manufacturers employed 1.5 million people, which accounted for 12 percent of all manufacturing employment in the United States.3 The food-manufacturing sector also contributed $189.5 billion to U.S. Gross Domestic Product in 2008. Yet, with these impressive statistics for food sellers and processors, the backbone of the U.S. food industry is the farming and fishing sectors. According to the most recent U.S. Census of Agriculture, there were 2.2 million farms operating in the United States as of 2007.4 These farms occupied 922 million acres, which is about 41 percent of the total U.S. land area. In 2007, U.S. farms generated $297 billion worth of food and other agricultural products.

According to U.S. Census data from 2008, fisheries provided employment (or self-employment opportunities) to 70,837 workers nationwide.5 U.S. fisheries generated about $3.9 billion in revenue in 2009.6 In this article, we examine the economic contribution of Maine’s food industry. By economic contribution, we mean the sales revenue, employment, and labor income associated with food products produced, manufactured, served, or sold in Maine. Our definition of the food industry includes farms and fisheries that grow, raise, or catch food products; food-processing companies; restaurants; and grocery stores. Our analysis

starts by looking at the linkages bution…[means] between Maine’s farms and fisheries and food processors. These the sales revenue, components of the overall sector are referred to as “food makers.” employment, and As a separate analysis, we look at the economic contribution labor income of Maine’s grocery stores and restaurants. These two compoassociated with nents of the industry are referred to as “food sellers.” We conclude food products with a discussion of how the food industry, examined within produced, manuthe context of the economic base model of regional growth, is factured, served, both a “driver” and “supporter” of economic activity in the state. or sold in Maine.

Before proceeding with the analysis, we note that our results are based on secondary data from a variety of federal and state government sources. These figures allow us to provide a broad overview of the food sector in Maine, but more detailed information collected through surveys or other methods of primary data collection would be needed to understand some of the nuances of the food sector and its value chain. Future research, beyond the scope of the current study, can provide information about specific segments of the food sector and other aspects of this important industry.

ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD MAKERS

F

igure 1 provides a simple illustration of the economic contribution of Maine’s food producers and processors. The arrows pointing up and away from food processors and producers represent sales of processed and unprocessed food products and raw food products that are shipped to out-of-state processors (e.g., lobsters that are processed in Canada). The arrow pointing from food producers to processors represents sales of raw food products from Maine’s farms and fisheries to food manufacturers operating in the state. Finally, the arrows connecting food processors and producers to the rest of the Maine economy

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

FIGURE 1: Linkages between Maine’s Food Makers

Sales of Processed and Unprocessed Food Products $2.2 billion Food Processors

$545 million

$365 million

Food Producers

$1.9 billion Balance of Maine Economy

TABLE 1:

Value of Food Agricultural Sales in Maine, 2007

Commodity Group Grains, Oilseeds, Dry Beans and Dry Peas Vegetables, Melons, Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes

Market Value of Products Sold ($) 9,146,000 155,147,000

Fruits, Tree Nuts and Berries

85,183,000

Poultry and Eggs

75,831,000

Cattle and Calves Milk and Other Dairy Products from Cows Hogs and Pigs

15,660,000 126,392,000 813,000

Sheep, Goats and Their Products Total

1,979,000 470,151,000

Source: 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture

represent the backward linkages (i.e., purchased inputs and services) between Maine’s food makers and other industrial sectors.

According to the 2009 Maine IMPLAN model, a state-of-the-art input-output economic-modeling system developed by the U.S. Forest Service, food manufacturers in the state generated $2.2 billion in sales revenue. The IMPLAN model, which traces the flows of expenditures between economic sectors, shows that 38 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Maine’s food processors purchased $365 million of food products from Maine farms and fisheries. In addition, food producers sell their products directly to consumers through a variety of marketing channels. To estimate the sales volume of agricultural and fisheries food products that are not processed in Maine, we subtracted the $365 million in purchased raw food products by in-state food processors, estimated by the Maine IMPLAN model, from the total sales volume of farms and fisheries that grow, raise, or catch food products.

Table 1 shows the value of agricultural sales in Maine for selected commodity groups from the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture. These commodities were chosen—and not the entire sales value of all Maine agricultural products—because of their close connection to food products. The largest commodity groups in Maine, in terms of value of products sold, are vegetables (e.g., potatoes), dairy (e.g., milk) and fruits (e.g., blueberries and apples).

Table 2 presents information on the value of selected fisheries landings in the state, estimated using data collected by the Maine Department of Marine Resources and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

These figures, which are preliminary 2010 “ex-vessel values” as of early 2011, show that the largest fisheries (including aquaculture) in Maine are lobsters, salmon, shrimp, and clams. The total sales volume of the food producers shown in Tables 1 and 2 equaled $919 million, which—after accounting for estimated sales in the amount of $365 million to Maine food processors—suggests that farmers and fisheries in Maine sell about $554 million in food products directly to consumers or to processors located outside of the state.

Table 3 summarizes the statewide economic contribution of Maine’s food makers. We find that, including multiplier effects, food producers and processors in Maine have a total statewide economic contribution of $5.0 billion in sales revenue, 37,569 full- and part-time jobs, and $1.1 billion in labor income. The direct output of $2.8 billion is the sales revenue generated by food manufacturers (i.e., $2.2 billion) along with the value of food products from Maine farms and fisheries that are not further processed in the state (i.e., $554 million). In other words, it is the estimated market value of processed and unprocessed food products that are manufactured, grown, raised, or caught in

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

TABLE 2:

Maine. The $2.2 billion in sales revenue to the foodprocessing sector is associated with 6,341 jobs in Maine food manufacturers and $241 million in labor income.7 The $554 million worth of food products that are grown, raised, or caught in Maine, but not processed in the state, is associated with 10,716 jobs on Maine farms and fisheries and $225 million in labor income.8 The direct employment of 17,057 full- and parttime jobs shown in Table 3 is a combination of employment in Maine’s food processors (i.e., 6,341 jobs) and the portion of the fisheries’ jobs and foodrelated employment on Maine’s farms (i.e., 10,716 jobs) that is associated with products that are not processed in the state. Likewise the direct labor-income figure of $466 million is made up of earnings in the food-processing sector (i.e., $241 million) and the portion of labor income (i.e., $225 million) that is associated with the $554 million in food products that are not processed in Maine. The multiplier effects shown in Table 3 are the sales revenue, employment, and labor income that are supported by the purchases of Maine’s food processors and producers. As shown in Figure 1, a significant portion—about 16 percent— of the output multiplier effects of $2.3 billion is made up of $365 million in sales among food makers. The remaining $1.9 billion represents the purchases made by food processing companies and their employees and the expenditures made by Maine’s farms and fisheries and their workers.

Just as the sales of food producers to food manufacturers in the state account for a sizable amount of the sales-revenue-multiplier effects shown in Table 3, full- and part-time workers on Maine’s farms and fisheries make up a significant share of the employmentmultiplier effects. Table 4 illustrates how we accounted for the employment of food agricultural producers, fisheries harvesters, and food processors in the economic-impact analysis. The total employment of 25,129 shown in Table 4 includes the full- and parttime workers in the food-manufacturing sector, along with the number of people, including the proprietor, working on farms and in harvesting fish—both food and non-food related—in Maine. We adjusted this total employment figure to avoid double-counting food-production workers accounted for in the multiplier effects—again, food processors purchased an

Value of Fisheries Landings in Maine, 2010 (preliminary figures as of February 17, 2011)

Fishery

Ex-Vessel Value of Products Sold ($)

Lobster

309,626,512

Salmon

76,284,793

Shrimp

13,460,022

Clam

13,460,022

Other

35,902,727

Total

448,734,076

Source: Values based on data collected by Maine Department of Marine Resources and National Marine Fisheries Service.

TABLE 3:

Economic Contribution of Maine’s Food Makers

Sales Revenue

Direct Impact

Multiplier Effects

Total Impact

$2,754,420,900

$2,269,488,543

$5,023,909,443

Employment Labor Income

17,057

20,513

37,569

$465,587,635

$629,118,897

$1,094,706,532

Note: Multiplier effects are estimated using the Maine IMPLAN model.

TABLE 4:

Maine Food Makers Employment

Farm Employment

10,025

Fish-Harvesting Sector Employment

8,763

Food-Processor Employment

6,341

Total Employment

25,129

Adjustment to Avoid Double-Counting and to Remove Non-Food Farm Employment

(8,072)

Direct Employment in Table 3

17,057

Sources: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Census Bureau, NOAA Fisheries Service, Maine IMPLAN model, and authors’ calculations

estimated $365 million worth of food products from Maine farms and fisheries, which supported a significant number of jobs—and to remove non-food-related farm workers. After making these adjustments, we arrived at the employment figure of 17,057 full- and part-time workers that represent the direct employment of food makers in Maine.

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

Table 5:

IMPLAN Multipliers for Selected Maine Industries Sales Revenue Multiplier

Sector

Employment Income Multiplier Multiplier

Crop Farming

1.80

1.74

1.63

Livestock

1.77

1.35

2.60

Fishing, Hunting and Trapping

1.60

1.18

1.43

Food Products Manufacturing

1.87

3.73

3.15

Food Maker Multiplier Estimated in Study

1.82

2.20

2.35

Sources: Maine IMPLAN Model and authors’ calculations

TABLE 6:

New England Farm Employment and Sales Data Number of Farms*

Total Farm Employment

Value of Agricultural Products Sold ($MM)*

Connecticut

4,916

8,416

$551.5

Maine

8,136

10,025

$617.2

Massachusetts

7,691

10,092

$489.8

New Hampshire

4,166

5,050

$199.1

Rhode Island

1,219

1,419

$65.9

Vermont

6,984

8,472

$673.7

State

*Number of farms and value of products sold include food and non-food agricultural enterprises.

Sources: Information on number of farms and value of agricultural products sold is from the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture. Farm employment figures are from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (2009).

Economic-impact multipliers are a measure of the extent to which a one-unit increase in a direct impact— say, a one-dollar increase in sales output or a oneperson increase in employment—leads to an increase in total economic activity. For example, the output multiplier of 1.82 ($5.0 billion in total sales divided by $2.75 billion in direct sales) suggests that every $1.00 in revenue to Maine’s food makers is associated with an estimated $1.82 in total statewide economic activity.

This $1.82 in sales includes the “original” $1.00 in revenue to food makers and an additional $0.82 in sales activity in other sectors of the Maine economy. As mentioned previously, part of this $0.82 in additional economic activity represents revenue to Maine farms and fisheries that sell commodities to food processors.

40 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

As shown in Table 5, the employment multiplier estimated in this study of 2.20 (37,569 total jobs divided by 17,057 direct jobs) suggests that for each person employed as a food maker in Maine, there are an estimated 1.20 additional workers in the state whose jobs are supported by the activities of food processors or producers. It is important to note that the relatively large magnitudes of the employment and labor-income (multiplier of 2.35) multipliers are explained by the fact that a large share of the direct sales output is manufactured food products. An employment multiplier in excess of 2.0 suggests that output per worker (i.e., productivity) is high—often the case in manufacturing—meaning that firms spend considerable amounts on purchased inputs (hence, generating a large multiplier) per employee.

To put these figures into perspective, Table 5 also reports multipliers from the Maine IMPLAN model for the sectors of “crop farming,” “livestock,” “fishing, hunting and trapping,” and “food products manufacturing.” The food-maker-employment multiplier estimated in our study is notably larger in magnitude than those for “crop farming,” “livestock,” or “fishing, hunting and trapping,” which is not too surprising given that food processors, which have a high employment multiplier, account for $2.2 billion of the $2.75 billion in sales generated by food makers in Maine.

The IMPLAN sales revenue multipliers shown in Table 5 are generally similar for the four sub-sectors of food makers, while the labor-income multiplier for “food products manufacturing” well exceeds the corresponding figures for the “crop farming,” “livestock,” and “fishing, hunting and trapping” sectors.

With all of this as a background, it is interesting to compare food manufacturers and farm and fishharvesting operations in Maine to similarly defined industries elsewhere in New England. As indicated in Table 6, Maine has more farms (8,136) than any other state in New England and with 10,025 full- and parttime workers, Maine is a close second to Massachusetts (10,092) in terms of total farm employment.9 Maine also ranks high in New England in the value of agricultural products sold off the farm. In 2007, Maine ($617.2 million) ranked behind only Vermont ($673.7 million) in the value of agricultural products marketed,

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

TABLE 7:

New England Fish-Harvesting Employment and Sales Data, 2008*

accounting for approximately 25 percent of the total value of agricultural products sold in New England.

In terms of fish harvesting, Table 7 shows that Maine (185.2 million pounds) ranks second to Massachusetts (326.3 million pounds) in the amount of fish harvested in 2008, but ranks first among the New England states in total employment in fish harvesting with 8,763 full- and part-time harvesters.

Maine also ranks high in New England in the value of harvested fish sold. In 2008, Maine ($308.3 million) ranked second to Massachusetts ($399.9 million) in the value of harvested fish sold, accounting for approximately 38 percent of the total value of harvested fish sold in New England.

While Maine is a major contributor to New England’s agricultural food production and fish harvesting, it also plays a significant role in the region’s food-product manufacturing. As shown in Table 8, Maine ranks third among the New England states in the number of food-manufacturing establishments with 183 firms, directly behind Connecticut with 275 firms and the region’s leader, Massachusetts, with 645 firms.

Maine also ranks third in the region in both foodmanufacturing employment (6,341) and labor income ($241.1 million).

ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD SELLERS

T

able 9 shows the statewide economic contribution of Maine’s grocery stores. The direct output of $3.0 billion represents the gross sales revenue, according to the 2007 U.S. Census of Retail, generated by grocery stores in the state. The direct employment figure of 18,715 full- and part-time jobs and corresponding $483 million in labor income are estimated using 2009 data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.10 The multiplier effects, estimated using the Maine IMPLAN model, are the additional sales revenue, employment, and labor income that are supported by the spending of grocery stores, their suppliers, and employees. The results shown in Table 9 indicate that, including multiplier effects, grocery stores in Maine have a statewide economic contribution of $3.5 billion in sales revenue, 23,569 full- and part-time jobs, and $661 million in labor income.

State

Total FishPounds of Value of Harvesting Fish Harvested Harvested Fish Employment (Millions) Sold ($MM)

Connecticut

449

7.1

$16.9

Maine

8,763

185.2

$308.3

Massachusetts

7,819

326.3

$399.9

442

10.5

$17.5

1,587

71.9

$68.9

19,060

601.0

$811.5

New Hampshire Rhode Island New England Total

*The fish-harvesting data do not include aquaculture products except for clams, mussels, and oysters.

Sources: Information is from NOAA Fisheries Service, Office of Science & Technology: Seafood Industry Impact Data.

TABLE 8:

New England Food-Manufacturing Employment and Labor-Income Data

State

FoodManufacturing Establishments with Employees

FoodManufacturing Employment

Connecticut

275

Maine

183

6,341

$241.1

Massachusetts

645

23,744

$1,227.6

New Hampshire

105

2,616

$125.8

Rhode Island

151

3,016

$111.0

Vermont New England

7,508

FoodManufacturing Labor Income ($MM) $362.1

142

4,550

$194.1

1,501

47,775

$2,261.7

Sources: Information on the number of food-manufacturing establishments is from the U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (2008). Figures for employment and labor income are from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (2009).

The ratio of total sales revenue to direct sales revenue is 1.18, which suggests that every $1.00 in spending at a grocery store in Maine generates a total of $1.18 in sales revenue statewide. The magnitude of this multiplier, which is considerably smaller than the sales revenue multiplier for food makers, is typical of retail sectors. For many products sold in Maine grocery stores, the only portion of the sales revenue that

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

TABLE 9:

Economic Contribution of Grocery Stores in Maine Direct Impact

Sales Revenue Employment Labor Income

Multiplier Effects

Total Impact

$2,955,003,000

$521,560,146

$3,476,563,146

18,715

4,854

23,569

$483,142,794

$177,415,592

$660,558,386

Note: Multiplier effects are estimated using the Maine IMPLAN model.

TABLE 10: Economic Contribution of Restaurants in Maine

Sales Revenue Employment Labor Income

Direct Impact

Multiplier Effects

Total Impact

$1,936,869,000

$1,333,986,881

$3,270,855,881

43,062

11,184

54,246

$804,095,810

$417,197,533

$1,221,293,343

Note: Multiplier effects are estimated using the Maine IMPLAN model.

remains in the economy is the retail gross profit margin, which is typically 29.3 percent of the total sales.11 This means that, unless a grocery item is produced in Maine or provided by an in-state distributor, most of the sales revenue generated by Maine’s grocery stores “leaks” out of the state. This explains the low output multiplier.

The relatively low employment and labor-income multipliers of 1.26 and 1.37, respectively, are also indicative of the fact that—for most of the commercial grocery store chains—a relatively small amount of revenue generated per employee remains in the state.

The statewide economic contribution of Maine’s restaurants is documented in Table 10.12 According to taxable retail sales figures from Maine Revenue Services, restaurants in the state generated $1.9 billion in sales revenue in 2009. In addition, our estimates using data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis suggest that restaurants directly employed 43,062 people (i.e., full- and part-time positions) and provided $804 million in labor income.13 The multiplier effects shown in Table 10 are the additional sales revenue, employment, and labor income that are supported by the spending of restaurants, their suppliers, and employees. Including these multiplier effects, the total statewide economic contribution of Maine restaurants is $3.3 billion in sales revenue, 54,246 full- and parttime jobs, and $1.2 billion in labor income.

42 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

The ratio of total sales revenue to direct sales revenue is 1.69, which suggests that every $1.00 in spending at Maine restaurants generates a total of $1.69 in sales revenue statewide. This includes the original $1.00 in direct revenue to the restaurant sector and an additional $0.69 in sales revenue to other Maine industries. The estimated employment multiplier of 1.26, which is similar to the corresponding multiplier for Maine’s grocery stores, reflects the often part-time nature of working in the restaurant industry.

It suggests that the total economic activity generated by a restaurant worker supports 0.26 jobs elsewhere in the state. Whereas the large employment multiplier in the food-processing sector is attributed to the fact that each manufacturing employee—many of whom work full-time—generates a substantial amount of revenue; the relatively small multiplier in the restaurant sector is explained by the fact that eating establishments typically employ a larger percentage of part-time workers who—because of fewer hours on the job— generate less revenue per employee.

ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

F

or purposes of our study, we separated the food industry into two broad segments: food makers and food sellers. Within the segment of food makers, we considered the economic interactions between food producers (i.e., farmers and fish harvesters) and processors (i.e., food manufacturers). The sales generated by food processors were counted as a direct impact of food makers, while much of the revenue to Maine’s farmers and fisheries—that is, the money received from food processors—was accounted for in the multiplier effects associated with food makers.

In this section, we examine the statewide economic contribution of the entire food industry, combining food makers and food sellers. The approach used in this analysis is similar to what we employed when examining food makers. That is, we need to make adjustments to our results for grocery stores and restaurants, rather than simply add these sectors to our estimates for the economic contribution of food makers. This is done to account for the fact that grocery stores and restaurants sell products that are

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

TABLE 11: Economic Contribution of the Food Industry

manufactured by Maine food processors and grown, raised, or caught by agricultural food producers and fish harvesters located in the state. For this reason, a portion of the $2.8 billion in direct sales revenue of Maine food makers shown in Table 3 is captured in the multiplier effects of Maine’s food sellers. To account for this, we made the appropriate adjustments to our economic impact figures for each of the sectors individually instead of simply summing them together.

The economic impact estimates shown in Table 11 properly account for the flows of expenditures among sub-sectors of the Maine food industry.

Our figures show that the Maine food industry has a direct statewide economic contribution of $7.5 billion in sales revenue, 77,857 full- and part-time jobs, and $1.7 billion in labor income. The direct sales figure of $7.5 billion represents the revenue generated by food sellers and the sales of food makers to purchasers other than Maine’s grocery stores or restaurants. The total economic contribution of Maine’s food industry, including multiplier effects, is $11.5 billion in sales revenue, 112,674 full- and part-time jobs, and $3.1 billion in labor income. The sales revenue, employment, and labor-income multipliers are 1.54, 1.45, and 1.81, respectively, which are a blending of the multipliers for the individual components of the overall food industry in Maine.

To put these figures into perspective, it is informative to look at the economic contribution of the Maine food industry relative to the entire state economy.

To do this, it is appropriate to look at the percentage of total state employment or labor income that is captured in the direct impacts of the food industry.

In this analysis, we do not count the multiplier effects because doing so would result in a situation where the economic contribution of the food industry, when combined with other industries in the state, could exceed total amounts for the entire economy due to double counting. Our approach of simply expressing direct employment or labor income in the sectors of interest—in this case, food producing and processing, grocery stores and restaurants—relative to economywide totals provides a reasonable picture of the food sector’s importance to the overall state economy.

The direct employment of 77,857 relative to the statewide total employment of 806,631 suggests that

in Maine

Sales Revenue Employment Labor Income

Direct Impact

Multiplier Effects

Total Impact

$7,460,376,261

$4,029,367,685

$11,489,743,946

77,857

34,817

112,674

$1,728,725,371

$1,396,853,262

$3,125,578,633

Note: Multiplier effects are estimated using the Maine IMPLAN model.

the Maine food industry accounts for about 9.7 percent of the state’s economy. Focusing on labor income, we see that the total direct impact of $1.7 billion accounts for about 3.5 percent of the $48.9 billion in statewide total personal income. An explanation for the discrepancy between the food industry’s size relative to the overall state economy depending on whether we consider employment or labor income is that Maine’s restaurants—a large component of the food industry— directly employ 44,166 full- and part-time workers, which is about 5.5 percent of total employment in the state. Restaurants, on the other hand, only account for 1.7 percent of total personal income in Maine.

The total economic contribution of Maine’s food industry, including multiplier effects, is $11.5 billion in sales revenue, 112,674 full- and part-time jobs, and $3.1 billion in labor income.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

O

ur results show that the Maine food industry— that is, restaurants, grocery stores, food processors and food producers—has a direct statewide economic contribution of $7.5 billion in sales revenue, 77,857 full- and part-time jobs, and $1.7 billion in labor income. Including multiplier effects, the food industry contributes $11.5 billion in sales revenue to the Maine economy and supports 112,674 full- and part-time jobs in Maine, which provide more than $3.1 billion

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 43

ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

in labor income. Although it is informative to consider the food industry in its entirety as we have summarized above, it is also interesting to examine the distinct role that each major component plays in the Maine economy.

In terms of its impact on economic activity in the state, the food industry provides a nice illustration of the export-base model of regional growth. The general idea underlying the export-base model is that a regional economy can be separated into a basic sector, which brings money into the area through the exportation of goods or services, and a residentiary sector, which serves a local market. Food makers involved in the growing (i.e., farmers), catching (i.e., fish harvesting), or manufacturing (i.e., processors) of food products are a classic example of a basic activity that exports goods outside the region. Although restaurants, especially those located in areas with large numbers of tourists, can be considered part of a region’s economic base, food sellers are generally thought of as a residentiary activity.

of their economic contributions as an indicator of “importance” to the economy.

However, it is appropriate to compare segments of the overall food industry in terms of the unique roles they play in the Maine economy. With primarily an export orientation, food makers along with other manufacturers and primary industries are a driver of the Maine economy. On the other hand, food sellers can be thought of as a supporter of the regional economy, given that they largely serve Maine residents.

In a seminal journal article on the economic-base model, Nobel Laureate economist Douglass North points out that losing sight of the different roles of basic and residentiary industries is a “misunderstanding of the nature of the economy.”14 He further explains that a region may have a low percentage of employment in basic industries and a high percentage of residentiary activities and yet be basically dependent upon the sectors that generate export revenue. This is likely the case in Maine. The food industry both contributes to the state’s export base and provides necessary goods and services to the people of Maine. -

The food industry both contributes to the state’s export base and provides

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

necessary goods and services to the

The research presented in this article was supported, in part, by the Maine Agricultural Center. MAFES External Publication 3195.

people of Maine.

This distinction between a basic and residentiary industry orientation should be kept in mind when comparing the economic contributions of food makers and sellers. Maine’s restaurants and grocery stores, which have a combined economic contribution that exceeds the revenue generated by food processors and producers, sell goods and services to people across the entire spectrum of the Maine economy, as well as to tourists visiting the state. On the other hand, food processors and producers make up only a portion of the state’s export base, which also includes wood products and other manufactured goods. Given the different roles that these industries play in the Maine economy, it is not appropriate to use the relative size 44 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

ENDNOTES 1. These figures were reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on October 5, 2010, in a news release (USDL-10-1390) titled “Consumer Expenditures – 2009.” Spending amounts are per “consumer unit,” which includes families, single persons living alone, and individuals who live together and share expenses.

2. These figures, from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, include full- and part-time employment.

3. Employment and Gross Domestic Product information for U.S. food manufacturers is from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

4. These figures are from the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture and the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION OF MAINE’S FOOD INDUSTRY

Todd Gabe is a professor of economics at the University

5. This includes 5,600 workers who are employed by fisheries, based on 2008 County Business Patterns data from the U.S. Census Bureau, and 65,237 nonemployers in the fishing sector, based on 2008 nonemployer statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau.

of Maine. He teaches courses related to regional economic development and conducts research on the

6. Information on the value of fishery landings is based on personal communication from the National Marine Fisheries Service, Fisheries Statistics Division, Silver Spring, MD. 7. Information on employment and labor income is from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

8. These employment and compensation figures are from NOAA Fisheries Service and the Maine IMPLAN model.

knowledge and creative economies. When it comes to food, Todd enjoys good breads, New York-style pizza, and desserts that prominently feature ice cream and chocolate sauce.

James C. McConnon, Jr. is

9. For our comparisons to other New England states, we use figures for total farm employment, which include food- and non-food-related operations. As shown in Table 6, the figure for total farm employment of 10,025 workers in Maine represents a part of the direct employment of food makers and positions that are counted in the multiplier effects.

10. BEA employment and labor income figures are reported for “food and beverage stores,” which is a broader industrial category than grocery stores.

To more accurately reflect activity at grocery stores, we adjusted the BEA employment and labor income figures using the ratio of grocery stores sales to food and beverage stores sales from the 2007 U.S. Census of Retail.

a business and economics specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and a professor of economics. His research and teaching specialization areas include micro-enterprise development, small business management, entrepreneurship, and retail trade.

11. The average gross profit margin is from Food Marketing Institute, Supermarket Facts: Marketing Costs Fact Sheet, 2010.

12. Maine Revenue Services, the source of sales data for restaurants in Maine, define restaurants as “stores selling prepared food for immediate consumption.”

13. BEA employment and labor income figures are reported for “food services and drinking places,” which is a broader industrial category than restaurants. To more accurately reflect activity at restaurants, we adjusted the BEA employment and labor income figures using employment and payroll figures from County Business Patterns.

Richard Kersbergen is is an extension professor and cooperating professor of animal and veterinary science at the University of Maine. His current research has focused on sustainable dairy and forage systems.

14. This quote and the related discussion is from North’s 1955 article “Location Theory and Regional Economic Growth,” published in the Journal of Political Economy.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 45

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ORGANIC FARMING IN MAINE

Economic Impact of Organic Farming in Maine

by Jed Beach

O

higher than this; the USDA’s 2007 Census of Agriculture reports 582 organic farms in the state (USDA NASS 2009). According to the Organic Production Survey (2008) (USDA NASS 2010) Maine had the 12th highest number of organic farms in 2008—not bad for a state with relatively little clout on the national agricultural scene!

Maine’s 582 organic farms in 2007 generated $36.6 million in gross output, while keeping 94,446 acres of land in farming and supporting 1,596 jobs.

Their total economic impact was estimated to be $91.6 million, including direct, indirect and induced effects (Figure 2).

Organic farmers are also involving themselves deeply in their local communities. Maine’s organic farms occupy a relatively small slice of the whole Maine farm scene in terms of acreage, assets, and gross revenue—about seven percent of each. But organic farms create more jobs (eight percent) and are more likely to sell locally than their conventional counterparts. Ten percent of all Maine’s organic products in 2007 were sold direct to consumers, representing 20 percent of all such sales in the state, which is disproportionately large compared to the organic sector’s 5.5 percent share of total revenues. Organic vegetable

rganic farming is a dynamic and growing slice of the Maine agriculture pie. A new study put out by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) shows that these farms are contributing to Maine’s economy and its communities in many positive ways. Organic farmers rely heavily on natural soil fertility, FIGURE 1: Growth in Maine Certified Organic Farms, 1988–2008 manual labor, and direct-toconsumer sales to be profitable.

This translates into a proportion400 ately greater economic impact than farms that purchase inputs 350 and ship products out of state.

From 1988 to 2008, the 300 number of certified organic farms rose from 41 to 339, a total 250 growth of more than 800 percent (Figure 1). Some of these are new 200 farms starting up; others are conventional farms that decided 150 to become organically certified.

In 2007, Maine had 294 certified 100 organic farms. Farms with gross revenues of less than $5,000 do 50 not have to be certified, so the total of organic farms is actually 0 1985

46 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

1988

1991

1994

1997

2000

2003

2006

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ECONOMIC IMPACT OF ORGANIC FARMING IN MAINE

FIGURE 2:

Economic Impact of Maine’s Organic Sector

$100,000,000

farmers in particular sold 30 percent of their products directly. And, Maine’s organic farmers are changing the demographic makeup of the farming community; organic farmers are more likely to be younger and female than their conventional counterparts.

In terms of products, in 2007, $13.5 million, or 41 percent of all sales of Maine organic products, came from milk. When combined with the 18 percent of sales that came from organic hay (much of which probably went to feed Maine’s organic dairy cows), Maine’s organic dairy sector accounted for more than half the gross revenues of all organic products. Other big sellers included vegetables at $5.8 million and fruit at $3 million.

The National Organic Program (NOP) has changed the makeup of Maine’s organic farms.

Through the 1990s, the majority of organic farmers were diversified vegetable farmers, selling a range of products to mostly local markets. This began to change around 2002. Assured by the uniform standards of the NOP, larger grocery stores began to stock organic products and sell them to a wider audience. This opened up market potential for organic foods that Maine’s farmers began to fill, but in a slightly different way. More specialized producers, focusing on the production of fewer types of products, began to become certified.

These producers, especially dairy and maple syrup farmers, make up the majority of Maine’s growth over the last 10 years, while the number of certified diversified vegetable producers—long the mainstay of the organic community—has leveled off.

As Maine’s organic farms continue to grow, so too will their diverse contributions to Maine’s economy and community life. -

ENDNOTE 1. This article is derived from a recent report published by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardners Association.

$90,000,000 Induced Effects $24,570,627

$80,000,000 $70,000,000 $60,000,000

Indirect Effects $30,360,253

$50,000,000 $40,000,000 $30,000,000

Direct Effects $36,636,000

$20,000,000 $10,000,000 $0

REFERENCES Beach, Jed. 2010. Maine’s Organic Farms—An Impact Report. Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, Unity, ME. http://www.dnnmaine. com/mofga/files/Organic%20Impact%20Report.pdf [Accessed June 11, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Survey (USDA NASS). 2009. 2007 Census of Agriculture: Summary and State Data. USDA NASS, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Survey (USDA NASS). 2010. 2007 Census of Agriculture: Organic Production Survey (2008).

USDA NASS, Washington, DC.

Jed Beach is an organic farmer and educator. He holds an M.B.A. in organizational and environmental sustainability from Antioch University. He and his wife run Ararat Farms, a diversified farm in Lincolnville.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 47

GROWING MAINE’S FOODSCAPE, GROWING MAINE’S FUTURE

Growing Maine’s Foodscape, Growing Maine’s Future

by Laura Lindenfeld

Maine is experiencing a culinary renaissance.

Creativity and entrepreneurship linked with culture and tradition are making Maine a food destination and a unique “foodscape.” Laura Lindenfeld and Linda Silka explore this convergence and its potential to create jobs, protect assets, and support community values.



Linda Silka

48 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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GROWING MAINE’S FOODSCAPE, GROWING MAINE’S FUTURE

I

n recent years, Maine has experienced something of a culinary renaissance. Building on deep, local traditions, contemporary food culture in Maine has received attention from food writers across the country. According to Maine Food & Lifestyle, Corby Kummer, author and reviewer for Boston Magazine and Atlantic Monthly has said: “Maine is where you find the food action in New England” (mainefoodandlifestyle.com/about.htm). Maine’s contemporary food culture grows out of history, a strong sense of place, and an interest in evolving traditional foods through new ideas. These elements work together to position Maine as a unique and important foodscape, a concept that Yasmeen defines as “spatialization of foodways and the interconnections between people, food, and places” (1996: 527). Food-studies scholars have long recognized the key role that food plays in forming a placebased identity and that food is deeply connected to culture (Counihan and Van Esterik 2008; Mintz 1996).

Particular to Maine as a foodscape is its blend of traditional and innovative practices. Traditional food culture in Maine ranges from the Wabanaki tribes’ rich and diverse history of hunting, fishing, planting, and gathering, to Acadian food traditions that prominently feature Maine-grown potatoes, to the practice of gathering together for bean suppers with brown bread, red hotdogs, and homemade pies, to the state’s longstanding tradition of aquaculture and fishing. New immigrants to the state have contributed their food cultures and traditions, and Maine’s farmers have developed impressive practices for cultivating remarkable produce in a relatively short growing season.

More recently, Maine’s culinary culture has experienced growth and expansion that food writer R. W. Apple describes in a July 10, 2002, article in The New York Times, as “a regional, seasonal Maine haute cuisine.” Maine has emerged as a culinary leader, and the greater Portland area, in particular, has received significant attention from national media. Articles in the September 15, 2009, New York Times by Julia Moskin and the July 16, 2010, Maine Sunday Telegram by Beth Quimby highlight Portland’s success as a national model for the “farm-to-table” movement and its investment in local, sustainable seafood. The Portland restaurant and culinary scene continually receive praise in the culinary media. Television series

New quote Interest in Maine’s here... such as the Food Network’s foodways has show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and the Travel Channel’s helped the state No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain that feature restaurants to become someand food culture in the state have brought increased attention thing of a culinary to Maine as a site for interesting and important food. (See article destina­tion. about Portland by Hilary Nangle, this issue).

Interest in Maine’s foodways has helped the state to become something of a culinary destination. Events such as Maine Restaurant Week, Maine Fare in Camden, and numerous food-related festivals draw visitors from near and far. Innovative chefs such as Rob Evans of Hugo’s in Portland (the 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards winner for Northeast Chef ) and Melissa Kelly of Primo in Rockland (the 1999 James Beard Foundation Awards winner of the American Express Best Chef, Northeast Award) have brought greater attention to Maine’s role in U.S. culinary culture.

Throughout Maine, producers and preparers of food strive to create economically sustainable, placebased models to support Maine’s communities, its economy, and its beloved way of life. Maine has witnessed the emergence of a robust set of organizations such as Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine, the Downeast Fisheries Trail, Get Real. Get Maine!, and the Fish Locally Collaborative that provide infrastructure for collaboration across the state. A small, community-supported bakery in West Brooksville, Tinder Hearth, embodies a new generation of culinary entrepreneurialism and creativity that harkens back to the state’s traditions of craftsmanship and locally based food production (see sidebar).

Innovative models for harvesting and distributing seafood in Maine pay tribute to the state’s heritage and culture. The Port Clyde Fresh Catch (PCFC) fishermen’s collaborative builds on the agricultural model of community-supported agriculture (CSA) to provide community-supported fishery (CSF) shares to customers across New England. High-end restaurants such as Café Miranda in Rockland and shops such as Megunticook Market in Camden have had great

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GROWING MAINE’S FOODSCAPE, GROWING MAINE’S FUTURE

Tinder Hearth Tinder Hearth, created by the Larsson/Semler family, relies on local food systems and strives to benefit the local community.

The bakery’s description on its web site makes clear that food, as Sidney Mintz writes, “is never simply eaten; its consumption is always conditioned by meaning.”(Mintz 1996: 7) The Tinder Hearth family attempts, with wild hopefulness and in-the-dirt gusto, to revive a youthful possibility that can feed strangelooking old seeds with never-before-seen dances and bad jokes, unexpected suggestions, stories of failed attempts, neighborhood songs, and long-winded research projects, so that the beautiful mysteries that hold our lives can be fed and danced in our shiny pursuit of staying put.

With its weekly open mics, educational opportunities for the local community, and commitment to sustainable, local foodways, Tinder Hearth represents but one of many efforts to maintain and grow the distinctive regional qualities of Maine’s resources and history.

success in featuring seafood from PCFC and other local, fresh products.

CULINARY MOMENTUM: ACTING ON CURRENT OPPORTUNITIES

M

any scholars have described Julia Child’s first TV appearance in February 1963 as the beginning of the “foodie” revolution. Since Julia’s presence first graced small screens across the country, the U.S. has undergone a food revolution that has helped to situate food at the core of cultural experiences.

Concepts like “culinary tourism” circulate broadly in policy development and scholarly conversations. Food consumption has become a form of entertainment for many Americans, a concept that Finkelstein terms “foodatainment” (Finkelstein 1999). Representations of food pervade across a range of media. Steve Chagollan, writing in the July 9, 2009, issue of The New York Times, describes the U.S. as being “in the midst of a feeding frenzy.… The Food Network holds 65 million monthly viewers in its thrall, and sales of gourmet foods and beverages are expected to top $53 billion next year.” The multimillion dollar Food Network, and

50 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

its recent spin-off station, The Cooking Channel, and an ever growing number of food films and food magazines illustrate the tremendous nationwide interest in food and culture.

Within the state, magazines such as Maine Food & Lifestyle, Downeast, and Maine explore and feature Maine foodways. Numerous food columnists, such as Meredith Goad from the Portland Press Herald, and food blogs, such as Maine Food & Lifestyle’s Plating Up provide narrative context that document and help to shape Maine as a foodscape. The chowmaineguide.com provides restaurant reviews and information on dining. Travel sites such as mainetravelmaven.com celebrate food tourism, a mode of tourism that is predominantly motivated by food, which has demonstrated the capacity to lead to greater long-term economic stability and community benefit in rural areas, particular in regions that link culinary tourism with local heritage. Cookbook writers such as Kathy Gunst contribute to conversations about food in Downeast Magazine. Portland even hosts a foodie bookstore, Rabelais, which regularly hosts author appearances, book fairs, exhibition openings and foodrelated events. Among the growing interest in food film festivals across the U.S. is the Food + Farm Film Festival in Portland that features documentary and short films.

Maine adds unique and important assets to the U.S.’s broader food culture, and has frameworks that bring together various food assets from across the state.

By Land and By Sea, led by a wide range of project partners,1 aims to strengthen the state’s local food system through collaboration across Maine’s farming and fishing communities. (See article by Amanda Beal, this issue.)

Economic Development

Across the nation, a movement to integrate food into core economic development has emerged.

Following the thread of food and culture provides both opportunities for division and for collaboration In Lowell, Massachusetts, for example—a community that has transformed itself from an old mill town to a vibrant immigrant community—the shared interest in fish and fishing has brought diverse groups together around food and culture. Newly arrived families from

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GROWING MAINE’S FOODSCAPE, GROWING MAINE’S FUTURE

Cambodia, Brazil, and Sierra Leone have come together with families whose ancestors arrived in Lowell many generations ago from Ireland and Italy, and these groups have begun to share fish recipes as a way to explore cultural traditions. This initiative is part of recognizing common concerns about ensuring that Lowell’s Merrimack River is clean enough for the fish to serve as a food resource for all. Such discussions have become opportunities for the community to explore links between food, culture, and environmental justice.

Towns such as Hardwick, Vermont, renowned for revitalizing its local economy and community through food and food culture, can serve as a model for supporting communities in Maine. As Hewitt, author of a book on Hardwick’s renewal writes, Over the past three years, this little hard-luck burg with a median income 25 percent below the state average and an unemployment rate of nearly 40 percent higher has embarked on a quest to create the most comprehensive, functional, and downright vibrant local food system in North America…. Hardwick, Vermont, just may prove what advocates of a decentralized food system have been saying for years: that a healthy agriculture system can be the basis of communal strength, economic vitality, food security, and general resilience in uncertain times (Hewitt 2009: 2).

Hardwick provides an interesting case study for many communities in Maine to consider. Acting on Maine’s increased culinary strength and capacity is timely and important, and it provides a means for helping Maine to restore jobs, support community, and provide increased security.

Key to supporting Maine’s growth in and through food culture is developing a model that takes local needs and assets into consideration to pull together various threads of strength that already exist across the state. Maine already possesses great capacity in its various food-related businesses and industries, but the state lacks broader coordination of these disparate efforts. Understanding the range of activities in which communities already have established strength and to which they are already committed is key. These assets range from community gardens, to youth involvement

Port Clyde Fresh Catch Emphasizing healthy fishing communities and healthy ecosystems through “a return to the traditions of America’s past,” the Port Clyde Fresh Catch collaborative uses environmentally conscious fishing methods to provide local, fresh, HACCPcertified (hazard analysis critical control point) fish and shrimp directly to customers through their model of a communitysupported fishery. As their web site emphasizes, “Port Clyde Fresh Catch is a return to the traditions of America’s past—fresh, wild-caught seafood that our customers can trace to the source” (www.portclydefreshcatch.com). Even more than the sustainably harvested seafood, PCFC evokes the history of fishing and fishing communities and pays important tribute to unique Maine heritage when they write: “In the village of Port Clyde, the church bell has started ringing again, calling workers to our new processing facility. We invite you to try our seafood. You’ll savor the quality and freshness, knowing that you are also helping protect healthy fisheries and the communities that depend on them.”

in agriculture and culinary arts to the development of Downeast community kitchens aimed at providing a shared location where community members can teach each other about lost cooking practices as a way to improve nutritional practices in culturally appropriate ways. Efforts in CSAs, CSFs, and communitysupported bakeries such as Tinder Hearth already exist and are strong assets for Maine. Hardwick, Vermont’s model of the community-supported restaurant (CSR) provides tantalizing food for thought.

MAINE’S CULINARY FUTURE, MAINE’S CULINARY PAST

M

aine’s culinary success is linked to its ability to bridge its culinary heritage with the state’s contemporary food assets. The role of culture has been central to the state’s development of its culinary reputation. Food experiments and endeavors are springing up in almost every corner, and there are important opportunities to build infrastructure across the state that highlight and support Maine’s quality of life, while providing interesting avenues for sustainable economic and cultural development. Culinary tourism is just one

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GROWING MAINE’S FOODSCAPE, GROWING MAINE’S FUTURE

example that offers an innovative way for the state to link its strongest industry—tourism—with one of its most significant and endearing assets: food culture. -

Laura Lindenfeld is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism and the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center

ENDNOTE 1. These include Penobscot East Resource Center, Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, Island Institute, Food for Maine’s Future, Portland Maine Permaculture, Cultivating Community, Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA), Maine Department of Agriculture, Maine Farmland Trust, Maine Council of Churches, Belfast Co-op, Maine Sea Grant, New England Environmental Finance Center, and Muskie School of Public Service. See eatmainefoods.ning.com/ page/by-land-and-by-sea for more details.

at the University of Maine.

Her research investigates the relationship among food, contemporary media, and cultural citizenship. She also studies collaboration between universities and communities and seeks to understand how improved processes of linking knowledge with action can provide solutions to pressing sustainability issues.

Linda Silka directs the

REFERENCES

Margaret Chase Smith Policy

Beal, Amanda. 2011. “By Land and by Sea.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 105.

Center and is a professor in the University of Maine

Counihan, Carole and Penny Van Esterik. 2008. Food and Culture: A Reader. Routledge, New York.

School of Economics. Her

Finkelstein, Joanne. 1999. “Foodatainment.”

Performance Research 4 (1): 130.

research focuses on commu-

Hewitt, Ben. 2009. The Town that Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food.

Rodale, Emmaus, PA.

Previously, she directed

nity-university partnerships.

Mintz, Sidney Wilfred. 1996. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past. Beacon Press, Boston.

Nangle, Hilary. 2011. “Welcome to Portland; Now Let’s Eat.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 53–54.

the Center for Family, Work, and Community at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where much of her work involved collaborations with refugee and immigrant families around issues of food, health, environmental justice, and community economic development.

Yasmeen, Gisele. 1996. “’Plastic-bag Housewives’ and Postmodern Restaurants?: Public and Private in Bangkok’s Foodscape.” Urban Geography 17(6): 526–544.

52 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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WELCOME TO PORTLAND

Welcome to Portland; Now Let’s Eat

by Hilary Nangle

L

ong before Bon Appetit named Portland “America’s Foodiest Small Town” in 2009, culinary tourists had discovered the city’s seemingly insatiable appetite for all things food related. When it comes to food, says Sam Hayward, chef/partner in Fore Street, “the audience here is always receptive, if not wildly enthusiastic.”

Hayward should know. Portland emerged on the national table in 2004, when he won the James Beard Foundation’s “Best Chef in the Northeast” title, the same year Food & Wine named Rob Evans, chef and co-owner of Hugo’s, one of America’s “10 Best New Chefs.”

The accolades continued. Steve Corry chef/ co-owner of Five Fifty-Five (and of the recently opened Petite Jacqueline) made Food & Wine’s 10 Best New Chefs list in 2007, and Evans won the Beard Best Chef in the Northeast 2009 honor. This year Krista Kern, chef/owner of Bresca, is a finalist for “Best Chef Northeast.”

Nationally acclaimed chefs and restaurants have made Portland a dining destination, but when culinary tourists arrive, Evans says, “they find that there’s more than just the publicized restaurants.” An oftquoted, never-verified, and likely quite exaggerated statistic credits Portland for having more restaurants per capita than San Francisco, that other city by the bay. Still, it’s easy to believe when walking around the city.

“Honestly, there are too many restaurants for a city of Portland’s size; there just aren’t that many people to go around. So, restaurants have to be good, have a niche or do something special to stand the test

Portland’s of time,” Evans says. Despite the biggest plus seemingly crowded market, despite the recession, restaurants is its location: keep opening. And not just a few, but more than a dozen The ocean is out opened, or planned to open, in the first half of 2011. the front door; “A lot of threads wove together to make Portland what farmlands are it is today,” Hayward says. In the 1970s and 1980s, Portland drew out the back. artists and entrepreneurs, gays and lesbians, people who wanted a city experience, but one that was small, livable, quiet, and on the water. “It’s an old cliché, wherever hippies congregate, good food follows.”

Timing played a role, too. “The farm-to-table movement gained traction in a lot of places, but I can’t think of any place where it happened with such intensity and concentration as Portland,” says Hayward, who was practicing and preaching farm-to-table long before it became a movement. “The market, the sources, the farmers, and a growing health consciousness on the part of the dining public all came together at about the same time.”

Portland’s biggest plus is its location: The ocean is out the front door; farmlands are out the back. “It starts with the product,” says Evans. “The seafood here is obviously some of the best in the world. We’ve also got great agriculture with local farmers.”

Increasingly, there are partnerships between chefs and sources. One intriguing new collaboration between Greater Portland chefs, fishermen, and the Gulf of Maine Research Institute aims to find market opportunities for underused seafood products from the Gulf of Maine. Another is the Urban Farm Fermantory, a fermentation center and micro-farm, producing hard cider and herb-infused raw honey among other products. It’s also breeding freshwater tilapia, which it hopes to market to local restaurants, and using the fish waste as fertilizer.

Many chefs have one-on-one relationships with farmers, who might grow specific heirloom crops or raise rare livestock for their kitchens alone. Others

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WELCOME TO PORTLAND

take it even farther. Lee Skawinski, of Cinque Terre, has long grown much of the restaurant’s produce on his farm; Harding Lee Smith, chef/owner of a trio of restaurants, The Front, Grill, and Corner Rooms, is now raising pigs along with as produce on his farm; and others, such as Mitchell Kaldrovich of the Sea Glass restaurant at the Inn by the Sea, have small gardens of herbs and greens.

Other ingredients in Greater Portland’s successful recipe are a growing number of specialty food sources, including mushroom foragers; artisan producers of chocolates, breads, farmhouse cheeses, coffees and teas; and retailers who have built national reputations by developing niches for products from caviars to books.

“Portland had this cool, funky food scene in an under-the-radar sort of way, and we thought it would be a good place to open a food bookstore,” says Samantha Hoyt Lindgren. In April 2007, Lindgren and her husband, Don, opened Rabelais, one of the country’s few stores specializing in rare, used, and current cook books. It quickly became a center for the city’s food cognoscenti.

Lindgren thinks one of the driving factors in Portland’s restaurant success is that the businesses are chef-owned and operated. “If you’re working for someone else, you’re not as invested emotionally, but when you’re paying the bills and doing the cooking, you’re more motivated to make it work; you see the bigger picture,” she says.

While fresh product is the biggest draw for entrepreneurial chefs, there are others. These include the food community’s easy-going camaraderie, as exemplified in such events as Death March, an occasional themed cook-off among chefs, servers, bartenders, and others from various restaurants; the costs of doing business: it’s far less expensive to start a restaurant here than in Boston, New York, Chicago, or San Francisco; creative freedom: “Maine is behind the rest of the country in trends, and we like that,” Evans says; and lifestyle: “No one eats after 8:30 in Portland, but at the same time we love being home by midnight,” he adds. “It lets you have a life, as much as you can in this business.”

Add to these draws a supportive community, as shown by events such as Harvest on the Harbor and Maine Restaurant Week; the ever-expanding number

54 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

of food-related blogs; and even a company offering food-oriented city tours.

The food community’s camaraderie, along with the constant movement of chefs between restaurants both in and out of the city and state “keeps things moving and fresh and interesting,” Hayward says.

“Farmers have a lot to do with keeping us innovative, with new varieties of crops and varieties of livestock.

And of course, we’re all reading, we all travel, and we’re all looking at the larger restaurant culture.” The ideas they bring back push limits in the kitchen, expand diners’ palettes, and create demand for new farm products. And ultimately, those young chefs in the kitchen want to open their own restaurants, and the cycle continues. Hilary Nangle is a Mainebased freelance writer who developed an interest in food while working as managing editor of Gourmet News. She

travels throughout the state frequently, updating her three guidebooks, Moon Maine, Moon Coastal Maine, and Moon Acadia National Park, as well as researching articles for publications ranging

from the Boston Globe to National Geographic Traveler and for her website, www.MaineTravelMaven.com.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 55

Farming Farming can only fulfill its promise in Maine if farmland is preserved and actively worked and food is available to all. After years of losing farms and farmers, Maine is seeing an increase in the number of acres being farmed, due partly to a resurgence of interest in farming and new tools that help preserve working landscapes. As John Piotti explains, these tools include agricultural easements such as those offered by the Land for Maine’s Future, the Buy/Protect/Sell program at Maine Farmland Trust, local ordinances, and several federal programs. Russ Libby, in his article, imagines what an abundant food system would look like for Maine and what it would take to get there.

His recommendations include expanding the production and financing base, encouraging year-round production systems, building up mid-sized markets, and integrating farms into the ecosystem. Vision and practical steps are not in short supply, but we also operate on a larger political stage both benefiting from and hindered by federal agricultural policy. The reauthorization of the Farm Bill in 2012 means that activity is already heating up to reform U.S. agricultural, nutrition, and energy policy. Mary Ann Hayes provides an overview of the Farm Bill’s history, its intended and unintended consequences, and what we can hope for in 2012. Finally we take a brief look at Maine’s dairy-relief program, viewed as national model of good public policy that can save jobs, support traditional industry, and keep a critical link in our food system.

56 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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FARMING: Farms and the Working Landscape

Farms and the Working Landscape

by John Piotti

F

armland may provide Maine’s most cherished landscape. Even though over three-quarters of the state is now forested—and much of our state’s identity is tied to the dark woods and its image (both real and imagined) as wilderness—there is something special about our connection to farmland. Farmland is different. Farmland is open and inviting. It evokes Grandma picking beans and Gramps cutting hay. It beckons us to roll down grassy hills and lie under apples blossoms. It is how we approach Eden.

Farmland is not wilderness, but the direct product of human toil. Farms are created and then sustained by people, and yet the farms we love best seem completely natural. Indeed, we may cherish farms so because they combine the best of nature with the best of human beings.

Maine now boasts more than 8,000 farms, up from about 7,000 only a decade ago. That’s 8,000 farm families who actively steward 1.3 million acres of working landscape. And the numbers are growing.

There is a rebirth of farming occurring across the state, as documented in other articles in this issue of Maine Policy Review. I often write and speak about the great promise of farming in Maine, but that is not my purpose here.

My aim here is to show how farming and farmland interplay, and more specifically, how farming can only fulfill its promise if more farmland is preserved through agricultural easements. At the same time, I want to show how farmland preservation is only effective if farms are economically viable. And finally, I want to stress how much is at stake.

...we may cherish It may sound obvious that a farms so because working landscape is dependent on retaining both farmland and they combine viable farm businesses, but my message is more complicated the best of nature and nuanced than that. For one thing, people are often inept at with the best of pursuing dual strategies. (Need I mention “diet and exercise?”) human beings.

Beyond this, there are economic forces at work here that left to themselves will not lead to smart outcomes.

First, a little background. A generation ago, few farmers knew about preserving land through agricultural easements, and most who were aware of this tool dismissed it as unnecessary or even misguided. Indeed, up until about a decade ago—when Maine Farmland Trust was formed—the focus of both farmers and folks like me who worked with farmers was on keeping farms profitable. Our shared belief was that profitable farms would remain in business, and that if we focused on helping farms prosper, the land would stay working without the need for easements.

There is a certain logic to this approach—up to a point. And that point is when the farm changes hands.

Once that happens, the same farm could be growing the same crops and supplying the same markets, but if the new owners incurred an extra high level of debt to purchase the property, the economic equation could be vastly different. A once profitable farm could become unprofitable overnight, simply because the farmer needed to pay as much for that land as someone who intended to subdivide it into house lots.

If land is permanently preserved through an agricultural easement, however, it will change hands— whenever it sells—at its value as farmland, not as future development. Thus, preserving more farmland will allow more new farmers to get started and help existing farmers expand operations or secure land they currently lease. (Maine dairy farmers alone rely on 150,000 acres of leased land, much of which is vulnerable.)

An ever increasing number of Maine farmers now realize that unless more farmland is preserved, much of the land that comes on the market will be unaffordable to farmers, so will transition to non-agricultural use.

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FARMING: Farms and the Working Landscape

It’s good to see this growing awareness because time is running short. A demographic crisis is before us. The ownership of as much as one-third of Maine’s farmland (up to 400,000 acres) will likely change hands in the next 10 years, simply due to the age of so many of Maine’s farmland owners. Much of this land will likely be lost to farming without some kind of intervention.

With this backdrop, it is clear why many of us see preserving the land base as the greatest challenge now facing Maine agriculture. Yet, preserving farmland does little good if that land is not actively worked— and that will only happen if there are strong markets for local farm products and a steady crop of new farmers entering the business. Simply put, preserving the land is not nearly enough; we also need to help farms prosper.

...preserving farmland does little good if that land is not actively worked— and that will only happen if there are strong markets for local farm products and a steady crop of new farmers….

But because these two tracks have seldom been pursued together, let alone synergistically, the tools used by each camp are not what they could be. In fact, in some cases, the tools for farmland preservation and farm viability work at cross purposes.

Consider, for instance, the programs that compensate farmland owners who sell easements on their property. Both the state-run Land for Maine’s Future (LMF) program and several federal programs purchase easements from willing landowners. The value of the easement is calculated by a complicated appraisal that first determines the market value of the land without an easement and then subtracts the market value of the land with the easement placed on it.

These easement programs that compensate farmers have great merit. Many farmers have few assets except their land, so selling an easement may be the only way 58 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

a farmer approaching retirement age can afford to pass the farm on to a child. Other farmers use these funds to reinvest in their farm’s operations, perhaps paying off debt or buying new equipment needed to innovate or diversify. But there is a problem. Programs that purchase easements are designed around the notion that farmland has little value as farmland—that its primary value is for development. They work best when the difference between “farmland value” and “development value” is great—because the incentive for the owner is then great.

But increasingly, the difference between farmland value and development value is lessening. That’s because the value of farmland as farmland is growing.

On the one hand, that’s good news because it means that the agricultural economy is more vibrant— it’s a reflection that more people want to farm and more people can make a living off farming. But at the same time, this rise in farmland value reduces the number of landowners who are willing to preserve their land. In 2010, several landowners who were in the midst of the LMF process backed out when the final appraisals came in because farm values had increased significantly since preliminary appraisals were done.

These landowners were simply unwilling to sell an easement for so little.

These same factors come into play for easements that are donated, as opposed to purchased. Though the primary reason why a landowner donates an easement is a commitment to seeing the land preserved, the tax benefits of doing so often make the deal possible. (The easement’s value is a charitable contribution; if the farmland value goes up, the value of the charitable contribution goes down.)

In both cases, the incentive to preserve land decreases as farmland value increases. How counterproductive that this occurs just when we need to be preserving more land, just as farming is poised to grow—growth that would be supported and sustained by the availability of more preserved land.

Policy solutions do exist to the issues raised above.

Compensation for easements could be calculated in different ways, as could the value of charitable contributions. But those changes—though practical and possible—will not come easily. Moreover, those are just two examples where public policy that affects farming is rife with conflicting aims and countervailing

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FARMING: Farms and the Working Landscape

outcomes. Consider how many municipalities have extended sewer lines past farms, driving up values and property taxes, making the loss of farmland a selffulfilling prophesy. Or how many efforts that were supposed to help farmers have spurred farm expansions that could only be financed by debt secured by the land’s development value. Or for that matter, how few bankers and business counselors know anything about farming. (Fortunately, the knowledge level of many business counselors is much higher now than 15 years ago—but we still have far to go.)

Perhaps I need to write another article detailing some of these issues. For now, I’ll simply say that we need both policy and programming that flows from an appreciation of how farmland preservation and farm viability are interconnected. This means that we need to modify existing tools and create new ones.

One such new tool has recently been forged by Maine Farmland Trust. Called “Buy/Protect/Sell,” the program buys farmland, preserves it through an agricultural easement, and then re-sells it at farmland value. The program realizes two simultaneous goals: preserving vulnerable farmland while making it available to farmers at an affordable price. In this way, it directly brings together farmland preservation and farm viability.

Beyond this, the Buy/Protect/Sell program sidesteps the problem of rising farmland values reducing a landowner’s interest in preservation because the owner is not being compensated for an easement, but for the full development value of the property. Of course, this only works for landowners who want to sell, so it is not a replacement for traditional easement programs. But given the demographics noted above, there are plenty of farm properties available for sale. Just launched in 2008, the fast-growing program has now preserved 17 farms totaling more than 3,000 acres.

On the farm-viability front, one of the best programs is Farms for the Future. For the past 10 years, this state-funded program has provided farms with focused, individualized business planning, coupled with grant funds to help implement the plans. In exchange for this support, farmers agree not to develop their property for non-agricultural purposes for a period of time. Though highly successful at both boosting farm businesses and protecting farmland,

Farms for the Future has been sharply scaled back in the last few years of state budget cuts. To fill some of the void, Maine Farmland Trust and Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) are now partnering to provide similar services with private funds.

Maine Farmland Trust is in fact emerging as a principal player in farm viability work and is one of the few organizations nationally that integrates such work directly with farmland preservation. The Trust’s efforts have ranged from providing business planning to developing the kind of community-scale infrastructure farmers increasingly need. (See article by Gold, this issue, on the Unity Food Hub.) Farmers benefiting from these services sign a non-development agreement or right of first refusal, or perhaps agree to provide farm products to the local food pantry. The goal is to forge broader connections.

Maine Farmland Trust works in these same communities to promote farmland preservation, often with some of the same farmers. Perhaps the best way to get farmers to consider preserving their land is to demonstrate that farming has a future, to show them how their farms can be economically viable. To put it another way, there is great power in combining efforts to support farms as businesses with efforts to preserve farmland. Indeed, it may be the only way to achieve the results we need. Thinking comprehensively and seeking synergies—it’s not just a good idea, it has become a necessity.

Maine Farmland Trust has been experimenting with even more holistic approaches. One of our newest projects—supported by Maine’s forward-thinking “Environmental Funders Network”—combines provision of services to farmers with provision of services to the communities in which those farmers live. The idea is to work simultaneously to provide farmers with planning assistance, expand markets for local food, develop community-scale infrastructure, enhance local food security, preserve farmland strategically (so that protected farmland becomes a buffer that also protects environmentally sensitive wildlands, multiplying the impact), and strengthen local land use ordinances in ways that both protect farmers and channel new development away from farmland. It’s an ambitious project—and yet to be proven. But it builds upon a lot of good work done by many different organizations

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FARMING: Farms and the Working Landscape

over many years, both in Maine and beyond. I believe it is part of what we need.

For many years (up until recently), I have found myself constantly refuting comments that farming in Maine was dead. Now, of course, the statistics clearly show that farming is on the rise. In fact, farming is hot, even hip. The same educated folk who once thought me crazy now think the future of local food is as bright as that glistening eggplant they proudly brought home from last Saturday’s farmers market.

How I wish it were so.

Sure, the fundamentals are good. Maine has abundant water and better soils that most people think.

We retain millions of acres of undeveloped land that could be farmed as it once was. And we are within close proximity of more than 50 million consumers.

We know that energy costs will only rise, making it more expensive to ship in food from away. And we know that, over time, the economy will internalize more and more externalities (be it the true costs of long transportation routes or water depletion or topsoil loss). Yes, we read Michael Pollan. Yes, we see that the current food system is unsustainable. We see how in maybe 25 years, Maine’s farms might not only provide much of the food for our state, but play a critical role for the entire northeast.

But Maine may never be in that position. It may simply not matter what economic realities exist in 20 or 30 years if Maine loses too many farms and too much farmland before then. Farming in Maine could either boom or bust—it all depends on what we do in the next few years, before wiser economics take hold.

(Remember, we are living in a time when current economics reinforce all sorts of short-sighted behaviors, such as placing a new house in the middle of ten acres of prime agricultural soils.)

But more is at stake here than farming. I recently returned to my dog-eared copy of For the Common Good, Herman Daly and John Cobb’s groundbreaking work that helped launch the field of ecological economics. And there it was in plain English, written more than 20 years ago: “If economics is [to be] reconceived in the service of community, it will begin with a concern for agriculture and specifically for the production of food” (1997: 268). I see the renewed interest in farms and food as the beginning of broader 60 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

changes society needs to make. Of course, economics has not yet been re-cast ala Daly and Cobb. There remains much work to do—and not much time.

Our working landscape is more than a cherished icon and certainly far more than a tourist attraction or even a source of thousands of rural jobs—as important as jobs may be. With that working landscape lies something much greater—a chance to do things differently, to get things right. In it lies the only future in which most of us will want to live. -

REFERENCE Daly, Herman and John Cobb. 1997. For the Common Good. Beacon Press, Boston, MA. Gold, Michael. 2011. “Unity Food Hub.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 239.

John Piotti is executive director of Maine Farmland Trust. He has been at the forefront of agricultural issues in Maine for more than 15 years, has been on a number of task forces and commissions, and served in the Maine legislature, as both House Majority Leader and chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry. Nationally, he has been chair of the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group and a director of the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. He is author of From the Land: Maine Farms at Work, from which portions of this article

are drawn.

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AN ABUNDANT FOOD SYSTEM: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y An Abundant Food System

By Russell Libby

F

armers in their fields, checking on new-born calves. Orchards in full bloom. Alewive runs up streams where they haven’t been seen in generations.

Fishing fleets returning safely to harbors all along the coast. Foods of the season in every store and restaurant because it’s what’s available, and these are the foods wanted and expected by all.

This is the food system we can have.

Currently Maine has available land, sufficient rain, and a relatively moderate climate. These are increasingly in short supply in the region and across the country.

What we don’t have are enough people growing food, well-developed distribution and marketing systems, and a public commitment to make it happen.

For some reason we think a job in a call center is a good job and a job in food production or processing is not.

WHAT WOULD IT LOOK LIKE? HOW DO WE GET THERE?

M

aine can be a national example, and leader, in creating an abundant food system, one that meets a simple definition of sustainability: enough for everyone, forever. Our farms and fisheries could be the centerpiece of a diverse and abundant food system a decade from now, one that supplies Mainers, visitors, and a substantial portion of New England and beyond. We could also be left with only a few products that try to compete in national and international commodity

markets—potatoes, lobsters, blueberries— and continued erosion in our overall food production capacity. It’s really our choice.

Getting there will take creativity, energy, and a long-term commitment. It will also require us to think in terms of a whole ecosystem in ways that the existing policy structure doesn’t consider. The Eat Local Foods Coalition’s “By Land and By Sea” project found many connections between issues facing farmers and fishermen, between the land and the sea, but it’s not the standard approach to issues.

Maine has already built little pieces of that more-connected food system—but we haven’t taken them as the foundation for where we need to go in the future.

“The first law of ecology is that everything is related to everything else,” said Barry Commoner. We can’t have abundance without going back to the underlying resources: air, water, soil. And if we look at those, we can see that we have severely abused all of them, and continue to do so now. (See articles by Jemison and Beal, and Beal and Jemison, this issue.)

We also need to look creatively at how to manage our farms and the larger landscape in ways that don’t have negative impacts downstream—on the streams and rivers that feed the Gulf of Maine.

By 2020, we could have an additional 20,000 jobs on farms and associated businesses, with the potential for more in the future. That’s the kind of systematic change that could shape Maine for generations to come. But we’ll have to start now.

WHERE WE ARE NOW

M

aine has an extensive and diverse agriculture. No single crop or livestock product makes up more than 20 percent of total farm sales of about $600 million. Potatoes, milk, and eggs

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Maine can be a national example, and leader, in creating an abundant food system, one that meets a simple definition of sustainability: enough for everyone, forever. are the first three in terms of annual sales, followed by nursery crops and blueberries.

We have extensive direct market sales, which continue to grow each year. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports direct-to-consumer sales at $18 million, about three percent of sales.

Certified organic farms make up five percent of total farms and total farm sales.

A survey conducted for the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) in the spring of 2010 found more than half of Maine families report buying at a farmers’ market, farm stand, or communitysupported agriculture (CSA) “very often” or “somewhat often.” Why? They want to support local farmers (49 percent), support the local economy (32 percent), support Maine (19 percent), and get fresh food (33 percent) at fair prices (21 percent).

How does Maine stack up? In 2010, 93 farmers’ markets were open during the

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AN ABUNDANT FOOD SYSTEM: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y summer months, and 22 through some or all of the winter months. In 1971, there was only one, the old Portland Farmers’ Market that has operated continuously for more than 200 years. CSA programs (about 150) now supply more than 1.5 percent of Maine families with fresh produce and other products through the growing season. In a CSA program, consumers pay the farmers up front in return for a share of the harvest throughout the year. Maine is also home to some of the country’s first community-supported fishery (CSF) programs, supplying shrimp and fish through the year.

Maine is a destination for people who want to see how to make these connections. Portland, and now much of the state, is a place to go for people wanting to eat at good restaurants that feature local farm and seafood products. Maine chefs are regular winners and nominees of James Beard awards, and people from across the country come here to visit their restaurants and many others that have received national attention.

days. It’s a major outlet for hundreds of Maine businesses and a key example of how local and organic food can form the basis for real and significant economic development.

Over the past decade there has been rapid and strong growth in a range of value-added products. Members of the Maine Cheese Guild regularly win national awards at the American Cheese Society competitions. A growing beverage business started with beers and now includes specialty wines and spirits. Many of these businesses reach out and buy more ingredients from local farmers as they work to build their identities in the marketplace.

Breads and bakeries are making connections with wheat growers in both Aroostook County and southern Maine.

Missing Markets?

Like much of the rest of the country, the mid-sized farm and the mid-sized wholesale market are in short supply. As supermarkets have increased in size and sell a larger portion of groceries year to year, there are fewer and fewer farmers Maine can be a place where there is with the capacity to supply the whole always plenty of food on our plates, a chain/warehouse system. Over the place where there are strong connecpast five years several businesses have tions with the farmers and fishermen started to fill that middle spot—at the who helped to get the food there. community market scale—and natural foods stores have I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention expanded also. Institutional buyers— MOFGA’s Common Ground Country schools, hospitals, and businesses—also Fair, held in Unity the third weekend have an important role to play, since they after Labor Day. Thirty-five years old in feed many people each day.

2011, this is the largest organic food Without those mid-sized markets, event in the country each year, with we need even more effective gathering more than 60,000 attendees over three and distribution networks so that many 62 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

farms, together, might supply the larger markets. That’s beginning to happen, through Farm Fresh Connection and Crown O’ Maine Organic Cooperative and others, but it isn’t yet at a scale where it can pull large volumes of products from communities where the populations aren’t large enough to support a farmers’ market.

HOW WILL WE MOVE FORWARD?

T

he initiative for these changes will have to come from a new way of looking at agriculture and fisheries. They are part of an interconnected whole.

Elsewhere in this issue, Robin Alden describes some of the key elements of a revitalized fishery. But one of the critical factors in creating this more abundant food system is the role of the food buyers, whether as institutions or individuals.

Now, more than at any time in decades, the public is becoming aware of and interested in the entirety of the food chain— from the way the food was produced, and by whom, to how it was prepared. The initiatives proposed in this article are just part of that integrated whole, and it will take a major effort by many organizations and individuals to move forward.

Many of these initiatives have potential funding sources listed, but there are as many opportunities as solutions. The new conversations around Slow Money and community investing are part of the answer. So are the traditional lenders to rural businesses, USDA and Farm Credit Service, and the newer ones, such as Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) and MOFGA’s Organic Farm Loan Fund.

(Phillips, this issue, discusses the financing of Maine’s food enterprises.)

Each of these initiatives is a building block in this new food system. Maine can be a place where there is always plenty

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AN ABUNDANT FOOD SYSTEM: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y of food on our plates, a place where there are strong connections with the farmers and fishermen who helped to get the food there. We can be a place where there is enough for all, and we can be an example of how to do this while building a healthier, more resilient Gulf of Maine ecosystem. It’s our choice.

BUILDING BLOCKS FOR AN ABUNDANT FOOD SYSTEM

Take an Ecological Approach to Agriculture and Fisheries

Rachel was right. Almost 50 years ago, Rachel Carson described a world without birds and insects due to overuse of toxic pesticides such as DDT. In honor of the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring, published in 1972, it’s time to make a major push to develop biological systems to help control insects, diseases, and weeds. This will require the resources of the USDA and land grant research system.

The only way that is going to happen is through a concerted push to change federal policies to emphasize biology over chemistry. The 2012 Farm Bill is the place to take the first steps.

Integrate farms into the ecosystems.

Ideally, the water that leaves the farm and flows to streams and rivers and lakes will be as clean as the rain that falls from the sky. That means we need to capture nutrients on the farm in as many ways as possible and keep soil from moving off the farm.

1. Maine can become the nation’s leader in pushing the boundaries on organic and biological agricultural systems, on integrated pest management (IPM) and integrated crop management (ICM).

This will require research capacity at the University of Maine, the

USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) New England Plant Soil and Water Laboratory, and elsewhere, the ability to move information from research to practice through Cooperative Extension and other means, and farmers as active and eager partners. (Funding sources: USDA and EPA research programs will be major supporters here.)

2. Farms are part of the larger Gulf of Maine ecosystem. Maine farmers and fishermen are in regular communication so that farmers are more aware that what happens upstream affects the systems downstream. Maine Department of Agriculture (DOA) and farm organizations partner with USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to make sure at least 95 percent of Maine farms become active cooperators and 10 percent of each farm is managed for appropriate ecological values—buffer strips, wildlife habitat, and other conservation practices. (Funding source: Primarily USDA-NRCS, with active participation of local Soil and Water Conservation Districts.)

3. Farmers use fewer, less-toxic pesticides. This is a goal articulated in Maine law since 1997 (Title 22, § 1471-X). Farm groups and the DOA need to work with USDANRCS to develop a program for incentives for farmers to use the least toxic pesticides, rather than the least expensive. For example, there are alternatives for many uses of the organophosphate pesticide class. Let’s find and

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use them. Similarly, we could develop incentives to use the most accurate, lowest-drift application equipment. (Funding sources: Information from university and related research; incentive programs: potentially a NRCS priority.)

Make compost a key component of farm fertility. As fuel prices rise, fertilizers made from, or with, oil or natural gas become more expensive. Similarly, it costs more to dispose of “waste” materials. Some Maine businesses and organizations are nationally recognized for their pioneering work in composting systems. We need to push the boundaries. There is no waste in natural systems. Farms need fertility.

Actions needed: 1. Full-scale nutrient analysis—how much land can be farmed with the resources we have available now? What will we need to do to make up the difference? How do we do that? If we’re going to do large-scale nutrient cycling, we’ll need better systems and strategies for getting shellfish into compost operations, handling leaves in large quantities, and moving manure from livestock farms to crop farms. (Partners: University of Maine, Woods End Research Laboratory, Mount Vernon, is a leading national researcher on compost systems.)

2. More composting businesses.

Help with training, siting, and capitalization. The University of Maine Compost School is a great asset. We need to build on that and have more businesses moving organic materials in a form that is usable on farms and in gardens.

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AN ABUNDANT FOOD SYSTEM: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y Expand the Production Base with More Farmland and More Farmers

Bring 100,000 acres of prime farmland back into production, with new farmers ready to farm that land.

One consequence of the suburban sprawl of the last half-century, and the shrinking number of dairy farmers in central and southern Maine, is that hundreds of thousands of acres of prime farmland are not being actively managed. Some are mowed for hay, with no long-term strategy for keeping the land fertile and productive.

Other fields are growing back into trees.

Others are part of large, sprawling lawns, or are mowed occasionally to keep them from reverting to forest.

Meanwhile, new farmers and prospective new farmers struggle to find available and affordable land.

1. Identify prime soils in blocks of five acres or more that are not currently in production. (Potential project for college students using existing GIS technology; should be coordinated through a standard filter/format developed by the Maine DOA and other partners.)

2. Work with the owners of that land to identify possible options for use, ranging from sales to leases.

(Partners: Maine DOA, Maine Farmland Trust, local land trusts.)

3. Match potential farmers with the acres potentially available. (Same.)

4. Train new farmers. Maine needs several hundred new farmers each year to stay “even”—that is, to keep farm numbers level.

We would need about 2,500 additional new farmers over the next decade to farm these acres and manage the associated land.

64 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Spring 2011

The MOFGA apprenticeship and journeyperson program provide basic training/experience to about 150 people per year and advanced training to 25 more.

Even this won’t be sufficient.

Some new farmers will emerge from the group of people who grew up on a farm, but didn’t see an opportunity for themselves and left for some stretch of time.

But many others will be people who have little or no experience in food production—which means a long and steep learning curve. (Partners: MOFGA, Cooperative Extension, Cultivating Community.

Funding sources: USDA Beginning Farmer program, other sources.)

5. Expand farm-financing options.

If it all came on the market at once, that 100,000 acres, sold for farmland, would be worth about $100 million. That’s a lot of financing. Luckily, some will be leased, some will transfer within families, and it won’t all happen in one year. I’d like to propose “A Fund for Maine.” The goal would be to generate $10 per person per year, or about $13 million, to be used for investments in more farms and fishing operations. It would help to leverage significant funds that are already available through some of the existing institutions. (Funding sources: Individuals; possibly stock offerings and/or bonds. Structures: to be developed.)

Encourage Year-Round Production Systems

Maine winters are cold. Climate change is bringing more variability to outdoor production. The years 2008 and 2009 were cool with wet springs and summers; 2010 was an early spring with a long warm summer and just barely enough rain. Greenhouses and other technologies are important moderating systems. Maine should be a national leader in developing systems that work.

We already have examples at both the small scale (Eliot Coleman at Four Season Farm) and large scale (Backyard Farms, Madison). There’s lots of room for improvement. (Partners: Farmers, University of Maine researchers. Funding sources: USDA for research. USDANRCS did a cost-sharing program for hoophouses last year that could be expanded.)

Make Maine a Key Supplier of New England’s Vegetables and Fruits

Study after study looks at Maine as the natural supplier of both organic and non-organic vegetables and fruits for New England. Besides potatoes, frozen blueberries, and broccoli, there are few crops for which we are currently sending significant amounts of product outside the state. The Central Valley of California, the nation’s leading supply area, faces major water restrictions now and projected droughts over the next 20 years. We won’t supply the nation— but we could supply a major part of what Boston buyers want.

Maine has the farmland base, a growing number of farmers, and easy transportation routes. We also have rainfall and relatively moderate climate, at least in the summertime. We don’t have the systems in place to connect those

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AN ABUNDANT FOOD SYSTEM: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y assets with the markets that will increasingly be available over the next decade.

Meet High Standards

As consumers become more aware of food production systems, they start to make demands that are often hard to meet within the current model: grass-fed beef, humanely raised livestock, free-range chicken, organic foods. Maine already has a national image as a “green” state, a place where a lot of good things are happening in terms of the environment. We can build on that image, a step at a time, by helping farmers meet these other certification standards and labels. It will solidify our current markets, and open the door for new ones along the way.

REFERENCES Alden, Robin. 2011. “Building a Sustainable Seafood System for Maine.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 87-95.

Beal, Amanda and John John M. Jemison Jr. 2011. “Resources, Environment and Energy Considerations for Maine Food Security in 2050 and Beyond.”

Maine Policy Review 20(1): 172–181.

Jemison, John M. Jr. and Amanda Beal. 2011. “Historical Perspectives on Resource Use in Maine Food Systems.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 163–171.

CONCLUSION

Russell Libby

P

ieces of this abundant food system are already in place. From seeds (e.g., Johnny’s Selected Seeds breeding program that has won six All-America awards) to tools (e.g., Art Haines company, FarmArt) to the final product (e.g., Suzuki’s Sushi Bar in Rockland, using all Maine seafood and local produce), Maine is full of innovation. We must support and encourage that creativity and hard work in every way possible.

Agriculture in Maine has transformed itself multiple times over the past 400 years. However, these changes have always happened in a world of easy resource availability. Now we face challenges that could change our entire economic system. These initiatives could lead us towards a food system that provides abundance even with larger system changes. Agriculture and fisheries were two pillars of Maine’s early economy.

With care and support, they will be foundations of our future as well. -

is executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). An economist, he has worked on food policy at the Maine Department of Agriculture, MOFGA, and through many organizations, including the Eat Local Foods Coalition, the Agricultural Council of Maine, the National Organic Coalition, and the National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture. He also has a small farm in Mount Vernon.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 65

FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

Getting What We Pay For (and Other Unintended Consequences): An Overview of Federal Agricultural Policy

by Mary Ann Hayes

INTRODUCTION

W

hat omnibus bill is largely set to expire just weeks before the upcoming presidential election? You guessed it: The Food, Conservation and Energy Act of 2008, commonly known as the “Farm Bill.” This bill represents the lion’s share of federal agricultural policy and serves as the Grand Central Station of debate and competition between and among various agricultural interest groups, whose reach has expanded over the years to include a wide array of ancillary stakeholders. As the current bill title implies, conservation and energy interests are now a part of this complex discussion.

For the last 40 years, the Farm Bill has been reauthorized for approximately five-year periods, setting up a relatively predictable cycle with above-average opportunity for legislative advocacy. At each reauthorization deadline, there is significant motivation to produce a package that will be signed into law. In addition to the widespread constituent reliance on the food stamp

66 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

program that members of Congress would be reluctant to interrupt, failure to enact a new Farm Bill results in a fallback to three permanent laws: the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, Agricultural Act of 1949 and Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act of 1948 (Monke 2008). Reversion to these bills would cause a multitude of problems, given current conditions, and adds to the pressure to enact a new law.

The size and scope of the bill creates a wide range for political negotiations and trade-offs, and these strategies are actively employed by those at the table. The high stakes and predictable timetable gear up an enormous lobbying apparatus for perhaps three years of every five-year authorization period. We are into the second year of this ramp-up as the 2012 (more likely 2013) reauthorization period comes into focus, and there is a great deal of activity underway.

This article will (1) provide a brief historical overview of the Farm Bill, (2) outline the context for current and anticipated debates about its upcoming reauthorization, and (3) highlight examples of program and budget impacts that matter to Maine. The article will conclude with an observation of how the current structure of the Farm Bill and entrenched stakeholder interests combine to thwart development, implementation, and evaluation of a purposeful and effective national food-system policy.

WHAT’S IN THE FARM BILL?

A

s an omnibus bill, the Farm Bill incorporates a wide range of federal policies related to agriculture and rural development. A myriad of programs are organized within 15 separate “titles,” with some rough alignment with U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) sub-agencies that are assigned to implement them (see Table 1). Unfortunately, these policies are neither connected to, nor evaluated against, a clear statement of intended overall outcomes, rendering our national agricultural policy difficult to identify or evaluate as a whole. Instead, varied interests do their best to grab a piece of the pie and run with it.

How much does it cost? The current package of food, farm, and rural development programs was estimated by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) at the time of enactment to commit the American

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy TABLE 1: 2008 Farm Bill by Title and Estimated Mandatory Outlays

Title

Five-year Estimated Cost ($ Billion)

Subject Area

Brief Description

I

Commodities

Income support to growers of selected commodities, including wheat, feed grains, cotton, rice, oilseeds, peanuts, sugar, and dairy. Support is largely through direct payments, counter-cyclical payments, and marketing loans. Other support mechanisms include government purchases for dairy and marketing quotas and import barriers for sugar.

41.6

II

Conservation

Environmental stewardship of farmlands and improved management practices through and retirement and working-lands programs, among other programs geared to farmland conservation, preservation, and resource protection.

24.1

III

Agricultural Trade/ Food Aid

IV

Nutritiona

V

U.S. agricultural export and international food-assistance programs, and program changes related to various World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations.

1.9

Domestic food and nutrition and commodity-distribution programs, such as food stamps and other supplemental nutrition assistance.

188.9

Farm Credit

Federal direct and guaranteed farm loan programs and loan-eligibility rules and policies.

-1.4

VI

Rural Development

Business and community programs for planning, feasibility assessments, and coordination activities with other local, state, and federal programs, including rural broadband access.

0.194

VII

Research

Agricultural research and extension programs, including biosecurity and response, biotechnology, and organic production.

0.321

VIII

Forestry

USDA Forest Service programs, including forestry management, enhancement, and agroforestry programs.

0.038

IX

Energy

Bioenergy programs and grants for procurement of biobased products to support development of biorefineries and assist eligible farmers, ranchers, and rural small businesses in purchasing renewable energy systems, along with user education programs.

0.643

X

Horticulture/ Organic Agriculture

A new farm bill title covering fruits, vegetables, and other specialty crops and organic agriculture.

0.402

A new farm bill title covering livestock and poultry production, including provisions that amend existing laws governing livestock and poultry marketing and competition, country-of-origin labeling requirements for retailers, and meat and poultry state inspections, among other provisions.

0.001

XI

Livestock

XII

Crop Insurance and Disaster Assistance

XIII

Commodity Futures

XIV

Miscellaneousb

Other types of programs and assistance not covered in other bill titles, including provisions to assist limited-resource and socially disadvantaged farmers, and agricultural security, among others.

6.4

XV

Trade and Tax Provisions

A new title covering tax-related provisions intended to offset spending initiatives for some programs, including those in the nutrition, conservation, and energy titles. The title also contains other provisions, including the new supplemental disaster assistance and disaster relief trust fund, and other tax-related provisions such as customs user fees.

-1.8

A new farm bill title covering the federal crop insurance and disaster assistance previously included in the miscellaneous title.

21.9

A new farm bill title covering reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and other changes to current law.

Total

0

283.9

Source: Johnson and Monke 2010. a

New outlays for the expanded fresh fruit and vegetable program required in the nutrition title, $274 million (FY2008–FY2012) and $1.020 billion (FY2008–FY2017), are not reflected in this table because they are effectively offset with money from permanent appropriations under Section 32, mandated in Title XIV. b Excludes estimates for crop insurance previously included as part of the 2002 Farm Bill’s miscellaneous provisions. Other provisions in the 2008 Farm Bill include provisions for socially disadvantaged and limited-resource producers, agricultural security, and Section 32, among others.

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

$50M to $0 by the Stroke of a Pen

taxpayers to $284 billion over the FY2008-2012 What’s your stopping distance? authorization period in As a palpable example of the mandatory spending alone difference between mandatory (Johnson and Monke 2010). and discretionary funding, the Many other programs are recent FY11 budget signed into authorized at potential law on April 15 removed all funding levels, but must funding for the longstanding compete each year during Resource Conservation and the highly charged appropriDevelopment Program within ations process, a game best USDA-Natural Resources played by insiders.

Conservation Service (NRCS).

Authorized programs Staff had to be immediately that are never funded may be curtailed, seriously affecting considered stranded policy Maine’s five area councils and initiatives (or truly empty their 90 active programs with promises) and explain the no transition plan in place. No intensely competitive fight to one would argue that this is land in the mandatory versus a good way to change public discretionary Farm Bill policy. funding stream (see sidebar).

Where does this money go? A full two-thirds ($189 billion) is spent on the nutrition title, featuring assistance programs targeted to lower income Americans.

(See Nischan, Schumacher and Simon, this issue, for great detail on how rules for this program influence recipient food purchase choices.) The next three largest titles—commodities ($42 billion), conservation ($24 billion), and crop insurance ($22 billion)—consume 30 percent of the total, leaving just three percent to be allocated among the other 11 areas, including disaster assistance, rural development, forestry, research, foreign aid, credit, and energy.

FARM BILL ORIGINS: DISASTER RELIEF SPAWNS COMMODITY-BASED FOOD SYSTEM

to leave land fallow to manage supply. This marks the beginning of the involvement of the U.S. government in the macroeconomics of our food system. Congress recognized that domestic food production serves an essential function for the U.S. population’s health, safety, and welfare; therefore, government stepped in when the free market failed.

Is this reminiscent of the recent financial-services sector, Chrysler, or Fannie Mae bailouts? Or is it akin to guaranteeing our bank investments via the FDIC? There are similarities to these approaches in the crop insurance or disaster assistance titles of the Farm Bill.

The key difference in the commodity-support system is its virtual guarantee of an annual payment in virtually all years and under all conditions for certain crops— grains, oilseeds, cotton, peanuts, and sugar (the Milk Income Loss Contract program for dairy price support was added in 2002).

During the ensuing decades, subsidies of commodity crops have been justified for a variety of reasons, including agricultural stability, abundant affordable food, and U.S. trade balance. The expectation that government pays the growers of these staple commodities to be in business became solidified, setting the stage for a long-term dependency relationship with the American taxpayer, increased incentives for concentrating farm ownership, and massive lobbying efforts to keep the dollars flowing. This policy has certainly had an impact on the retail side of the U.S. food market. Cheap grains, oilseeds, and sugar, with their subsequent influence on meat, processed food, and beverage prices, have had a major influence on the American diet. We now grapple with the health impacts. You might say we’ve gotten what we paid for.

THE NIXON/BUTZ ERA: FEEDING THE WORLD (WITH CHEAP FOOD)

T

D

he original Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 arose as a means of addressing the survival of what was then a family-farm-based food-production system during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era. Price supports supplemented a supply-management system designed to bring levels of commercial production into balance with market conditions to result in a viable farmgate price. Farmers were paid

68 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

uring the 1960s, as transportation became more sophisticated, global (rather than just U.S.) market share became the focus of American agribusiness interests, creating further subsidy arguments based on increasing gross domestic product and net-tradebalance economic indicators. The growth of America’s food giants became synonymous with the health of the U.S. economy.

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

Not everyone thought it made sense to pay farmers to leave fields fallow. Rather than managing supply, why not increase demand? President Nixon’s Agricultural Secretary Earl Butz believed the U.S. had the capacity to feed the world and took a “no holds barred” approach to maximizing production on all arable land. The farm-support system guaranteeing a minimum price became a more permanent fixture of American policy, driving commodity prices to the lowest possible levels. Farmers would stay in business because the government would make up the difference.

With price supports based on a per bushel or other flat production formula and little differentiation among products, the economics of aggregation became even more favorable, hastening further concentration of ownership and distribution chains. Corporate ownership also made it more difficult for the USDA to monitor the ultimate recipients of program payments. The subsidized, low-cost system enabled corporate agribusiness to penetrate global markets waving a humanitarian flag of preventing hunger.

Who could be against that?

The agricultural education and research side of USDA policy operated in synch with the secretary’s policy objective, as one might expect it should, focusing on getting more annual production per acre with little attention to the long-term carrying capacity of the land or degradation of air and water due to erosion and runoff. Public research dollars supported the development of new pesticides, genetically altered seed varieties, and increased mechanization. (Articles by Jemison and Beal and Beal and Jemison, this issue, include discussion of some of the environmental consequences of American farm policy.) The environmental movement was just beginning, and its early focus was not on agriculture as a pollution source.

Environmental programs funded through the Farm Bill for rural areas were focused on grants for water and sewer systems and loans to communities administered by the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA). Rural housing assistance, parallel with programs administered for urban areas through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), also became attached to the Farm Bill as they were administered by USDA.

MORE RECENT FARM BILL TRENDS: CONSERVATION, ENERGY AND SPECIALTY CROPS

T

he environmental movement grew in strength and sophistication during the 1970s and 1980s, with agriculture recognized as a major polluter of our surface water. Beginning in 1985, and growing in importance since that time, the Farm Bill has included significant conservation-assistance programs to address impacts on air, water, and soil quality related to agricultural practices. These tend to be incentive-based programs, rewarding landowners with cost-share programs and technical assistance for using best practices in farm, ranch, and forestland management.

Given the mammoth…advan­tage enjoyed by industrial agriculture interests, the reformers have had to work hard and in collaboration to make inroads….

Agricultural reform interests, most notably the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC), first organized during this time period. NSAC has worked to gather and build consensus among the various family farm, conservation, health, hunger, and social justice interests that oppose or feel marginalized by the industrial agricultural system. Given the mammoth financial and entrenched mainstream advantage enjoyed by industrial agriculture interests, the reformers have had to work hard and in collaboration to make inroads, but have won some victories in each successive Farm Bill. These have tended to take the form of additional funds and occasionally friendlier rules for small-scale agriculture, but the grip on commodity-support programs has remained solid.

There was one close year, 1996, when free trade agreements and philosophy threatened the commoditypayment system, but the trade-offs on balance strengthened the position of commodity farms. A plan to wean farmers from federal aid over seven years was

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

thwarted by emergency payments made when prices dropped. The agreed-upon removal of subsidized acreage limits as a balancing factor was implemented, and the strategic grain reserve to help manage supply was terminated (Loria 2011). Direct and countercyclical commodity payments remain. And with no reason not to farm every acre, is there any surprise that market prices fall below the cost of production and need to be subsidized each year? The cycle becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

On to the next Farm Bill: 2002 was a banner year of Farm Bill growth as the federal government was running a surplus. A diverse coalition of interest groups became more active in attempting to influence agricultural policy, which had long been controlled by members of Congress from the midwestern and southern commodity-producing regions, those regions with the strongest historical ties to the commodity and other farm-support titles such as crop insurance, credit, and foreign aid. Members from other regions, including the Northeast, largely left these debates to be held among commodity interest groups and focused their attention and political capital on votes for areas of greater import to their respective regions.

Energy was added as a new title in that year, with corn-based ethanol and other biofuels coming into focus. The energy title was greatly expanded in scope and size in the 2008 bill with inclusion of the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), but still retained a high degree of attention to biofuels relative to other energy initiatives. Federal policy has certainly had an impact in this sector; perhaps we’ve gotten what we paid for. The proportion of domestic corn production processed into ethanol has increased from seven percent to 33 percent over the last 10 years (Johnson and Monke 2010). What we have also paid for, which may not have been intended, are the resulting higher prices of corn for food and livestock feed and attendant environmental impacts of ethanol production when the full process is taken into account (see sidebar).

In 2008 the pie was further expanded. Two new titles—livestock and horticulture/organic agriculture— were added to the 2008 Farm Bill, a reflection of the growing strength of nontraditional agricultural constituencies with different interests that could effectively argue that none of the $42 billion dedicated for 70 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

commodity support was distributed to livestock, fruit, or vegetable farmers.

THE POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY OF AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATIONS

I

n agricultural policy, party affiliation has little to do with a House or Senate member’s position, as interests are regional in nature. The political geography follows the economic geography. As a testament to this tenet, priorities in the Farm Bill have changed little regardless of committee chairmanships as Congress has switched from Republican or Democratic rule.

Constituent interests remain constant, and lobbying groups have covered their bases on both sides of the aisle. A commodity-support program that had its origins with a small family-farm system now caters to a small, but powerful, group of large farm interests.

To understand how Congress aligns on these issues, one only needs to see the distinct geographical differences between the two opposing agricultural interest groups. “Specialty crops” are fruit, vegetables, tree nuts, greenhouse, floriculture, and nursery crops including sod. Relatively little of these are grown in the Midwest and South compared to the balance of the nation, with high concentrations on both coasts. While representing only three percent of crop acres, specialty crops capture 50 percent of farm cash receipts (Monke 2008).

Commodity crops of corn, wheat, rice, soybeans, oilseeds, sugar, cotton, and peanuts are grown in the Midwest and South. Corn, wheat, cotton, rice, and soybeans accounted for 90 percent, or approximately $1 billion per year on average, of outlays on commodity programs from 2003 to 2007. The producers receiving payments are just the beginning of a wide pipeline of well-represented food business interests with a major stake in protecting the status quo.

In the South and Midwest, agribusiness is king, and for many decades, elected members of Congress from these regions have controlled the key committees in both chambers to advance and protect their regions’ interests. By controlling committee debates, serious discussion of commodity-payment reform beyond programmatic tweaks do not get far. Cases of “gaming the system” to dodge program limits through corporate layers have become widely publicized and criticized by

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

both Republicans and Democrats. Last year Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) co-sponsored legislation to tighten loopholes and address payment limits. Policy refinements continue to address the nuances of how these payments are made—for what reasons, by what formula, and with what limits. Yet the payments continue.

As a testament to the regional stranglehold on the commoditysupport program, even Maine’s highly respected and great negotiator, George Mitchell, when serving as Senate Majority Leader, could not leverage the votes of Wisconsin senators from his own party to enable reauthorization of the Northeast Dairy Compact.

The compact had successfully piloted a creative and transparent agreement on fluid-milk (excluding cheese) pricing and was supported by producers, processers, retailers and consumers from New York to Maine. It worked for all facets of the dairy producerprocesser-retailer-consumer chain and could be replicated in other regions to support local fluid-milk markets. But Wisconsin stood fast, defending the current flawed federal pricing system, which hampers stability for smaller dairy farmers nationwide. (See related article by Tim Drake, this issue, regarding Maine’s innovative dairyrelief program, supported by Maine’s consumers.)

Given the solid lock on commodity-support programs, those seeking reform can only point to the dollars benefitting a small segment of farmers, many of whom have been demonized as wealthy corporate absentee owners, and argue for equitable treatment. This strategy requires making the agricultural pie larger, or taking funds from other programs, and

Energy and Food Policy: More Unintended Consequences Methods to help a new product to get into an established marketplace for long-term public benefit are time-honored policy vehicles. These can take the form of requirements for public purchases, such as recycled paper content, or preferences for disadvantaged business owners. Or they can take the form of tax credits, price subsidies, public research dollars, grants, loans, and loan guarantees. The list goes on and on.

These vehicles are, of course, intended to provide a market advantage for the intended beneficiary, which by the laws of economics causes a comparative disadvantage to others in the market. The oil and gas lobbies opposed preferences for renewable fuels for years until they had positioned themselves to participate in those incentives. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

When are subsidies or other market stimulation the right thing to do, what is the right level of subsidy, and when do you stop? These are tough questions for policymakers and often more unintended than intended impacts occur. Here are three examples of unintended consequences of renewable energy policy supports as they relate to food systems: Example #1—Corn Ethanol: The subsidization of the production of corn ethanol has had clear and significant upward price impacts on food and livestock feed costs.

Debates continue over the net energy and air-quality benefits and the food system impacts of the production of corn ethanol. Who balances out these competing concerns?

Example #2—Woody Biomass: Maine’s wood-products industry is divided over the impact of subsidized new markets for woody biomass as thermal fuel. The woodpellet industry is growing, while pulp costs have risen and farmers now have trouble getting sawdust for bedding, driving up their costs. Some gain while others lose.

Who balances out these competing concerns?

Example #3—Used Cooking Oil: Laughing Stock Farm in Freeport has been growing year-round greens for its customers in greenhouses fueled by the used cooking oil of area restaurants, which used to pay to have the waste product removed. New transportation subsidies for biofuel have created a paying market for the used cooking oil, potentially disrupting this local community recycling of energy and food resources.

The cost of local food production would skyrocket if the used cooking oil had to be purchased at the subsidized biofuel price. Fortunately in this case, the community relationships are stronger than the temptation to pocket short-term revenues, and restaurants are sticking with Laughing Stock. But we also need to migrate to new transportation fuels. Who balances out these competing concerns?

Debates over the wisdom of the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, Rural Energy for America Program, and subsidy for corn ethanol will be part of the Farm Bill reauthorization discussion along with FY12 budget negotiations. We have some of our own selfish interests at stake here in Maine. Who’s in charge of the bottom line?

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

it has met with limited success during the 2002 and 2008 Farm Bills. During the current fiscal climate, such a strategy is a long shot. The recently approved FY11 agriculture budget contained serious reductions in most programs, but not in commodity supports.

THE YO-YO EFFECT: 2008 AND 2010 ELECTION IMPACTS

L

eading up to the 2008 Farm Bill, advocates of a local and healthy food system forged stronger alliances than in past years with conservation interests to create a more unified lobbying block to compete with “big agriculture.” The NSAC is the most prominent grassrootsbased coalition addressing these combined issues. A coalition with a narrower focus is the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC), which addresses making healthy, affordable food available in lower-income areas and food deserts. This effort was largely successful, making inroads on issues of concern to the local, foodsecurity and healthy-foods movements.

During the George W. Bush Administration, the Northeast had lean representation on congressional agriculture committees. Senator Leahy of Vermont worked on the Senate side; he now has a strong committee ally in Senator Gillibrand of New York. On the House side, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut was a lone voice from our region. With the 2008 gains made

by Democrats, committee assignments made significantly more room for the Northeast on the House Committee on Agriculture. The 2010 elections brought another sea change, but the Northeast region currently holds eight seats on the House Committee, one held

by Maine’s 1st District Representative Chellie Pingree, who also sits on the Conservation, Energy and Forestry Subcommittee. So while the Northeast is still a minority voting block, there is theoretical critical mass with which to contend.

the traditional food stamp and commodity-support programs) were in the best position to be continued without arguing merits and finding offsets. The current debate will be much more challenging than in previous years given the intense pressure to reduce the deficit and “pay-go” budget rules enacted in 2010. While there’s always an election coming up, this reauthorization process is timed to coincide with a presidential election that will exacerbate the intense polarization that already exists.

The National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture and CFSC are preparing position papers advocating for local food systems. The Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition has prioritized an agenda for the forestry title (see Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition [2011] for more information). The National Associations of Counties and Development Organizations organize around the rural development title. Both the forestry and rural development titles are of great importance to Maine.

The president, through Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, has indicated his priorities of expanding the farm safety net, stimulating the rural economy, and adding 100,000 new farmers. Building the renewableenergy sector is also high on the list. The House side of Congress does not appear to share these objectives, at least where we’ve had a snapshot of likely positions from the recent debates on the FY11 and FY12 budgets. Environmental and energy programs have been slashed, while commodity programs have remained untouched.

The Administration’s policy initiatives are arriving at a tough time both fiscally and politically. The Healthy Food Financing Initiative was not successful in getting new funds in the recent FY11 appropriations process.

For the Administration or any member of Congress to propose a new initiative, they will have to at least find an offset, which means attacking a program with a constituency during an election year. Good luck with that.

THE DEBATE OVER THE NEXT FARM BILL

T

he 2008 Farm Bill took an extra year to enact, in part due to multiple committees of jurisdiction in both chambers that had to approve fiscal offsets applied to the Farm Bill. In the past, programs with baseline funding anticipated into the future (including

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ADDRESSING DEFICIT-REDUCTION CONCERNS

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here is clearly a serious challenge facing Congress and the Administration regarding the growing federal deficit and mounting debt. Business as usual cannot be sustained. The question is how and with

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what priorities will reduced spending be achieved?

Given the recent FY12 budget approved by the House Appropriations Committee on May 31, however (not yet voted on by the full House as of the time of this writing), it would appear that the commodity interests are more than holding their own. Enormous mandatory program cuts, however, are proposed in the conservation, research, and energy titles. The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) had $700 million cut, including farmers’ market coupons. Cooperative Extension would be cut by 11 percent and NRCS technical assistance staff would be severely curtailed if these cuts were to become law. The House Committee is further criticizing the costs to local schools of requirements for more fresh fruits and vegetables as called for in the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act enacted in December.

DOING MORE WITH EXISTING RESOURCES— WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?

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hat’s a chief executive going to do when new appropriations are unlikely? Try to work within existing resources. There is always a tension between the branches of government regarding the leeway of the Executive Branch to advance the president’s agendas without an Act of Congress. USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan has been leading the charge to support local and regional food systems by pushing existing programs in that direction. The Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food (KYF2) Initiative has packaged existing programs that may have application to local food systems, but has no direct program dollars of its own to distribute. All USDA agencies have been encouraged to find ways to use existing programs for support of local and regional food systems.

But even working within limited existing resources, there are opponents to this policy direction, which clearly threatens some who profit by the existing long-distance relationship between growers and consumers. In its recent FY12 budget report, the House Agricultural Appropriations Committee criticized the KYF2 Initiative and demanded accounting on funds spent for staff travel. Research dollars awarded to projects supporting development of local food systems were castigated as not constituting “true” research,

suggesting future Congressional oversight may well prevent such investments.

WHAT’S AT STAKE FOR MAINE

S

Small Programs Can Have Big Impacts in Maine The Farm and Ranchland Protection Program, just one small program administered by NRCS at a modest level of $1 million per year on average to Maine since 1998, has doubled the value of the state’s allocations to the Land for Maine’s Future Program. As a result, 8,025 farmland acres have been protected from development with conservation easements. This benefit has been spread among 32 farms in 10 counties.

ome of Maine’s Farm Bill outlays are in line with formula distributions, such as agricultural inspectors or support for University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Others are highly variable. Table 2 lists the impact of some key Farm Bill programs in Maine. This list is by no means complete. We’ve already established that Maine like most of the Northeast region overall, receives little from the commodity title, perhaps just $2 million in milk price-support payments in 2010. However, on the nutrition title side, Maine has a high rate of participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and therefore uses a higher than national average proportion of those program dollars.

SNAP represented $348 million in food stamp benefits to Maine in 2010, very significant indeed. But perhaps the sizable impact of the Farm Bill on the Maine economy that is not commonly known is that of USDA Rural Development (USDA RD) programs.

While representing a small fraction of Farm Bill funding at the national level, USDA RD’s outlays have the biggest fiscal impact on our state, even outpacing SNAP. The $417 million USDA RD spent here in FY10 leveraged another $35 million in housing, community facilities, and business investments.

Recipients included 7,500 families or individuals through the single- and multi-family housing programs, 280 businesses, and 59 community facilities.

Since 2006, USDA RD has invested more than $5 million in programs supporting sustainable food systems in Maine and $15 million in energy programs (USDA RD 2010).

Land grant university formula funding to the University of Maine (UMaine) amounts to approximately $5 million in funding for Cooperative

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

TABLE 2: Farm Bill Implications for Maine

Rural Development

These programs, though part of one of the smaller titles overall, have enormous implications for Maine with investments in housing, community facilities (including broadband), and smallbusiness programs (including energy efficiency and renewable energy). In 2010 alone, USDA Rural Development invested $417 million. Recipients included 7,500 families and individuals, 280 businesses and 59 community facilities. Since 2006, USDA Rural Development has invested more than $5 million in programs supporting sustainable food systems in Maine and $15 million in energy programs (USDA RD 2010).

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

$348 million in 2010 (gateway.maine.gov/dhhs-apps/dashboard/). (See Schumacher, Nischan and Simon, this issue, for a rich discussion of this largest of Farm Bill programs.)

Farm Service Agency

FSA delivered $42.5 million in federal program payments to Maine farmers in FY10. Of this, less than $2 million were commodity payments, with slightly more than $1 million going to dairy farmers in the form of price supports. The lion’s share of FSA support ($38 million) was delivered through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, which was slated for elimination in the recent FY12 House Agricultural Appropriations Budget. Approximately $1.5 million in payments were distributed through conservation programs.

Natural Resources Conservation Service

The FY10 Maine NRCS budget was $21 million, with about one-third for technical services and two-thirds in cash-based programs to landowners and communities. See USDA NRCS (2010) for a compelling breakdown of the effectiveness of these conservation programs.

UMaine Cooperative Extension

$2.3 million in formula funds, which leveraged more than double that amount in competitively awarded research and extension grants ($4.8 million in FY10) to UMaine. The proposed FY12 House budget proposes an 11 percent cut in base formula funding for Cooperative Extension.

Maine Agricutural and Forest Experiment Station (UMaine)

$3 million in formula funds, which leverage millions of dollars in competitive research grants.

Maine Department of Agriculture Core Staffing

55 federally funded positions, mostly for health and safety inspectors.

Senior Farm Share Program

Maine makes aggressive use of this relatively small federal program to build direct relationships with local farms (further described in Schumacher, Nischan and Simon, this issue): $1 million in FY11.

Specialty Crop Block Grant Program

Administered by the Maine Department of Agriculture, enables Maine to target its share of funds to critical infrastructure, training, and promotion for Maine’s potato, blueberry, organic, and small farms. This block-grant approach allows each state to determine its own needs, far better than establishing a federal program for each separate crop or picking winners and losers from a national perspective. About $400,000 per year.

Extension and the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station each year. The program that funds forestry research is known as the McIntire-Stennis program; the bill was coauthored in 1962 by Representative Clifford McIntire from Maine’s 2nd District. All of these core funds are matched with state dollars and enable UMaine to successfully compete for many millions of dollars more in federal and privatesector research grants that pump a great deal into Maine’s economy.

The fiscal impacts of Farm Bill program administration in and near Maine are not inconsiderable. Three USDA agencies—Natural Resources Conservation 74 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Service, Farm Service Agency, and Rural Development— maintain staffed offices throughout the state. So in addition to their outlays in payments to farmers, communities, residents, and businesses, there is a major payroll injection into the Maine economy.

Farm Credit, a quasi-public farm lender authorized in the Farm Bill, maintains offices in Lewiston and Presque Isle. The regional office of the U.S. Forest Service is located in Durham, New Hampshire, and New England Agricultural Statistics is based in Concord, New Hampshire. Fifty-five positions are covered at the Maine Department of Agriculture, mostly for inspectors. Administrative funds for the

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FARMING: Federal Agricultural Policy

food stamp program support positions at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

The Farm Service Agency (FSA) delivered $42.5 million in federal program payments to Maine farmers in FY10. Of this, less than $2 million were commodity-program payments, with slightly more than $1 million going to dairy farmers in the form of price supports. The lion’s share of FSA support ($38 million) was delivered through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Approximately $1.5 million in payments were distributed through conservation programs.

Energy programs are of interest to Maine.

Aroostook County’s Mobilize Maine initiative has identified the biomass pellets sector (primarily from grass as a rotation crop) as its number one economic opportunity and has set a goal of converting 4,000 furnaces from oil to local biomass. The Biomass Crop Assistance Program, funded at $248 million in FY11, was just proposed for elimination in the FY12 House Agricultural Appropriations Budget. The Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) was also proposed for elimination, but was restored by amendment at a placeholder level of $1.2 million for FY12 (compared to $75 million in FY11). This action clearly renders these programs vulnerable in the upcoming discussions of the Farm Bill regardless of how the FY12 budget discussion progresses in the Senate. Maine’s delegation will no doubt be active in this debate.

TUGGING ON BOTH ENDS OF THE ROPE— WHERE ARE WE GOING?

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here is, and will be, quite a battle during the coming 18 months regarding the next Farm Bill.

What are the objectives of U.S. farm and food policy?

How will we know if we’re getting there? Will we step back to clarify policy outcomes and target appropriations to meet those objectives? Will we consider the unintended consequences as we underwrite certain commodities and energy sectors?

Although not directly stated, most people would characterize our current agricultural policy as most friendly to industrial-scale agriculture, with some recent reforms made to support programs dear to advocates of sustainable food systems. As noted earlier, differing interests are largely determined by regional affiliation,

but new alliances are forming between urban consumers and advocates of sustainable farming to broaden the Congressional districts invested in the Farm Bill. Congress has sent mixed messages of late, enacting the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act in December, but balking at the rulemaking stage this spring. Sharp FY11 budget cuts were made to environmental and nutrition programs, but commodity payments were untouched. Where is this leading? Is there a plan?

To do this right, there would be a well-articulated vision for American agriculture as it relates to the wellbeing of our population, economy, and environment.

Indicators of success would be established and the known unintended consequences considered. Trade-offs would be weighed and decisions explained. We could build a strategic and cohesive delivery system to advance U.S. policies on food, farm, and rural economic security.

This is not the way of most U.S. policy, and the Farm Bill is further burdened by the longstanding programs and well-rehearsed constituent advocacy around specific agendas in separate titles. Recognizing the pressure to reduce spending, constituents will be in a defensive posture, fighting ever harder to hold onto their current piece of the pie. Smart innovations are not born under such conditions.

With disparate interests at odds during a highly charged election cycle, the next Farm Bill is far more likely to be incrementally adjusted without the benefit of fresh thinking about a new and interconnected vision for U.S. agriculture and rural America. We can expect more segmented budgeting across dozens of programs administered by separate USDA agencies toward disconnected outcomes. But perhaps some indisputably great ideas will be picked up and advanced as more American citizens demand a healthier outcome for their tax dollars and make their voices heard.

Does anyone know where we’re trying to go and how we’ll know if we’ve arrived? How will we know if we got what we paid for? -

Please turn the page for article references and information about the author.

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REFERENCES Beal, Amanda and John Jemison Jr. 2011. “Resource, Environment and Energy Considerations for Maine Food Security in 2050 and Beyond.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 172–182

U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development (USDA RD). 2010. USDA Rural Development Annual Report 2010: Maine. USDA RD, Bangor ME. http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/me/Success%20 Stories/MAINE%20Annual%20Report.pdf [Accessed May 15, 2011]

Drake, Tim. 2011. “Maine’s Dairy Relief Program.”

Maine Policy Review 20(1): 77–78 Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition. 2011. Forest Priorities for the 2012 Farm Bill. http://www.forestfoundation. org/stuff/contentmgr/files/1/ff126e3cc9cdfb99e511 91810144d761/pdf/fifb_coalition_web_version.pdf [Accessed June 1, 2011]

Mary Ann Hayes has more than 30 years of

Jemison, John M. Jr. and Amanda Beal. 2011.

“Historical Perspectives on Resource Use in Food Systems.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 163­–171

Maine-based experience in community engagement, policy development, and

Johnson, Renee and Jim Monke. 2010. What is the “Farm Bill”? Report RS22131 Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC. http://www. nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RS22131.pdf [Accessed May 20, 2011] Loria, Kristen. 2011. From the Field to the Farm Bill: Can Federal Policy Changes Help Grow Local Food Systems? Thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. http://www.bioscienceresource.org/cms/documents/Local%20Foods%20and%20the%20Farm%20 Bill%20Kristen%20Loria-2011.pdf [Accessed April 1, 2011]

planning. Since 1990, she has also helped to manage a 100-head dairy herd at her home in Thorndike. Mary Ann currently serves as executive director of Maine Rural Partners, Maine’s federally recognized state rural development council, where she works to help rural communities to thrive in place.

Monke, Jim. 2008. Farm Commodity Programs in the 2008 Farm Bill, 2008. Report RL34594.

Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC. http://farmpolicy.typepad.com/farmpolicy/files/ crs_report_farm_commoidty_program_in_o8_fb.pdf [Accessed June 1, 2011] Schumacher, Gus, Michel Nischan and Daniel Bowman Simon. 2011. “Healthy Food Access and Affordability.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): U.S. Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA NRCS). NRCS Maine 2010 Accomplishments Report. USDA NRCS, Bangor, ME ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/ME/ PDFfiles/2010AnnualReport.pdf [Accessed June 3, 2011]

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FARMING: Maine’s Dairy Relief Program

Maine’s Dairy Relief Program1

By Tim Drake

D

airy farming is a part of life in Maine and remains a central element of the state’s character and economy. There are currently 304 farms ranging in size from 10 to 1,700 milking cows. Maine’s dairy industry generates more than $570 million dollars each year for the state’s economy; contributes more than $25 million dollars to the state and municipal government in taxes; and provides more than 4,000 jobs for Maine people. Maine dairy farms are small businesses that are dependent on other businesses such as grain dealers, equipment dealers, milk truck haulers, veterinarians, cattle dealers, and other cattle and dairy specialists. These farms represent 700,000 acres of fields, pastures, crop lands, and small woodlots in Maine, which is extremely important to the state’s number one industry, tourism, and are needed for outdoor sports activities and open space.

The cyclical dynamic of dairy pricing on a national scale has become more erratic and extreme, causing financial stress throughout the industry. Coming off historic low prices in 2002–2003, dairy prices to farmers nationally rose significantly over 2004–2005, only to drop drastically to new historic sustained lows in 2006, 2008, and 2009. This is because of a failed federal milk-pricing policy that Congress and USDA need to modify. Currently, changes to milk-pricing policy are being proposed on a national level, from the National Milk Producers Federation’s “Foundation for the Future” proposal to the Maine Dairy Industry Association and Dairy Producers of New Mexico proposal for a Competitive Price Formula to replace Class III (cheese) end-product pricing formula.

Maine has continued to lose farms, but at a slower rate than the rest of the Northeast due to help from its price-stabilization program (Table 1). Maine’s 304

dairy farms in 15 counties represent a decline since 2004 of 78 farms. From 2000 to 2004, Maine lost 106 dairy farms. Currently there are close to 32,000 cows in Maine making 590 million pounds of milk per year (69 million gallons), a decline of 1.4 percent since 2004. As noted Maine dairy farms range in size from 10 to 1,700 cows, and a typical farm will have an equal number of younger replacement animals to milking animals. The most common breed of dairy cow in Maine is the Holstein. Other popular breeds include Jersey and Guernsey. Sale of excess animals is an important source of dairy farm income.

TABLE 1: Northern New England Dairy Farm

Numbers Comparison

Maine Vermont New Hampshire

2004

2010

% Loss

381

306

-19%

1,460

700

-52%

241

130

-46%

MAINE DAIRY STABILIZATION PROGRAM

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he Maine Dairy Relief Program commonly known as the “tier program” was established in 2004, with the passage of LD 1945. The intent is to provide economic relief to Maine dairy farmers in times of low milk prices. The tier program provides a payment from the state’s General Fund directly to farmers when the amount that they receive from the marketplace for their milk falls below their cost of production. The target price for a producer depends on which of three production ranges the producer is in. All producers begin in the first level of production beginning on June 1 each year. Some move into the second, third, and fourth levels of production fairly quickly, while others never get out of the first level. Each level (tier) has a different target price. To fund the program, milk-handling-fee proceeds are collected by the Maine Revenue Service and deposited in the General Fund, from which payments are disbursed.

In 2004, there were 393 dairy farms in Maine.

Under this program, Maine dairy farms were paid $13.9 million from 2004 to June of 2007. In July

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FARMING: Maine’s Dairy Relief Program

MAINE’S MODEL DAIRY INDUSTRY SUPPORT PROGRAM

By Walt Whitcomb, Commissioner, Maine Department of Agriculture The Maine tier program is viewed by many agricultural interests as a national model for public support of a state dairy industry.

The late Dr. Fred Hutchinson, former president of the University of Maine, chaired the forward-thinking advisory committee that authored legislation to temper prices paid to dairy farmers when the national price structure drops below costs of production.

In essence, the state captures a small portion of the margin between the price the dairy farmer receives and the price the consumer pays, then disperses the dollars when the farmgate price drops nationally and regionally.

We are able to accomplish this task while other states have not been successful because Maine has a functioning Maine Milk Commission that reviews and establishes milk prices, and Maine policymakers along with Maine’s milk processors, retailers, and consumers were and are willing to participate in an effort to support a local supply of food. Along the way Maine has kept three major processing plants, with their associated jobs, and a significant number of active dairy farms. With a level of stability in the price received for milk, dairy farms, with another interested generation, are making long-range capital investments.

Because Maine has showed a willingness to make funds available to stabilize erratic national milk prices, the Maine dairy industry has the potential to grow.

a consistent supply of quality milk and the economic activity associated with milk production in Maine.

This program has effectively slowed the loss of dairy farms in Maine. Although overall farm numbers have declined, the number of pounds of milk produced

by Maine dairy farms has remained relatively stable.

There is no doubt that the price-stabilization program has helped secure a future for many dairy farm families.

It has provided a safety net for many farmers on the verge of shutting their doors and has provided a window of opportunity for interested, younger farm families to begin dairy farming. -

ENDNOTE 1. Portions of this article were previously published in a 2009 report from the Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine (www.maine.gov/agriculture/mmc/documents/ MicrosoftWord-2009Dairy_Task_Force_Report12-109_2_.pdf)

Tim Drake works in the Maine Department of Agriculture, serving as executive director of the Maine Milk Commission.

2007, the target prices and tier levels were changed to reflect higher costs of production. At that time, there were 342 dairy farms. Since then, $30 million has been paid to dairy farms in the stabilization program.

The tier program is designed to protect farmers from accruing insurmountable amounts of debt during years of financial difficulty. Because milk is a 24-houra-day, 7-day-a-week, 365-day-a-year industry with a perishable product produced by animals that need regular care and feeding, this price protection is critical to the continued sustainability of the Maine dairy industry. As long as the federal pricing system continues to fail to provide an adequate price for the milk produced, the tier program is helping to ensure

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Fishing Couple Maine’s farmland with our thousands of miles of coastline and thousands of acres of lakes, rivers, and streams, and it seems there’s every opportunity for us to be a food-system paradise. For too long, agriculture and fisheries have operated in separate spheres. Repositioning fisheries as an integral part of Maine’s food system presents exciting opportunities and challenges. Maine has one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world, one for which people are willing to pay a premium. But for Maine fisherman, the coast is how they access their livelihood. Rob Snyder tells us that in 2002 only 25 miles of Maine’s 5,300-mile coastline supported working-waterfront access.

Creative and innovative strategies to preserve Maine’s working waterfront are the focus of his article. In her article, Robin Alden agrees that Maine could have one of the premier marine food systems in the world, but that means adequate stewardship of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem and diversifying our fishing industry beyond lobster by creating innovative public policy and a food system that supports community fishing. The desire for a sustainable seafood industry that protects the environment and the future of fishing is certainly of interest to consumers, but even here there are conflicting standards, as Catherine Schmitt explores in her article. We end this section with some of the results of the By Land and By Sea project, presented by Amanda Beal, Maine fishermen and farmers came together to discuss common concerns and to forge new solutions as we re-envision a unified food system.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 79

FISHING: Toward a Working-Waterfront Ethic

Toward aWorkingWaterfront Ethic: Preserving Access to Maine’s Coastal Economy, Heritage, and Local Seafood

by Robert Snyder

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.

— Aldo Leopold 1949

BACKGROUND

INTRODUCTION

I

n the first decade of the 21st century, Maine established itself as a national leader in working-waterfront preservation, ensuring that there will always be places on our coast where fishermen can go down to harvest from the sea. This article reviews the catalysts for the innovations that emerged between 2001 and 2011, the policies that developed, and what we have accomplished and learned since. The solutions to preserving working waterfront that were developed in Maine inform the creation of a working-waterfront ethic that is quickly spreading to coastal communities around the U.S. When Aldo Leopold envisioned our embrace of a land ethic, he was challenging the nation to extend our views of land from a pure commodity to a part of our ecosystem or community of interconnected parts. Land thus became a member of our community, and as such it became our ethical duty to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the community. Leopold’s land

80 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

ethic was prompted by concerns that industrialization was ruining wild, open spaces. Ultimately this same ethic was extended to farmland and working forests in the 1970s, drawing on aesthetic sensibilities that align the productive countryside with nature. However, it would take another 30 years to extend this land ethic to working waterfronts.

The late George Putz, a prominent writer from Vinalhaven Island once reflected, “at the outset, a working waterfront is all plain and clear. There is a harbor with at least some protection from the weather and sea, around which is based a small community” (Putz 1987: 26). From a fisherman’s point of view, a working waterfront requires a protected harbor where one can bring in a boat, offload, work on gear, and then moor a vessel in secure waters.1 The most productive parts of a working waterfront require “all-tide” access, where one can land a boat and catch, regardless of the state of the moon and tides. Beyond deep water and a protected harbor, a working waterfront must also be connected to public roads and distribution networks.

It must also offer enough parking for the trucks and vehicles that support fishing activities.

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orking-waterfront access is lost for a variety of reasons. According to research conducted by Coastal Enterprises, Inc., (CEI ) in 2002 and 2004, the primary pressures that lead to the loss of workingwaterfront access include high taxes, competition from recreational uses, and development to use the waterfront for non-water-dependent uses (Elizabeth Sheehan, personal communication, 2003). Shellfish harvesters are losing access as properties are posted “no trespassing,” and when coastal property owners close off or contest historical access points. Handshake agreements also provide a tenuous form of access to the ocean.

Once a property converts out of a water-dependent use it is unlikely that the property will convert back. In 2002, only 25 miles of Maine’s 5,300-mile coastline supported working-waterfront access (Sheehan and Cowperthwaite 2002). By 2005 coastal access had dwindled to 20 miles (Island Institute 2007).

The real estate bubble over the past decade certainly accelerated the pace of loss.

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FISHING: Toward a Working-Waterfront Ethic

The solutions to Fishermen who may want to purchase access find that a gap exists between what they can afford to pay for coastal properties and what the market will bear for these properties. This gap becomes a barrier for future entrants to the fishing industry. As of November 2010, the median asking price for waterfront homes in Maine was $549,000 (www.mymaineproperty.com/mainewaterfront-real-estate). Concurrently, the average annual household income for lobstermen hovers around $70,000 (Taylor Singer and Holland 2008).

This means that the average lobsterman can afford less than half the median home price on the coast of Maine, making purchase of a wharf impossible.

This has been the trend despite research suggesting that, “the working waterfront contributes anywhere from $15 million to $168 million more per year to our gross state product than does coastal residential construction. In other words, our working piers and wharves contribute almost two times more to the state’s economy than would converting 500 coastal properties and building a $650,000 house on each one” (Colgan 2004: i [emphasis added]).

Loss of access is significant because these properties support more than $740 million in Maine state revenue and 35,000 jobs. According to the most current statistics compiled by the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), in 2009 working waterfronts supported the landings of 222,619,948 live pounds of fish, lobster, and other species with a value of $323,138,227. Of this total, an estimated 139,423,000 pounds are used for food products (mussels, lobster, haddock) at a value of roughly $300,000,000 to the fishing families and those employed in fishing related businesses along our coast (www.maine.gov/dmr/ commercialfishing/recentlandings).

TOOLS FOR PRESERVING WORKING WATERFRONTS

A

number of tools have evolved at the intersection of rapidly rising values for waterfront real estate and concerns over preserving commercial-fishing access.

These preservation tools might be considered singleor multiple-generation preservation tools.

Single-generation preservation tools are those that can change with the values of a family or community.

For example, local tools such as preserving working comprehensive planning, harbor ordinances, zoning, and public waterfronts that investment all play a role in preserving working-waterfront were developed access in Maine. Waterdependent-use zoning plays an in Maine inform important role, protecting 29 percent of working-waterfront the creation of a access in Maine (Island Institute 2007). Still, only 33 working-waterpercent of Maine’s 142 coastal towns have some type of waterfront ethic that is dependent zoning (Island Institute 2007). These access quickly spreading points are secure to the extent that voters and town planners to coastal commudo not overturn these zoning restrictions. nities around the Public investment also plays an important role in United States. determining working-waterfront access in Maine. Municipalities and the state and the federal governments own 41 percent of Maine’s coastal access (Island Institute 2007). The other 59 percent of access points are privately held and therefore vulnerable to conversion (Island Institute 2007).

The Small Harbor Improvement Program run by the Department of Transportation funds the maintenance and improvement of many of these state access points.

These tools were not enough.

In 2001 a loose coalition of organizations managed to place a constitutional amendment on the state ballot that would have made it possible to tax working waterfronts at their “current use” as a commercial fishing wharf, rather than at their “highest and best use.” This policy of current-use taxation for commercial properties existed for farming, forestry, and open space, but not for commercial fishing. The vote lost by less than one percent without much of an organized effort.

Two of the leaders of the original effort, Chris Spruce, formerly of Sunrise County Economic Development Council, and Elizabeth Sheehan, formerly of CEI, regrouped, along with leaders from the Maine State Planning Office and the Maine DMR

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FISHING: Toward a Working-Waterfront Ethic

Together they expanded their partnerships while conducting a full assessment of the types of tools that would be needed to preserve working-waterfront access in the state of Maine.

They formed what would become the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition, a broad-based statewide collaboration of more than 140 industry association, nonprofits, state agencies, and individuals dedicated to supporting and enhancing Maine’s working waterfront through policy, planning and research, investment, and education. The coalition focused on creating two new tools for preserving working waterfront: current-use taxation and bonding to purchase development rights off property that supports commercial fishing. Both of these new tools envisioned preserving working-waterfront access beyond one generation.

Since January 2006, the Working

Results of Current-Use Taxation for Working Waterfronts

Waterfront Access Pilot Program has secured 17 properties....[that] support more than 400 boats and 830 fishing industry jobs.

Current-Use Taxation for Working Waterfronts2

Current-use language was added to the Maine State Constitution in 1969. By 1971 it had been enacted to assist farmers as they experienced increases in the value of their real estate and taxes. Open space was also added at this time, and in1972 working forestlands were included under a tree-growth tax law.

Each current-use statute begins with a similar phrase: “It is declared that it is the public interest to encourage the preservation of…” and “…it is in the public interest to prevent the forced conversion of… to more intensive uses as a result of the economic pressures caused by assessment of taxes at values incompatible with their preservation as….”3 The Maine Working Waterfront Coalition worked directly from these existing programs when designing currentuse taxation for working waterfronts. Current-use 82 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

taxation for working waterfronts was designed to provide tax relief to properties based on whether they “predominantly” or “primarily” support commercial fishing. Properties predominantly (more than 90 percent) dedicated to commercial fishing could qualify for a 20 percent reduction in the just value (market value) of taxes. Properties used primarily (more than 50 percent) as a working waterfront would be eligible for a 10 percent reduction in taxes.

Properties with a restrictive deed placed on them (see “Purchase of Development Rights” section) would qualify for a 30 percent reduction in the just value of taxes (www.maine.gov/revenue/propertytax).

In 2005 the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition placed a referendum question on the ballot asking if the residents of the state of Maine would support adding working waterfronts to the types of land that qualify for current-use taxation. The referendum passed by an overwhelming margin, 72 percent.

The current-use program had a slow start, with only eight properties enrolling in 2006. However, as of 2010, a total of 54 working-waterfront properties representing 56.29 acres were enrolled in the state current-use-taxation program at a total valuation of $8,471,302. Five of these parcels are in Cumberland County, three are in Hancock, 15 are in Knox, 24 are in Lincoln, three are in Sagadahoc, and five are in Washington County.

Purchase of Development Rights

In addition to current-use taxation, the coalition focused on the gap that existed between what fishermen could afford to pay for coastal property and what the market was asking. The solution to this second issue came by developing a program within the state’s existing Lands for Maine’s Future program that could fund the purchase of development rights off properties that supported commercial fishing. The goal was to have a tool for preserving working waterfronts that closely mirrored those already in place for farmland or open-space easements. The issue of equity was paramount. After all, farming, forestry, and fisheries all have their place on the state flag—shouldn’t they

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FISHING: Toward a Working-Waterfront Ethic

each have the same benefits under the law? Maine voters agreed, and by January 2006 the first $3 million in state bond funds had been allocated to the newly created Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program to purchase development rights off properties that supported commercial fishing.

Properties that apply to the program are reviewed for their economic significance, the availability of alternative properties nearby, community support, the threat of conversion to another use, and the overall utility of the property. The DMR holds the workingwaterfront easements that ensure preservation of these properties, and it is responsible for stewardship of the properties to ensure that they remain working waterfront in perpetuity.

Between 2005 and 2010 voters in the state of Maine passed three bond questions that generated $6.75 million to fund the purchase of working-waterfront development rights.

Results of Purchasing Development Rights4

Since January 2006, the Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program has secured 17 properties encompassing 33 acres of land and nearly a mile of coastline with a fair-market value of more than $15 million.

These properties support more than 400 boats and 830 fishing industry jobs. They contribute to the livelihoods of roughly 900 families by providing $35 million in direct income and up to $75 million in additional economic contribution to the state. The role they play in enabling the availability of locally caught seafood is critical, with estimates of landings at around 13 million pounds of seafood from the preserved wharves.

Furthermore, the $6.75 million in bond funds have leveraged an additional $12.5 million from applicants’ savings, bank loans, grants, foundation assistance, private donations, municipal support, Small Harbor Improvement Program grants, and other state programs.

Program Grants and Other State Programs

The programs now in place are considered successful. The challenge, as with all new programs, is to fine tune and make them sustainable. The currentuse program is working, and no efforts have been undertaken to reform it. The funding for the Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program is a biennial chal-

lenge because it relies on bond funding that is highly politicized. Yet, the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition estimates a total need of approximately $25 million to preserve key working-waterfront properties along the coast.

Beginning in 2011, after six years as a pilot program, the coalition will pursue full program status for the Working Waterfront Access Program. Coalition members plan to work with state leadership on how the program could find funding to meet an estimated annual need of $1.5 million.

Furthermore, at the 2010 National Working Waterways and Waterfront symposium, a number of organizations from working-waterfront communities around the U.S. resolved that a National Working Waterfront Coalition was needed to increase the rate at which tools for preserving working waterfronts were shared and to seek federal support for state efforts at working-waterfront preservation.

AN EMERGING WORKING-WATERFRONT ETHIC

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t is also useful to reflect on one of the innovations that this program has inspired: a creative and significant community-based economic-development tool not contemplated when thinking through preserving a wharf, but contributing to the development of a working-waterfront ethic nonetheless.

Port Clyde Fresh Catch and CommunitySupported Fisheries

Port Clyde is a community of around 350 yearround residents at the end of the St. George Peninsula on the eastern tip of Penobscot Bay. Roughly twothirds of the residents in Port Clyde are supported either directly or indirectly by fisheries that include groundfish, lobster, clams, shrimp, eels, alewives, and crabs. You find the Port Clyde Fishermen’s Cooperative off the main road into town by following the gesture of a salty caricature of a fisherman, yellow rain slickers and all, down at the end of a gravel road.

The co-op began operation in the early 1940s as a credit union. It evolved to its present-day cooperative status in the 1970s as a way to provide bargaining

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power for lobstermen with dealers. It operated from leased properties for the first 50 (or so) years of existence. After floating their fish house around the harbor from one leased property to another, some of the elders in the co-op began discussions in the early 1990s about purchasing land.

The co-op leaders settled on a wharf that had been in mixed working-waterfront uses since the mid-1800s.

It had served both the lobstering and groundfishing communities in Port Clyde and had a marine “railway” where fishermen could haul their boats for repairs.

The wharf had also served as a fish-buying station. Even a cooperatively owned property, however, is not necessarily secure as working waterfront. The value of the property could grow into the millions of dollars, and it would only take a vote of the co-op members to sell the property and divide up the spoils. The elders in the Port Clyde Fishermen’s Cooperative understood this. In fact, they had used a strategy of keeping the co-op in debt as a way to ensure that young members would not vote to sell the property for a windfall. By 2005, the value of the property had climbed so high that the coop members were not comfortable with using debt as a deterrent to selling, so they began to work with the Maine Working Waterfront Coalition on the solutions described earlier in this article. A cooperative that started as a credit union had now become a vehicle for working-waterfront preservation.

Maine’s working waterfronts evoke deep emotions about the past, present, and future of the state’s coastal character and economy.

In early 2007, the cooperative applied to the Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program and received $250,000 for the purchase of development rights off their property. This funding was matched by an equal investment from the co-op, the Island Institute, and

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other sources, so that the wharf could be expanded to accommodate the dozen groundfish boats based out of Port Clyde. In fact, these 12 boats make up the last of the groundfish fleet between Port Clyde and the Canadian boarder. The groundfishermen desperately needed a new home because the wharf they had been leasing had recently passed ownership from one generation to another and the fishermen were being priced off the property as their lease came up for renewal.

This investment from the Working Waterfront Access Pilot program sent a number of important messages to the fishermen in Port Clyde. The sentiment was quite simple: “The state of Maine values your contribution to our economy and heritage.”

Fishermen do not hear this often, and the idea began to fire their creativity. Furthermore, the fishermen were in the spotlight locally and in the press for doing something positive. The power of this experience should not be underestimated.

The lobstermen and groundfishermen began to see each other as partners in keeping alive Port Clyde’s fishing community. The groundfishermen organized themselves into a cooperative around this same time.

Together, the lobstermen and groundfishermen, along with a bait dealer who rents space on the wharf, began talking about marketing and branding their catch, and about how they might fish differently, using more sustainable practices, as a way to tell the story of their community of fishermen. After all, a lot of people began asking questions about who the fishermen were once it became clear that they had received an investment in their wharf based on contributing a public benefit.

The public benefit turned out to be dramatic. At around this same time Port Clyde fishermen launched a simple idea—they would sell shares in their catch ahead of their fishing season, similar to buying a share of a farmers harvest through the community-supported agriculture (CSA) model. The idea would be termed a community-supported fishery or CSF. That winter they sold 50 shares of shrimp in five-pound bags to members of Rockland’s Unitarian Church. Over the course of the winter of 2006/2007, the nation’s first CSF was born.

The momentum of the CSF and the wharf project built off each other, culminating in national attention

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FISHING: Toward a Working-Waterfront Ethic

to Port Clyde fishermen as all the major media outlets from around the U.S. came to hear their story. Each of the countless interviews started with a tour of the dock.

Fishermen would show people the investment made by themselves, the state, and their partners, talk about the confidence created by having a permanent home and not having to worry about being priced out of their lease next year. They would talk about how this investment made it possible to think big and change the discussion about fishermen, fish, and the ocean.

The transformation was tangible. Through the CSF model, the public regained access to locally caught seafood for the first time in decades. People began to ask questions about the fish, about how they are caught, about who manages how they are caught, and about the role of fresh fish in their diets. In other words, an incredible public-education campaign was launched by fishermen as they told their story at farmers’ markets and other locations where CSF customers would pick up their weekly orders. A member of the groundfish community soon applied for a leadership position on the New England Regional Fisheries Management council and was successfully appointed. A small processing facility was started by the fishermen to fill the demand for locally caught fish fillets. Soon restaurants joined the more than 500 CSF customers in enjoying what became branded as “Port Clyde Fresh Catch.”

A wharf, a permanent home on protected property, allowed fishermen to look to the horizon and ask what they wanted their future to look like. They thought up an incredibly creative approach to combining stewardship and economic development through CSFs. The state’s investment in Port Clyde’s working waterfront became a central part of recreating the story of our food system, a stepping-off point between land and sea, an industrialized property organized to enable people to go out and harvest our food, and a place that fires the imagination, where creativity can lead to sustainability. All this work ended up contributing far more to a working-waterfront ethic than could possibly have been imagined when thinking of the value of preserving what, at first glance, appears only as an industrial piece of property.

CONCLUSION

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aine’s working waterfronts evoke deep emotions about the past, present, and future of the state’s coastal character and economy. Multigenerational Maine families, new Maine residents, and visitors alike all attach some aspect of their identity to these places.

For some, working waterfronts are places where we remember our grandparents and great grandparents going down to the sea to harvest for community meals and to make a living. For others, they represent the embodied knowledge of lugging and hauling supplies to and from the mainland on ferries. And for many more, they represent an aesthetic and a sensibility of a simpler time, where the comings and goings of workboats are the background for summers of personal re-constitution. The underlying reasons for these emotive responses vary greatly and illuminate a cultural divide that is poised to alter Maine’s coast.

The solutions developed to preserving working waterfronts represent a strong statement by Maine residents and the state government that Maine values working waterfronts, that we don’t want to lose our access to the sea, and that these pieces of property deserve attention and investment because they contribute a significant public benefit. As a workingwaterfront ethic begins to take hold around the nation, more people will begin to see commercial-fishing properties at the center of the foodshed rather than on the edge, for they will understand that without these properties, we will lose access to the ocean and to the livelihoods, heritage, and seafood that sustains us. -

ENDNOTES 1. The needs of many water-dependent businesses mirror those of commercial fishermen. Boat builders, research platforms, energy companies, and many other uses of commercial waterfront require access to the waterfront. For the purposes of this article, I focus on access for commercial fishing and its role in contributing to the state’s economy, heritage, and availability of local seafood.

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Robert Snyder is execu2. Information on current-use taxation in the state of Maine was provided by Jeff Kendall, Chief of Training and Certification, Maine Revenue ServicesProperty Tax Division 3. Maine’s Working Waterfront Tax Law Title 36 § 1141-1152 4. Jen Litteral, policy director at the Island Institute, and Hugh Cowperthwaite, marine policy director at Coastal Enterprises, Inc., provided the data on how current-use taxation and the Working Waterfront Access Pilot Program have performed since their creation.

tive vice president of the Island Institute, where he is responsible for setting the organization’s course through working with island and coastal leaders to identify innovative approaches to community sustainability.

He also works with the institute’s energy, fisheries, education, community service, publications, and economic development staff to structure responses to emerging challenges faced by communities along Maine’s coast.

REFERENCES Colgan, Charles S. 2004. The Contribution of Working Waterfronts to the Maine Economy. CEI, Portland, ME. Island Institute. 2007. The Last 20 Miles: Mapping Maine’s Working Waterfront. Island Institute, Rockland, ME. Leopold, Aldo. 1949. A Sand County Almanac. Oxford University Press, New York.

Putz, George. 1989. “Working Waterfronts.” Island Journal 6: 26–27.

Sheehan, Elizabeth and Hugh Cowperthwaite. 2002.

Preserving Commercial Fishing Access: A Study of Working Waterfronts in 25 Maine Communities.

Coastal Enterprises, Inc., Portland, ME. Taylor Singer, Laura and Daniel S. Holland (eds).

2008. Taking the Pulse of the Lobser Industry: A Socioeconomic Survey of New England Lobster Fishermen. Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Portland.

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BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD SYSTEM FOR MAINE: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y Building a Sustainable Seafood System for Maine

By Robin Alden

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aine could have one of the premier marine food systems in the world: people working the length of the coast, on rocks, on flats, in coves, and on our nearshore and offshore waters, producing fresh, healthy, top-quality seaweed, shellfish, crabs, lobsters and fish, getting paid top dollar for their efforts and providing a flow of high-quality protein into meals in Maine and beyond.

Maine has location. The state’s more than 5,000 miles of shoreline abuts the Gulf of Maine, a marine area roughly equivalent to the area of the state of Maine, 30,000+ square miles of relatively clean water and a highly productive ecosystem. Every year, the currents and sunlight and marine plankton combine to produce more for us to harvest, truly something out of nothing. It is a stunning location to build a sustainable marine food system. Indeed, the food supply from the Gulf of Maine is one of the state’s greatest natural assets. In 2010 the landed value of Maine seafood was $449 million, with a final value to the Maine economy estimated at $1 to $1.2 billion (Charles Colgan, personal communication, May 2011).

Despite this, fisheries are often left out of the thinking about systemic change in the food system. Understanding the reasons for this is a first step toward building a unified food system.

Fisheries start out as wild food— something wholly different from almost anything else that we consider part of the food system. Hunting and fishing is now considered sport, not food production, and aside from some mushrooms and berries, little wild product makes its way into mainstream food commerce anymore.

Fishermen, the primary producers, have a unique connection to the natural world.

They spend their days engaged in that primal human activity, trying to catch things, using their wits to observe and exploit the natural systems that each year, if we are lucky, produce more for them to catch—and for us to eat.

But for just this reason, fish and fishermen are often outside the ken of foodsystem thinking. From the land side, perhaps the marine source of supply seems too unreliable, depending as it does on the serendipity of water, temperature, sunlight, and restraint on man’s greed—and the resultant bewildering myriad of regulations. And from the fishing side, with few exceptions, fishermen do not think about the size or desires of the consumer market or the order from the customer before they leave the dock. Instead, the fisherman’s preoccupation is that of the hunter, figuring out how to harvest the bounty of the Gulf of Maine. The product on deck is the “catch,” not food. The market is the guy at the dock—and he unloads and buys the whole trip’s catch.

AQUACULTURE

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quaculture, the marine equivalent of agriculture, is another part of marine food production in the state. Its value has varied in recent years between $35 and $100 million, which represents 11 to 18 percent of the state’s marine landings, the variation closely tied to both variation in production of Atlantic salmon and

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the price of lobster. Nationally, aquaculture has grown almost 400 percent during the 1980s and 1990s, to a level of almost $1 billion, 20 percent of which is marine species (U.S. Commission for Ocean Policy 2004; U.S. Department of Commerce 2011). However, aquaculture is not the focus of this commentary for two reasons. First, aquaculture producers are well-aware that they are producing food and are part of both the industrial-scale food system (salmon) and the niche and high-value local food markets (oysters).

More importantly, however, the primary challenge and strategic requirement for a healthy, sustainable marine food supply for Maine is, first and foremost, adequate stewardship of the Gulf of Maine ecosystem. Aquaculture is one user of that ecosystem, but should not be viewed as the inevitable evolution of most marine food production for the state. In the short term, per acre aquaculture production looks impressive. Experience with marine aquaculture in Maine during the last 30 years, however, has brought us face-to-face with the some of the adverse consequences of intensive culture in the marine environment that present real ecological limits to this business. Salmon aquaculture is chasing cures to disease and parasites, all of which have documented implications for the health of the marine environment.

And, as disease has struck the oysters in the fabled Damariscotta River, the security of the future of shellfish culture has also been shaken. Nationally, the Oceans Commission, while acknowledging the promise of marine aquaculture, also identified issues with marine governance, use of forage fish as feed, invasive species, and the ecological effects of offshore aquaculture among the concerns about all scales of marine aquaculture from local stock enhancement to ocean ranching (U.S. Commission for Ocean Policy 2004).

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C O M M E N T A R Y Maine is investing in the development of aquaculture of both native species and ornamentals, which are used not for food but for the aquarium trade. The state has identified aquaculture as one of the state’s sustainable technology clusters (Maine Technology Institute 2008).

Over the last 11 years the Center for Collaborative Aquaculture Research at the University of Maine has developed 200 broodstock halibut and is exploring commercial-scale, on-land halibut production. The center is also raising green sea urchins, looking to options for on-land, sea-cage-rearing and sea-ranching for commercial culture. A federally funded program to teach commercial fishermen cod farming is also underway. Downeast Institute is working on the commercialscale techniques for several shellfish species including hard clams, sea scallops, and softshell clams. There is a place for aquaculture, if we learn from the history of agriculture and explore how aquaculture can be practiced within the limits of a healthy marine system.1 FISH AS FOOD: NEW POLICY INSIGHTS

V

iewing marine-resource products as food can put the complexity of fisheries issues into a coherent framework that makes sense for both business and the natural environment. It can assist the state to improve fisheries policy, capture more value for each pound caught, and make the bounty of the Gulf of Maine a foundation for the state’s food security. Fisheries policy can emerge out of the obscure world of never-ending regulatory conflict that isolates it from the rest of the public, connecting the fishery perspective with that of “shore people,” who interact with fish first and foremost as a meal. Food-

system thinking can provide some clarity to Maine fisheries policy.

Diverse, community-based seafood production should be Maine’s top fisheries priority if the state is to achieve a sustainable seafood system. This focus on community-scale production is important for both ecological and food system reasons.

Ecology and Governance

First, it is important to understand that there are two basic approaches to fishing: highly mobile or local. The highly mobile fisherman fishes abundance, moving from area to area wherever there is lots of product. The local, or communityscale fisherman stays within range of his or her own harbor, fishing a smaller area, usually shifting between species depending on seasonal availability and local abundance. Much of the tension within fisheries management occurs in the push-pull between these groups as they compete for access to resources.

The real challenge for the state, however, is to make sure fishermen don’t destroy the resources. Small or large, local or centralized, the bald fact is that with no fish, the state will have no fishermen, no processing, no Maine seafood.

New science has introduced a critical ecological reason for focusing on more local fishing and management of marine resources. Our understanding of ecological scale in marine science has advanced dramatically in the last 30 years. In the 1970s when the federal Magnuson Stevens Conservation and Management Act was passed, the common scientific wisdom was that marine systems were large, open systems. It was thought to be necessary, for example, to manage all the cod from Eastport to Cape Cod as one unit. Now, however, marine science has not only revealed far more local stock structure in

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marine populations than previously understood, but that those local structures and events often exert the dominant influence on the species. The local “ecosystem dynamics create stronger intra- and interspecific intereactions within local modules...than over the much larger footprint of the entire ecosystem” (Steneck and Wilson 2010: 410). Within the Gulf of Maine, for example, it is now known that smaller subunits of cod have extensive genetic, physical, and behavioral differences (Ames 2004; Cadrin et al. 2009; Kovach et al. 2009; Steneck and Wilson 2010).

When management is done at the Gulf of Maine-wide scale, per the 1970s thinking, however, the management structure favors highly mobile boats and these localized subunits can be fished out in what is called serial depletion. This is what has occurred off the Maine coast in the last 30 years. In waters off eastern Maine and other inshore grounds, groundfish have been depleted and have not recovered, despite recovery off southern Maine and New Hampshire, probably the result of localized ecological phenomena or the extirpation of local populations of fish (Cadrin et al. 2009).

When serial depletions are taking place, neither the management system nor the fishermen receive feedback about these depletions: When catches go down, fishermen simply move on to areas of higher abundance. Because catches are being measured at a larger scale, spread over the areas, management science may not recognize the depletion, and because fishermen are still fishing, managers will not have to grapple with the implications of the depletions. This approach favors boats that adopt a highly mobile strategy, moving from one area of abundance to another. This strategy is described, using a term from economics, as “roving banditry” (Olson 2000).

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BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD SYSTEM FOR MAINE: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y A counterexample to this is lobster where there is a level of local governance that better matches the finer-scale ecology.

Recent science has also shown fine-scale ecological complexity for lobster. For example, instead of lobster larvae drifting great distances, creating one big lobster population as previously thought, there are local “hotspots” where eddies keep the floating larvae near where the eggs were released, thus resulting in local production (Steneck and Wilson 2010). Maine’s lobster management has several local elements that operate at close to this ecological scale. The fishery is traditionally territorial and based on day boats. Maine created an additional level of local lobster management, nested within state management, through creation of seven local zones. The local lobster zone rules are nested within statewide rules, then regional rules developed with other lobster-producing states within Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, all working with the federal government (Acheson 2003; personal experience).

Given the complexity of marine ecological systems, multi-level governance is always required. “... the various approaches used together can slow down the roving bandit effects, and can replace destructive incentives with a resource rights framework that mobilizes environmental stewardship, i.e., one that builds the self-interested, conserving feedback that comes from attachment to place” (Berkes et al. 2006: 1558).

Without state policy that pays specific attention to preserving the niche for local harvesting, Maine could easily have a fishery entirely made up of highly mobile harvesting units: large-scale groundfish boats, lobster boats that roam the entire coast, going to areas, such as is the case right now off the eastern part of the state, where lobsters are abundant, roving peri-

winkle harvesters or clam-digging crews. harvesting and industrial-scale food However, what the state would lose is any production and distribution have been incentive for all fishermen not to simply and will continue to be an important strip mine and move on. The state would part of Maine’s seafood system. But these also lose the local ecological knowledge businesses operate outside the bounds of and real-time feedback that harvesters can the state’s fisheries production, often contribute to local and state stewardship sourcing raw product globally to fill in when they know and observe and work for seasonal or resource- and regulatorythe system at the level of the urchin ledge, driven supply shortages. or the cove, or the bay.

What is critical for Maine is that For the future of Maine’s fishery, the state policy prioritizes a healthy business lesson from the new ecological science and environment for community-scale fishing governance work is the importance of and the distribution and processing prioritizing preservation of local-level infrastructure that can support it. fishing and creating mechanisms so that Sustaining diversified, community-scale feedback about local changes in condiharvesting so that Maine fishermen are tions can be integrated into management able to harvest and sell the resources and business decisions at all levels. As long adjacent to their communities will as this happens, the allocation decision provide the state with the resilient and between local and mobile harvesting is adaptive capacity to use its marine not a zero sum game. Statewide and resources long into the future. regional management structures Diverse, community-based seafood are already well in place and highly production should be Maine’s top mobile boats in any fishery will fish­eries priority if the state is to achieve survive better if local fishing and a sustainable seafood system. management produces a healthy marine ecosystem with surplus. This is a far better outcome for Three elements are necessary for them, as well, than if they are permitted Maine to have a sustainable marine food to skim the abundances for short-term system: abundant and diverse supplies of profit with the unwitting result that the fish, the rights to catch them, and a busiproductivity of the marine system is ness model that supports local seafood degraded. production by Maine fishermen the length of the coast. These three are similar to the Food elements Russell Libby describes in his Farming has shown us, in Maine commentary on agriculture in this issue: and nationally, that industrial-scale ecologically sustainable farm practices, production alone is not the answer to farmland, and a food system that returns healthy food, farm jobs, or food security. value to farmers and provides food secuIn fisheries, larger-scale offshore fish rity to the state.

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C O M M E N T A R Y WHERE WE ARE NOW

Abundant and Diverse Resources

Maine fisheries have abundance, but face a potentially critical lack of diversity.

Today, Maine’s seafood story is lobster— lobster and virtually only lobster. This situation is the state’s greatest fisheries strength and its greatest vulnerability.

Lobster accounts for a staggering 83 percent of Maine’s wild fishery in terms of value. In 2010, Maine’s fishery products had a landed value of $449,000 million, of which 17 percent was cultured Atlantic salmon; $308 million of the remaining $371 million value came from lobster.

Maine’s other well-known fisheries barely contributed whole percentages of the total value: shrimp, four percent; clams, four percent; herring, two percent; worms, two percent; urchins, one percent; and groundfish (a collective term for about 18 species of white fish that include cod, haddock, and flounders), one percent; sea scallops made up only 0.4 percent (Maine DMR 2011a).

The picture is only somewhat different when viewed by weight. In 2010 lobster accounted for 37 percent of the tonnage of marine products landed; 23 percent of the state’s landings were Atlantic herring, a species that is no longer processed for food in-state, but instead is used as lobster bait; 10 percent of the weight was farmed salmon. If one takes out the herring landings because they are not food, lobster accounts for 48 percent of the total landings and farmed salmon for 13 percent (Maine DMR 2011b).

No one understands for sure why the Gulf of Maine is producing such an abundance of lobster, particularly in the eastern part of the state. It is agreed that this is not simply a change in fishing effort. It is

an ecological phenomenon that some suggest is a result of the removal of apex predators such as cod (Steneck and Sala 2005). The fishery also is recognized for its excellent management, protecting all critical life stages, habitat, technology and the mobility of the fishery (Acheson 2003; Ames 2010). The 40-year average lobster landings from 1950 to 1990 was approximately 20 million pounds; since then, lobster landings have increased steadily to the staggering 93-million-pound production in 2010.

Softshell clams and Northern shrimp are two other species with good current abundance. Clams are managed locally by municipal clam committees, and where those function well, the flats produce a good living for local people. Northern shrimp is a cyclical species, currently at a high point in its cycles. Shrimp is at the southern extent of its range, and in addition to good fishery management, its abundance is dependent on such factors as water temperature and sunlight patterns in February when eggs are dropped and hatching.

Beyond these three, Maine’s marine resources are not in good shape. The state has lost most of the production of our anadromous fish such as alewives, smelt, and salmon that run up rivers to spawn in fresh water and return to the ocean to live as adults. Herring, the other major forage fish in the ocean, is being fished offshore by mid-water trawlers and herring quotas are being lowered due to concerns about the health of the Gulf of Maine stock.

Groundfish that once supported a fishery larger than the lobster fishery and were abundant inshore are no longer there.

Now, groundfish stocks are rebounding off southern Maine, but east of Penobscot Bay the groundfish have been so depleted for 20 years that there has been virtually no commercial groundfish fishery in that

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region. Our once-abundant nearshore sea scallops have been persistently depleted for more than a decade everywhere except in Cobscook Bay. Sea urchins, fished down in the early 1990s, are now at a chronically low level, abundant in only in localized areas year to year.

The Right to Fish and Diversity of Opportunity

It is inconceivable that an island fisherman somewhere on the Maine coast might not have the right to go fishing. Yet this situation already exists for numerous species, jeopardizing the long-term sustainability of fishing communities.

During the next two years, Maine will reexamine the rules that control fishing and lobstering in Maine waters. This is a pivotal event: at stake in the 126th Legislature will be key questions such as whether rights to fish Maine waters will, for the first time ever, be bought and sold like a property right. The choices the state makes in the next two years will determine the shape of its fishing communities in the future. For Maine to have an abundant and sustainable seafood system, Maine’s new licensing structure needs to be designed to support community-scale fishing and food production.

Access to licenses and permits is, for fishermen, the equivalent of access to farmland for farmers. Fish are a public resource, thus fishermen need permission to fish for them. These rights are, of necessity, limited as part of overall constraints to prevent fisheries depletion.

The methods used to limit entry define the structure of a fishery. Abundant fish and lobsters could be jumping out of a healthy Gulf of Maine, but these resources would be of no use to a sustainable marine food system for the state if coastal Maine people don’t have the right to catch them.

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BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD SYSTEM FOR MAINE: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y Current state and federal entry controls are a confusing mix of rules that differ for each species and at both levels.

Both systems pose severe challenges to the ability of Maine fishermen to fish for a diverse mix of species near their homes.

The cumulative effect has resulted in incredible regulatory complexity and a marked loss of diversity of opportunity for Maine fishermen.

Federal fishing permits are limited and are property, with fishing rights initially distributed as a windfall to those boats that caught the most prior to the distribution. This policy has favored large, specialized boats with hired captains rather than Maine’s small-scale diversified, independent fishermen. After 34 years, federal management has essentially eliminated access by all but a few Maine fishermen to three major fisheries: groundfish, herring, and scallops. Before the Magnuson Fisheries Conservation and Management Act in 1976, most Maine fishermen would have participated in at least two of these fisheries in any given year. Their operations were diversified, fishing lobster, groundfish, herring, scallops, and shrimp at different points in the year and in their lives. Now, federal permits are acquired through purchasing a boat with a permit, often an insurmountable financial hurdle for a fisherman who only wants to fish seasonally. Prices for usable federal permits range from around $10,000 or less to more than $1 million depending on the fishery.

Maine fishing licenses are annual rights with annual fees, with a variety of different restrictions that range from the lobster fishery, which requires a two-year apprenticeship and in some locations, long waiting lists, to the scallop fishery, which is currently closed to anyone who did not have a scallop license when the fishery was closed two years ago, to

urchins, which require a lottery entry when someone gets out of the fishery.

As a result, in 2010 only 46 Maine fishermen pursued groundfish and only 38 were active in the herring fishery. In contrast, 4,292 fishermen went lobstering (DMR, personal communication, April 2011). (See Table 1.)

TABLE 1: Number of Active

Commercial Harvesters in Maine*

Fishery

2008

2009

2010

Lobster/crab

4,523

4,372

4,292

Soft clam

1,636

1,709

1,725

Worms

693

767

759

Periwinkle

510

534

653

Elver/glass eels

362

285

307

Sea urchins

416

342

313

Other bivalves

142

191

344

Shrimp

205

130

220

Scallop

215

153

220

Halibut

119

174

152

Other species

94

111

133

Seaweed

76

61

56

Groundfish

67

55

46

Herring

33

39

Total

38 9,258

*2010 data are preliminary

Right now, the implications of this loss of diverse fishing rights has been masked by the unprecedented scale of the recent lobster harvest. However, when lobstering becomes less profitable, fishermen will have no alternative fisheries.

Plain and simple, if the licensing situation is not corrected, Maine will lose its fishing communities. Fishermen no longer have the adaptability that makes local fishing both economically and ecologically viable.

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A Food System That Supports Community Fishing

For food production, the importance of supporting community-scale fishing is obvious. Local, community-scale fishing, when fishermen fish from their home harbors, catching different species as they are available locally in season, produces a wide variety of products—clams, periwinkles, shrimp, scallop, lobster, fish—at different times of the year. Highly mobile fishing, chasing one species or suite of species over a much larger area, following fish abundance seasonally and over time just as Maine’s redfish fleet fished from Penobscot Bay in the 1950s to northern Newfoundland in the 1970s, can produce large amounts of one species or suite of species to fill orders predictably and keep industrial-scale processing plants running.

For years, looking at fish as food meant trying to fit wild harvesting into an industrial production model that can mesh with the food processor and retailer’s need to have consistent supply. In the long run, however, we have learned that the ecosystem has not been able to support industrial-scale fishing, and Maine’s coast has seen the loss of plants that process redfish, sardine, and groundfish.

Where does Maine stand with the shoreside infrastructure to support a more sustainable, community-based seafood system?

First, the state faces one big challenge: the 93 million pounds of lobster landings, the majority of which are landed in a pulse from July to October. Maine’s iconic lobster-based economy is brittle, vulnerable to a highly consolidated lobster-wholesale market, to the cost of money, to the cost of fuel, and to many substitute seafood products from around the world. Much of the state’s lobster product goes to Canada for processing.

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C O M M E N T A R Y Furthermore, as the report from the Baldacci administration’s lobster task force reported, “Remarkably strong ‘Buyer Power’ constrains every sector of the industry, as all players struggle to sell the same undifferentiated and commoditized product, seeking to extract value from volume” (The Moseley Group 2009: 2).

This is a familiar story for Maine. In the past, when the state was catching groundfish, much of it went to Canada.

Often fresh product bypasses Maine consumers and is processed out of state and shipped back into the state for consumption. Many consumers do not realize that, unless you are in Portland, if you buy fish in the store it is probably not local.

Fish processing is a difficult business, and the state has competed unsuccessfully both with Canada, which provides a variety of supports to its processing sector, and with the large, low-priced labor pool and transportation hub around New York City. Furthermore, mechanized processing requires large volumes of one type of fish, as we had when we had an industrial redfish fishery in the 1960s–1980s. The lesson is that state must look beyond this model to build its seafood food system.

Our coastal fishery produces small volumes of a large variety of products, and our food system needs to optimize that situation.

Maine’s seafood system has diverse strengths upon which to build. The Portland Fish Exchange provides the structure for a fair market for fish, a consolidation point, and has a cluster of large fish-processing plants around it.

Value-added lobster is expanding beyond a few traditional processors in Portland, with Linda Bean’s lobster business and Shucks Lobster and numerous smaller efforts to develop value-added products produced in-state. The state also has some

exceptional niche processing upon which to build. Home crab pickers have made the transition to small Department of Agriculture-inspected facilities. Clams are shucked in many towns. Isolated gourmet seafood companies exist.

The state is also home to innovative approaches to connect consumers with fishermen such as Port Clyde Fresh Catch’s community-supported fishery (CSF) and the regional support provided

by Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance.

Maine’s lobster co-ops, many founded in the late 1940s, are now being joined by new ones such as Calendar Island and a scallop co-op being catalyzed by Cobscook Bay Resource Center.

Traceability and other forms of product differentiation are increasingly being understood as key elements of effective marketing of local and sustainably caught seafood. These efforts face challenges: there is no MOFGA-style certification available to Maine seafood, nor is there common agreement on what the standards for “sustainable seafood” should be. Indeed, seafood consumers face a bewildering and contradictory array of “dos” and “don’ts,” as Catherine Schmitt describes in this issue. Maine businesses and nonprofits are engaging with this issue, however. Efforts range from Ingrid Bengis Seafood’s direct-to-chef business to the Gulf of Maine Research Institute’s Gulf of Maine Responsibly Harvested Seafood certification program. A new Maine Seafood Marketing Network has just been launched that aims to link these efforts together in the absence of state action.

In addition, there is growing connection between the farming and agricultural community and fisheries organizations. In 2009–2010 the By Land and By Sea project, facilitated by MOFGA and Penobscot East Resource Center (Penobscot East), hosted conversations

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between fishermen, co-ops, and farmers, resulting in a report that identifies areas of common purpose. The Eat Local Foods Coalition, MOFGA, and now Slow Foods Maine all view seafood as part of Maine’s foodshed.

Finally, these efforts are just beginning to introduce a new idea: fishing to market. This is a key idea in making community-scale, diversified fishing and good conservation practices pay. It’s a new mind-set for a fisherman to leave the harbor to fish to fill market orders, rather than fishing to fill the boat.

WHAT TO DO

Good Fishery Management

Articulate a vision for state policy.

This vision should prioritize a decentralized rather than a centralized model: Maine fishermen should fish locally from communities from Kittery to Eastport, and Maine sea products should be local and sustainable food whether they are eaten locally or shipped out of state. The state needs coastal fishermen to harvest the diversity of resources available (seaweed, periwinkles, cod, for example).

They are important to the economy of remote communities and to provide a supply of local food. This vision, and the key policies that support it, should be developed through a facilitated, public process in order to build a lasting, broadbased approach that will transcend shortterm politics.

Take a page from lobster. Other species should be managed with owneroperator, territoriality, habitat protection, and common-sense rules that protect critical life stages of the creature.

Landscape ecology. Start practicing fishery management the way landscape ecology is done, recognizing the importance

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C O M M E N T A R Y of different places in the ocean and the importance of interrelationships between forage and fish.

Involve fishermen. We cannot maximize the benefit of our diverse inshore resources and many different ecological conditions without the local knowledge and constructive participation of fishermen.

Open the rivers. The potential opening of the Penobscot and St. Croix rivers to alewives, smelt, and salmon presents the state with a huge opportunity to potentially reverse the decline not just of river-run fish, but of marine species such as cod, haddock, and hake. Efforts to open the many small coastal dams that restrict habitat are also important.

Support clean watersheds. Fishing interests should link with and support the efforts of MOFGA and local watershed associations to protect the quality of watersheds. Land-based bacterial and chemical pollution runs downstream. We produce more than nine million pounds of softshell clams worth more than $12 million a year to the 1,700 active clam diggers who work the flats. This could be greatly expanded if runoff after rain events were cleaner. Fishing voices can help those ashore who are working to reduce farmbased runoff.

Support municipal clam management. Public health monitoring and technical assistance should be made available to support clam management. Maintain adequate General Fund support for the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) red tide and bacterial monitoring of clam flats. This service is as much infrastructure for commerce as roads are. It is necessary for public confidence in our shellfish and for public safety. Similarly, technical assistance from the DMR allows municipal management systems to leverage state resources and produce local

stewardship and incentive to clean up watersheds that could not be achieved by state-level policy alone.

Rights to Fish

Maine license workshop. Convene a workshop seeking national and international ideas for a new state licensing system that provides for affordable owner/ operator entry to diverse fisheries for fishermen in local communities. It should build upon the lobster fishery’s unique two-year apprenticeship program and consider how to incorporate the licensing of multiple fisheries in one system. Access should be based on knowledge and commitment rather than access to capital.

The results of the workshop should inform the debate in the 126th Legislature.

Support owner-operator rules for state fisheries. The requirement that the owner be aboard is pivotal to the current business model for the successful, local lobster fishery. Owner-operator should be the foundation of Maine’s fishery management for other state fisheries also to preserve its fisheries and its fishing communities. Canada’s “Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada” also recognizes the importance of owneroperator rules (People’s Food Policy Project 2011).

Permit banks. Create permit banks to mitigate the effects of federal permit policies that do not constrain consolidation or the migration of federal fishing rights out of Maine ownership. To work within these current rules, the fishing rights will have to be bought back. It will take between $10 and $25 million to buy back enough federal access to groundfish, scallops, and herring for Maine fishermen to be able to build these species into a regular year’s work when combined with lobstering. These purchases should be

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done with private funds and support permit banks that provide the rights to younger fishermen rooted in coastal communities. This would be appropriate for Russell Libby’s “A Fund for Maine.”

Fleet diversity. Advocate for change to federal policy to boost fleet diversity by creating a new class of federal permit for coastal fishermen and other measures to restrict consolidation.

Working waterfront. The first challenge in turning the catch into food is getting it off the boat. Working docks are fundamental infrastructure for fishing.

There should be continued focus on current use easements to secure working waterfront in perpetuity. Support for the national Working Waterfront Coalition’s initiatives may provide additional federal funds for the state’s efforts.

Public waterfront access. Without a public wharf to land at, fisherman cannot be independent of the wharf operator where he unloads. As waterfront space becomes scarcer, public fish pier space becomes more critical to a diversified set of market options.

A Community-Scale Food System

Expand information exchange between farming and fishing. Fishermen and fish dealers can learn a lot from farmers’ efforts at branding, developing local food networks, and establishing direct-to-consumer markets. This should include systematic examination of the priorities set through By Land and By Sea. Prioritize development of versatile, small-scale processing. The first step is careful business planning to determine a feasible approach. This is essential, given that most marine products are not landed in edible form. The closer to the landing site they can be processed, the more energy efficient the operation is, and the higher the quality of the product.

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C O M M E N T A R Y Rebuild infrastructure. Last summer, when Penobscot East Resource Center in Stonington was running a research fishery and needed ice so that the fish could be caught and sold in a special CSF, the nearest ice-maker was in Port Clyde, 2.5 hours away. Ice and cooler storage are critical factors in handling fish.

Catalyze a distribution network.

Sustainably caught seafood products need a distribution network similar to that which Crown O’ Maine has for agricultural products. This is important both for seafood that will be consumed in Maine and for seafood destined to larger markets. Maine’s coastal geography with its long peninsulas presents fishermen with a significant hurdle.

Furthermore, this will address the critical lack of product quality control in the regular middlemen distribution channels.

Clarify regulatory issues. A University of Maine Cooperative Extension bulletin that clarified regulatory issues for shared transportation, distribution, storage, and sale of farm and seafood products would greatly facilitate development of on-the-ground collaboration among food producers by making it clear what is, and is not, possible.

Examine the CSF model in Maine.

In Maine, where most fishermen are owner-operators who fish daily, CSFs are more difficult than they are for company boats or trip fishermen. An owner-operator fisherman cannot be ashore interacting with customers without foregoing a full day’s fishing income. Alternatives to a CSF for Maine, including fishermen-toconsumer networks and facilitating seafood at farmers’ markets, may need to be developed.

Expand information and education. Fishermen need to see their catch as food and need more information and education about quality handling and the nature of the consumer market. As was

identified in the Maine Lobster Industry Strategic Plan, most fishermen are not aware of the developments in the food market related to food quality and values-based issues such as local and sustainable. Even in the lobster business, on-board handling can improve the survival and quality of lobsters in the market chain.

Fishermen’s co-ops. Co-ops can provide a locus for both education and action. It’s a long way from the buying/ wholesaling lobster co-ops founded in the 1940s to vertically integrated co-op businesses such as Ocean Spray, and the transition will require education that it is possible to be more than a price-taker. It will also require multifaceted technical assistance and capital. Efforts such as Calendar Island are starting in this direction.

Publicize and pilot fish-to-market models. Fishermen fishing to fill orders rather than fishing to fill the boat is one way of making lower catches or conservation measures yield a better return. If fishermen are controlling their connection all the way through to the consumer, through vehicles such as CSFs or a distribution network such as Crown O’ Maine, this approach has tremendous promise.

Institutional buying. Increasing institutional buying by educational institutions and health care facilities provides the best approach for moving large volumes of locally caught seafood products. This will become possible once the processing issues are addressed

If we are take care of the Gulf of Maine’s marine resources Maine will always have plenty to eat and, indeed, more marine products than we can eat in-state. And if we retain our place-based fishing, providing access for community fishermen to catch and market the diversity of Maine’s coastal resources in fishing communities distributed the length of the coast, Maine will gain optimum benefit from those abundant resources.

In the next several years, Maine faces both opportunity and threat. The likely redesign of Maine’s fishing-license structure provides an opportunity to reaffirm the state’s commitment to community fishing, or alternatively, the chance to make decisions that will doom the state’s rural fishing communities to extinction. Maine also has the opportunity, in this business-friendly environment, to develop the seafood infrastructure: co-ops, versatile processing and distribution, which can allow the state to adapt successfully to an ever-changing food market and an ever-changing marine ecosystem. What a recipe for prosperity. 

ENDNOTE 1. More information about aquaculture projects can be found on the following web pages: halibut (www.ccar. um.maine.edu/halibut.html); green sea urchins (www.ccar.um.maine. edu/urchin.html); cod(www.ccar. um.maine.edu/cod%20academy.html); shellfish (www.downeastinstitute.org/ research.html).

CONCLUSION

A

REFERENCES

bundant resources, rights to fish the diversity of resources available locally, and a business model that supports community-scale fishermen. These are the three critical elements for a sustainable seafood system in Maine.

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Acheson, James M. 2003. Capturing the Commons: Devising Institutions to Manage the Maine Lobster Industry.

University Press of New England, Hanover, NH.

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BUILDING A SUSTAINABLE SEAFOOD SYSTEM FOR MAINE: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y Ames, Edward P. 2004. “Atlantic Cod Stock Structure in the Gulf of Maine.” Fisheries 29: 10–27.

Ames, Ted. 2010. “Multispecies Coastal Shelf Recovery Plan: A Collaborative, Ecosystem-Based Approach.” Marine and Coastal Fisheries: Dynamics, Management, and Ecosystem Science 2: 217-231.

Berkes, F., and T.P. Hughes, R.S. Steneck, J.A. Wilson, D.R. Belwood, B. Crona, C. Folke, H. Leslie, J. Norberg, M. Nystron, P. Olsson, H. Osterblom, M. Scheffer and B. Worm. 2006.

“Globalization, Roving Bandits and Marine Resources.” Science 311: 1557-1558.

Cadrin, Steve, and Dave Martins, Jon Loehrke, Lisa Kerr, Greg DeCelles, Dan Goethel, Crista Bank and Geoff Cowles. 2009. Stock Structure of New England Groundfish: Connectivity and Heterogeneity at Multiple Scales. NOAA/UMass Cooperative Marine Education & Research Program, School for Marine Science & Technology, Amherst. http:// www.gmri.org/community/seastate/ Cadrin_Steve/Cadrin_Steve.pdf [Accessed May 22, 2011] Kovach, Adrienne, Timothy Breton, David Berlinsky, Isaac Wirgin and Lorraine Maceda. 2009. Genetic Insights into the Stock Structure of Cod in U.S. Waters. Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Portland. http:// www.gmri.org/community/seastate/ Kovach_Adrienne/Kovach_Adrienne. pdf [Accessed May 22, 2011] Libby, Russell. 2011. “An Abundant Food System.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 61–65.

Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR). 2011a. Preliminary 2010 Maine Landings by Ex-Vessel Value.

Data Collected jointly by Maine Department of Marine Resources and National Marine Fisheries Service, Augusta. http://www. maine.gov/dmr/commercialfishing/ MaineLandingsByLivePounds.

PieChart.pdf.pdf [Accessed May 21, 2011] Maine Department of Marine Resources.

2011b. Preliminary 2010 Maine Landings by Live Pounds. Data Collected jointly by Maine Department of Marine Resources and National Marine Fisheries Service, Augusta. http://www. maine.gov/dmr/commercialfishing/ MaineLandingsByLivePounds.

PieChart.pdf.pdf [Accessed May 21, 2011] Maine Technology Institute. 2008. An Introduction to Maine’s Technology Sectors and Clusters: Status and Strategy. Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, Augusta.

Steneck, Robert S. and Enric Sala. 2005.

“Large Marine Carnivores: Trophic Cascades and Top-Down Controls in Coastal Ecosystems Past and Present” Large Carnivores and the Conservation of Biodiversity, ed.

Justina Ray, Kent Redford, Robert Steneck and Joel Berger. Island Press, Washington, DC. pp. 110–137.

Steneck, Robert S. and James A. Wilson. 2010. “A Fisheries Play in an Ecosystem Theater: Challenges of Managing Ecological and Social Drivers of Marine Fisheries at Multiple Spatial Scales.” Bulletin of Marine Science, 86(2): 387–411.

U.S. Commission for Ocean Policy.

2004. An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century. Final Report. USCOP, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Commerce. 2011.

U.S. Department of Commerce Aquaculture Policy. USDC, Washington, DC.

Robin Alden

Olson, Mancur. 2000. Power and Prosperity. Basic Books, New York.

is executive director of

People’s Food Policy Project. 2011.

Resetting the Table: A People’s Food Policy for Canada. People’s Food Policy Project. http://peoplesfoodpolicy.ca/files/pfpp-resetting2011-lowres_1.pdf [Accessed June 6, 2011] Schmitt, Catherine. 2011. “Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood: The Maine Consumer Perspective.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 96–104.

The Moseley Group. 2009. Maine Lobster Industry Strategic Plan. Governor’s Task Force on the Economic Sustainability of the Maine’s Lobster Industry, Augusta, ME.

Penobscot East Resource Center in Stonington, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to secure a future for fishing communities in eastern Maine. Alden was commissioner of the Maine Department of Marine Resources from 1995 to 1997. She founded and ran Commercial Fisheries News, a regional fishing trade newspaper, and was instrumental in starting the annual Maine Fishermen’s Forum in the mid-1970s.

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FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood: The Maine Consumer Perspective

by Catherine V. Schmitt

S

eafood provides nutrition for coastal communities throughout the world. Three billion people rely on fish for at least 15 percent of their annual protein supply; in some places, the ocean supplies an affordable source of protein that may not only be cheaper than other animal protein sources, but preferred and part of local and traditional cultures (FAO 2009). Seafood is the most highly traded international food commodity (FAO 2009). The United States imports 80 percent of its seafood, mostly from Asia.

Fish and shellfish have sustained people in Maine ever since the first inhabitants arrived in the wake of the glacier some 13,000 years ago. Maine ranks third in the U.S. in terms the landings value of seafood, at close to $300 million (Lowther 2010). An argument

96 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

could be made that seafood is more important in Maine than the rest of the nation, with the concentration of employment in the fishing sector 14 times that of any other state (NMFS 2010a; Rose 2004). “Fishing” relates to more than just the 30,000 jobs supported by the wild harvest and aquaculture industry (NMFS 2010b). The harvest of sustenance from tidal rivers, bays, and the ocean is also integral to coastal Maine’s cultural identity.

The fishing industry, heritage and identity, in turn, make coastal Maine attractive to tourists. Tourism actually is Maine’s largest industry, in terms of total employment (Rose 2004), and eating lobster is one of the most desired experiences among visitors, in addition to visiting coastal villages and beaches (Longwoods International 2005).

Fortunately for Maine’s fishing communities, demand for “sustainable,”1 local, and healthy seafood has increased, reflecting national trends in food interest and concern. But unfortunately for consumers, understanding the complicated and often conflicting information about seafood remains a challenge, despite multiple efforts designed to help seafood consumers make decisions.

This paper reviews the sources of seafood information available to Maine consumers and presents the results of a comparative analysis of several sustainable seafood guides and the information presented on fish and shellfish species that are grown or landed in Maine.

This information is then compared to fishery status as reported by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and to local efforts to promote fisheries as sustainable.

The implications for seafood consumers extend to the sustainability of Maine’s coastal communities.

SEAFOOD INFORMATION: DEMAND AND SUPPLY

S

ince the 1990s, consumer-education campaigns designed to prevent overfishing, reduce bycatch of non-target endangered species, and protect marine habitat created awareness among consumers about the implications of their seafood choices. At the same time, the local food movement expanded to mainstream American culture, as symbolized by the writings of Michael Pollan (e.g., The Botany of Desire,

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FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

…unfor­tunately The Omnivore’s Dilemma) and the founding of Slow Food USA in 2000. Meanwhile, public health agencies have strengthened their recommendation of seafood as a source for omega-3 fatty acids and micronutrients (e.g., U.S. Department of Agriculture, mypyramid.gov), despite concurrent evidence that certain types of fish and shellfish are more likely to be contaminated with mercury, PCBs (polychlorinated byphenyls), and other chemicals that can be harmful to human beings, especially pregnant women and children (water.epa.gov/scitech/ swguidance/fishshellfish/fishadvisories/basic.cfm).

These trends have resulted in a demand for seafood-related information, a demand that is being addressed by a diverse array of government agencies, institutions, nonprofit organizations, and private companies through various mechanisms: labeling, certification, guides (web sites, wallet cards, mobile device applications), consumption advisories, and harvesting rules (recreational fishing).

Labeling

Since 2005, federal law requires that retailers such as supermarkets and club warehouse stores label wild and farm-raised fish and shellfish with their country of origin (7 CFR Part 60); however, labels are not required to describe a location more specific than “United States” or “North Atlantic,” or how the fish was harvested. Supermarket seafood departments and neighborhood fish markets may or may not know the more specific origin of seafood items. Interpreting country-of-origin labels to the local level requires knowledge of aspects of the seafood industry, such as state versus federal harvesting rules. For example, certain species, such as sea scallops, may be harvested year-round in federal waters (three to 200 miles offshore), but only seasonally in state waters (within three miles of shore).

Beyond mandated labels, certification programs such as that of the Marine Stewardship Council are intended to provide consumers with confidence that selecting seafood products bearing the certification logo is a sustainable choice. In essence, certification programs claim to do the expert research and factfinding work for the consumer.

However, only one U.S. fishery in the western North Atlantic has been certified to date by the Marine

Stewardship Council, the for consumers, Atlantic deep-sea red crab, an offshore trap fishery that under­standing the primarily supplies foodservice businesses. The Maine lobster, complicated and dogfish, and offshore scallop fisheries are under assessment, often conflicting with tentative certification dates in 2011. information about The Gulf of Maine Research Institute is developing a branding seafood remains a standard for Gulf of Maine seafood, informed by the guidechallenge, despite lines of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization multiple efforts (FAO), Marine Stewardship Council, World Wildlife Fund, designed to help….

Global Aquaculture Alliance, and the Maine Aquaculture Alliance.

This branding program is expected to launch in Hannaford Supermarkets in 2011.

Despite these efforts that may alter the situation in the future, a current paucity of labeled, certified fisheries in the Gulf of Maine region forces consumers to turn to the guides produced by national and international environmental advocacy organizations.

Seafood Guides

There are now some 200 sustainable seafood guides around the globe (Jacquet et al. 2009; Seaman 2009). This paper examines how six commonly available, long-standing guides designed primarily for American audiences rate Maine seafood. Some of the guides are national/international in scope (e.g., Greenpeace) while others have specialized guides for individual regions (e.g., Food and Water Watch). The purpose of this analysis is not to evaluate the various methodologies used by the different organizations to rate seafood (typically using a green-yellow-red stoplight schematic), but to evaluate the information from the perspective of a hypothetical Maine-based consumer seeking to choose “sustainable” seafood from the Gulf of Maine.

The ratings of 34 fish and shellfish species harvested in the Gulf of Maine, along with official

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stock status and regulatory authority, are presented in Table 1. Of the species that are listed and rated by all six organizations, three species are consistently “red” (Atlantic salmon, halibut, and cod) and three are green (longfin squid, farmed oysters, and farmed mussels).

The majority of Gulf of Maine species fall somewhere in between: either rated as “yellow” or not listed by one or more organizations.

Disguised by this ambiguity are characteristics unique to local fisheries, such as seasonality, harvesting/ growing methods, and the latest scientific findings. For example, some of the green or yellow species, such as shrimp, bluefish, and mackerel, are available only seasonally. Other species, such as hake, red crab, striped bass, and squid, can be difficult to find. And, as mentioned earlier, country of origin labeling does not address the method of harvest or state of origin. Further, seafood is often mislabled and renamed (Jacquet and Pauly 2008).

…a current paucity of labeled, certified fisheries in the Gulf of Maine region forces consumers to turn to the guides produced by national and international environmental advocacy organizations.

The confusion that results for consumers is illustrated using three examples: scallops, salmon, and lobster.

The U.S. Atlantic sea scallop fishery is one of the most valuable fisheries in the United States and the most valuable wild scallop fishery in the world (Hart 2006). The North Atlantic sea scallop fishery is not considered overfished and is being considered for certification by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Nevertheless, sea scallops are on the Greenpeace red list, are rated as yellow by Blue Ocean, Environmental Defense Fund, and Monterey Bay Aquarium, and are not considered ocean friendly by the New England Aquarium. Damage to seafloor habitat is the primary reason for these classifications, which is why Food and 98 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Water Watch gives a green light to “dive-caught” scallops. For a consumer, then, the challenge is to determine whether or not the scallops sitting in the refrigerator case at the market are dive-caught. If the fishmonger does not know the answer, and the only label is “U.S. wild-caught,” the consumer would have to know that Atlantic sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus) are harvested in Maine waters by hand via scuba diving (diver or dive-caught scallops) only between December and April. During the rest of the year, scallops are harvested by dredge in federal waters (three to 300 miles offshore). Restaurants that serve scallops directly from divers may make this distinction, but supermarkets typically do not.

Salmon is the third-most popular seafood consumed in the United States (Johnson 2010). In placing farm-raised Atlantic salmon on their red lists, the guides cite negative habitat impacts, chemical contamination, threats from escaped fish, and feed use as problems. Yet, what is viewed as unsustainable by a nonprofit advocacy group often conflicts with what local fishermen and aquaculturists consider sustainable (Seaman 2009). Cooke Aquaculture’s marine salmon farms and hatcheries in Maine meet the Certified Quality Salmon certification standard of Global Trust.

While moderate changes to the benthic environment do occur immediately below salmon pens, these impacts are monitored by the Department of Environmental Protection as required by the salmon farms’ Clean Water Act permit (NPDES), and research has concluded that human-caused activities, including salmon aquaculture, are not major contributors to nutrient levels in Cobscook Bay (Garside and Garside 2004; Sowles and Churchill 2004). The Blue Ocean Institute incorrectly states that vaccines are used to treat infected fish, when in fact vaccines are injected at freshwater salmon hatcheries for protection from endemic diseases. Vaccine use has substantially limited the need for antibiotics in Maine, and antibiotic usage is strictly regulated (Christopher Bartlett, personal communication, 2010). Use of pelagic stocks of fish (e.g., menhaden, herring) for fish feed remains a concern, but nutritionists and feed manufacturers have been formulating new diets that contain increased amounts of plant proteins and reduced concentrations of contaminants such as PCBs (e.g., Rust et al. 2010).

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FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

TABLE 1:

Seafood Guide Comparisons Blue Ocean Institute

Environmental Greenpeace Defense International

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Food New and England Water Watch Aquarium

FishWatch Status

Regulatory Authority

OFD

NEFMC

Atlantic salmon, farmed

red

red

red

red

red

Atlantic halibut

red

red

red

red

red

OFD

NEFMC

Atlantic cod

red

red

red

red

red

OFG

NEFMC

red

red

yellow

OFG, OFD

NMFS/ICCAT

red

red

OFG, OFD

NEFMC

Tuna, Atlantic bluefin

red

red

Flounder

yellow

red

Skate

orange

red

red

red

not listed

variable

NEFMC

Monkfish

yellow

not rated

red

red

yellow

NO

NEFMC

Green sea urchin

not listed

red

red

not listed

not listed

DMR

Redfish

not listed

not listed

red

not listed

yellow

NO

NEFMC

Clams, hard

green

yellow

red (ocean quahog)

yellow

green (hand-raked, farmed)

NO

Mid-Atlantic

Sea scallops

yellow

yellow

red

yellow

Green (dive-caught)

NO

DMR/NEFMC

Eel

yellow

not rated

red

yellow

unknown

DMR

Dogfish

green

red (all shark)

red (all shark)

yellow

yellow

NO

NEFMC

Tuna, albacore

green

green

red

green

green

OFG, OFD

NMFS/ICCAT

Swordfish

green

yellow

red

green

yellow

NO

ICCAT

Black sea bass

yellow

yellow

yellow

not listed

NO

ASMFC

Hake

not listed

yellow

yellow

not listed

OFG, OFD

NEFMC

Crab, jonah

not listed

yellow

yellow

yellow

not listed

DMR

Herring (sardines)

green

yellow

yellow

yellow

NO

DMR/NEFMC

green

Haddock (hook/line)

yellow

yellow

yellow

green

green

NO

NEFMC

Shrimp

green

yellow

yellow

yellow

green

NO

ASMFC

NO

ASMFC

NO

ASMFC

NO

ASMFC

Lobster

green

yellow

yellow

green

Bluefish

green

not rated

yellow

yellow

Striped bass, wild

green

not rated

green

yellow

Crab, red

not listed

not listed

not listed

not listed

Clams, softshell

not listed

green

green

green

Atlantic mackerel

green

not rated

green

green

green

NO

DMR

Squid (longfin)

green

green

green

green

green

NO

Mid-Atlantic

Oysters, farmed

green

green

green

green

green

N/A

DMR

Mussels, farmed

green

green

green

green

green

N/A

DMR

Wolffish

not listed

not rated

not listed

not listed

unknown

DMR

Smelt, East Coast

not listed

not rated

not listed

not listed

not listed

DMR

Shad

not listed

not rated

not listed

not listed

not listed

ASMFC

Menhaden

not listed

not listed

not listed

not listed

NO

ASMFC

Whiting

not listed

not listed

yellow

yellow

green green

NO

NEFMC

N/A

municipal

See table notes in sidebar on next page.

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FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

Seafood Guide Comparisons: Notes An overfished stock or stock complex is one whose size is sufficiently small that a change in management rules is required to achieve an appropriate level and rate of rebuilding. The Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act currently mandates that overfished stocks be rebuilt as soon as possible and within a timeframe not longer than 10 years. Overfishing relates to the rate at which a stock of fish is harvested and occurs when that rate exceeds an acceptable level, eventually resulting in the stock becoming overfished.

Greenpeace USA (www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/oceans/seafood/) Nonprofit advocacy organization founded in 1970 to protest nuclear bomb testing and, in 1976, to save the whales. Greenpeace only identifies “red list” fish.

Regulatory Authority: Fisheries, depending on where harvesting takes place and the structure of the harvested population, are regulated by the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR), National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), and/or regional fishery management councils including the Atlantic States Fisheries Management Council (ASFMC) and the New England Fisheries Management Council (NEFMC). These management entities are responsible for assessing stock status and setting annual harvesting rules.

Food and Water Watch (www.foodandwaterwatch.org/fish/seafood/guide/) Nonprofit advocacy organization focused on food and drinking water issues founded in 2005. According to the organization, their National Smart Seafood Guide and Regional Seafood Guides also account for socioeconomic impacts on coastal and fishing communities.

“Recommended” fish are classified as green and “dirty dozen” as red, with others as yellow.

Blue Ocean Institute Guide to Ocean Friendly Seafood (www.blueocean.org/seafood/seafood-guide) Nonprofit marine advocacy organization founded by Carl Safina in 2003. The guide provides seafood health/contaminant information in partnership with Environmental Defense. “Orange” species were classifed as yellow and chartreuse species as green.

Environmental Defense Fund (www.edf.org/seafood) Nonprofit legal and scientific environmental organization founded in 1967. Seafood ratings are based on research conducted by Monterey Bay Aquarium and include health information.

Monterey Bay Aquarium (www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/seafoodwatch.aspx) Nonprofit research and education corporation, launched the Seafood Watch program in 1997.

New England Aquarium (www.foodandwaterwatch.org/fish/seafood/guide/) Private, nonprofit education and scientific corporation founded in Boston in 1969. The aquarium lists only recommended “ocean friendly” seafood, classified as green.

FishWatch (www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/#) FishWatch is an information product of the NMFS of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that provides seafood facts based on fish stock assessments, fishery evaluations, and fishery management plans and amendments. The Fishwatch status indicates whether there is overfishing (OFG) or the species is already overfished (OFD).

The online versions of the guides were accessed in November 2010.

Perhaps surprising from a Maine perspective, of the six organizations evaluated, only two rate American lobster as green. The most local organization, New England Aquarium, does not list Gulf of Maine lobster as an ocean-friendly seafood recommendation because of concerns about the impact of lobster fishing gear on 100 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

endangered North Atlantic right whales (Michelle Cho, personal communication, 2011). The organizations that rate lobster as yellow cite uncertainty about the status of the fishery, perhaps because of concerns about the health of the southern New England population. The latest peer-reviewed stock assessment of American

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lobster determined that the Gulf of Maine lobster fishery is not overfished (American Lobster Stock Assessment Committee 2009). To understand the difference, a consumer would have to know that fisheries are managed as stocks, subpopulations of a species.

As with lobster, it is possible that one subpopulation (e.g., Long Island Sound) could be depleted while an adjacent stock (e.g., Maine) is healthy. Despite occasional efforts to certify/brand “Maine” lobster, localized source identification is not always provided at the retail level. Traceability is complicated due to supply chain and distribution issues; however, trap-to-plate tracking is likely to occur in the future due to consumer demand (Dane Somers, personal communication, 2011).

Local Food Branding and Marketing

The current popularity (rediscovery?) of locally produced, minimally processed food has many Americans, including Mainers, asking questions about where their food comes from, how it was grown, and by whom. If decisions about sustainability included the distance seafood travels from sea to plate and the fuel used in harvesting and transporting fish, industrial fisheries would probably be considered far less sustainable than small-scale fisheries (Jacquet et al. 2009), lending further support to the “buy local” philosophy.

Maine’s emergence as a food destination (e.g., Bon Appétit blog by Andrew Knowlton) only sharpens the demand for information about seafood sold and served here. (See also articles by Lindenfeld and Silka and Nangle, this issue.) Certainly tourists want to eat Maine seafood (Longwoods International 2005), and yearround residents do, too: a recent survey of 1,013 residents of the greater Portland area found local seafood is important to Maine consumers (www.gmri.org).

Efforts to promote Maine seafood are making up for many years without a cohesive marketing strategy or program. While government-funded marketing and promotion efforts peaked in the wake of the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, private and cooperative interests are now taking responsibility for promoting Maine seafood, thus raising consumer awareness (Schmitt 2009).

Several community-based organizations, such as Penobscot East Resource Center, Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance, and Midcoast Fishermen’s Association,

have created local markets for community-supported fisheries, modeled after successful communitysupported agriculture programs in which customers pay up front for a “share” of the season’s harvest, which is delivered on a regular basis. These and other community groups, such as the Cobscook Bay Resource Center, are serving as hubs for connecting producers and consumers at the local level through farmers’ markets, restaurants, and small retail outlets.

The deficit in local seafood falls on the side of supply. For example, gourmet chefs nationwide are rediscovering sardines as a healthy, sustainable seafood choice (see Grescoe 2008), but this option is out of reach for consumers in Maine, where the last American sardine cannery closed in April 2010 and where the majority of fresh “sardines” (Atlantic herring) are used as lobster bait and not commonly available in a retail setting.

Losing the supply of local seafood would likely have great impact on tourism in Maine and on life in Maine’s coastal towns and villages. (What would a visit to the Maine coast be without a lobster roll at Red’s Eats, made from lobster pulled from one of the traps attached to the colorful buoys floating in the background? What if the fried clams were shipped in from Asia? Would people still want to visit?).

Health Information and Fish Consumption Advisories

Seafood information does not always incorporate safety and health information. The Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) administers the Marine Biotoxin Monitoring Program for red tide, a microscopic organism that produces toxins that can cause paralytic shellfish poisoning. When red tide has been detected, or after heavy rainfall, which flushes bacteria into coastal waters, the DMR closes shellfish harvesting areas to prevent contaminated clams and mussels from reaching consumers. The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention is responsible for issuing fish consumption advisories (MSRA 22 § 1696 I) due to the presence of harmful chemicals such as mercury, dioxins, and PCBs. For example, the safe-eating guidelines prohibit consumption of striped bass, bluefish, shark, and swordfish by pregnant and nursing women, women who may get pregnant, nursing mothers, and children under eight years old.

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FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

These warnings do not always filter into local promotion efforts or sustainability campaigns, and as a result consumers who are concerned about their intake of mercury or other toxic chemicals must be aware of the consumption advisories or obtain seafood safety information from additional sources and reconcile their findings with other types of sustainability information.

The high quality of Maine seafood reflects the rela­tively clean water in the Gulf of Maine and centuries of fishing experience.

Yet information about the “sustain­ability” of Maine seafood remains cloudy, especially for individual consumers.

Recreational Fishing Information

Harvesting one’s own seafood may be an appealing alternative to grappling with existing sustainable seafood information. Individual harvesting ensures that seafood consumed is local, and avoids the kind of mental expenditure necessary to evaluate fishery status, harvesting method, and environmental impacts of a given type of seafood.

With hundreds of out-of-state anglers and thousands of fishing trips per year (Lowther 2010), recreational fishing is a valuable component of coastal economies. Further, accessible fishing opportunities are especially important to lower-income families in Maine, who are more likely to keep and eat the fish they catch (Athearn and Bartlett 2008).

However, a Maine consumer seeking to harvest his or her own fish and shellfish would need to turn to an additional information source, the Maine DMR, to locate harvesting rules and regulations. Still other resources, such as private web sites or charter boats, would have to be accessed for information on where, when, and how to harvest seafood recreationally.

102 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

DISCUSSION

R

ecent trends in demand for sustainable, local, and healthy food extend to seafood. To satisfy these cravings, a multitude of labels, certifications, pocket guides, web sites, and other publications have been produced to inform and in some cases influence the decisions of seafood consumers. Guidance materials do not always reach consensus (Roheim 2009), and as illustrated by Table 1, translating voluminous sustainability information to the local level is fraught with uncertainty and complexity. Local, sustainable, and healthy are not necessarily equal. Further complicating the situation is the reality that consumers cannot always be sure that the seafood they purchase is the fish that the label or menu claims; seafood is often mislabeled and renamed (Jacquet and Pauly 2008).

Evaluating seafood information requires an amount of time and expertise that could be overwhelming enough to lead some consumers to ignore the information and either eat what they want or simply avoid eating seafood altogether. These solutions are not helpful to places like Maine, where the coastal economy is highly dependent on seafood for employment, income, community character, and sustenance.

The success of initiatives such as labeling, thirdparty certification, and community-supported fisheries may require that consumers are willing to pay a premium for sustainability to cover the costs of investment in governance, equipment, and infrastructure (Smith 2010). For this reason, and because consumer campaigns have had limited impact on increasing threatened and depleted marine animal populations and habitats (Jacquet et al. 2009), efforts to promote sustainable seafood are aiming higher in the demand chain, focusing on affecting large buyers and retailers that consolidate seafood purchases, for a bigger and faster market impact (GMRI 2009; Jacquet et al. 2009).

For example, Greenpeace has evaluated sustainable seafood sourcing, labeling, and sales policies of 20 U.S. supermarket chains (Trenor 2010). Rather than calling on consumers to avoid red list species, the Greenpeace campaign pressures food retailers to remove red-listed species from their product offerings. In the Greenpeace ranking (one being the best sustainable seafood policy and 20 being the worst), Maine’s primary supermarket

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chains placed eighth (Hannaford), ninth (Walmart), and 15th (Shaw’s). Whole Foods, which has one store in Portland, ranked third. Target’s grocery division, SuperTarget, ranked number one, but currently there are no Targets with fresh grocery departments in Maine.

Other initiatives are taking a grassroots approach to working with producers. In 2009, Maine’s Eat Local Foods Coalition launched the “By Land and

By Sea” project to encourage collaboration between the agricultural and marine fishing sectors, with the goal of leveraging resources and increasing efficiency through a shared understanding of the mutual challenges and opportunities facing Maine’s farmers and fishermen (Beal, this issue; Tyler 2010).

As national and international sustainable seafood programs trickle down, and local grassroots movements scale up, information about Maine seafood is likely to increase in volume and accessibility, presenting continued challenges for consumers while simultaneously generating support for Maine’s coastal economy.

The high quality of Maine seafood reflects the relatively clean water in the Gulf of Maine and centuries of fishing experience. Yet information about the “sustainability” of Maine seafood remains cloudy, especially for individual consumers. As fishing constricts due to regulations and shifts in response to ecosystem changes, the pursuit of sustainable, local, healthy fish and shellfish from Maine could become more difficult. The challenge for Maine’s seafood industry and coastal communities continues to be about creating and maintaining demand without risking the supply that is so important to the state. For consumers, the best source of sustainable seafood information might be found in learning more about Maine’s fishing communities and marine resource economy. -

ENDNOTES 1. “Sustainable seafood” is the harvesting of seafood from capture fisheries and aquaculture using means that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (1987 Brundtland Report to the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development).

REFERENCES American Lobster Stock Assessment Subcomittee.

2009. American Lobster Stock Assessment Report, No. 09-01. Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, Boston.

Athearn, Kevin and Christopher Bartlett. 2008.

Saltwater Fishing in Cobscook Bay. Maine Sea Grant Marine Research in Focus Vol. 6.

Beal, Amanda. 2011. “By Land and By Sea.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 105.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 2009. The State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2008. FAO, Rome.

Garside, Chris and Jean C. Garside. 2004. “Nutrient Sources and Distributions in Cobscook Bay.” Northeastern Naturalist 11(Special Issue 2): 75–86.

Gulf of Maine Research Institute (GMRI). 2009. Gulf of Maine Research Institute Branding Standard for Seafood from the Gulf of Maine Region (Draft).

GMRI, Portland. http://www.opc.ca.gov/webmaster/ ftp/project_pages/CSSI/State%20Programs/ Draft%20Gulf%20of%20Maine%20Branding%20 Standard%20121709.pdf [Accessed May 11, 2011] Grescoe, Taras. 2008. Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood.

Bloomsbury, New York.

Hart, Dvora. 2006. Atlantic sea scallop (Placopecten magellanicus): Status of Fishery Resources off the Northeastern U.S. Northeast Fisheries Science Center, Gloucester, MA. http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/ sos/spsyn/iv/scallop/ [Accessed May 11, 2001] Jacquet, Jennifer, John Hocevar, Sherman Lai, Patricia Majluf, Nathan Pelletier, Tony Pitcher, Enric Sala, Rashid Sumaila, and Daniel Pauly. 2009.

“Conserving Wild Fish in a Sea of Market-based Efforts.” Oryx 44: 45–56.

Jacquet, Jennifer and Daniel Pauly. 2008. “Trade Secrets: Renaming and Mislabeling of Seafood.”

Marine Policy 32(3): 309–318.

Johnson, Howard. 2010. Top Ten Consumed Seafoods.

National Fisheries Institute, McLean, VA. http://www.aboutseafood.com/about/ about-seafood/top-10-consumed-seafoods [Accessed May 11, 2001]

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 103

FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

Lindenfeld, Laura and Linda Silka. 2011. “Growing Maine’s Foodscape, Growing Maine’s Future.”

Maine Policy Review 20(1): xx–xx.

Longwoods International. 2005. Travel and Tourism in Maine: The 2005 Visitor Study, Final Report.

Lowther, Alan (ed.). 2010. Fisheries of the United States 2009. NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service, Silver Spring, MD. http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st1/ fus/fus09/fus_2009.pdf [Accessed May 11, 2011] Nangle, Hilary. 2011. “Welcome to Portland; Now Let’s Eat.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): xx–xx.

National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). 2010a.

Fisheries Economics of the United States, 2008.

U.S. Dept. Commerce, NOAA Tech. Memo.

NMFS-F/SPO-109. http://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/st5/ publication/econ/2008/FEUS%202008%20ALL.pdf [Accessed May 11, 2001] National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). 2010b.

Interactive Fisheries Economic Impacts Tool. https://www.st.nmfs.noaa.gov/pls/apex32/ f?p=160:7:55388062923346 [Accessed May 11, 2011] Roheim, Cathy A. 2009. “An Evaluation of Sustainable Seafood Guides: Implications for Environmental Groups and the Seafood Industry.” Marine Resource Economics 24: 301–310.

Rose, Galen. 2004. Maine’s Biggest Industries; Structural Overview of the Maine Economy.

Maine State Planning Office, Augusta.

Rust, Michael B., Frederic T. Barrows, Ronald W. Hardy, Andrew Lazur, Kate Naughten and Jeffrey Silverstein. 2010. The Future of Aquafeeds (Draft).

NOAA and USDA, Silver Spring, MD. Schmitt, Catherine. 2009. “Maine’s Seafood Industry: from the Outside Looking in.” Maine Food and Lifestyle 2: 56–58.

Seaman, Tom. 2009. “Are Sustainable Seafood Lists Supposed to Confuse?” IntraFish Media (February 25).

104 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Smith, Martin D., Cathy A. Roheim, Larry B. Crowder, Benjamin S. Halpern, Mary Turnipseed, James L. Anderson, Frank Asche, Luis Bourillón, Atle G. Guttormsen, Ahmed Khan, Lisa A. Liguori, Aaron McNevin, Mary I. O’Connor, Dale Squires, Peter Tyedmers, Carrie Brownstein, Kristin Carden, Dane H. Klinger, Raphael Sagarin and Kimberly A. Selkoe. 2010. “Sustainability and Global Seafood.”

Science 327: 784–786.

Sowles, John W. and Laurice Churchill. 2004.

“Predicted Nutrient Enrichment by Salmon Aquaculture and Potential for Effects in Cobscook Bay.” Northeastern Naturalist 11(Special Issue 2): 87–100.

Trenor, Casson. 2010. Carting Away the Oceans.

Greenpeace USA, Washington, DC. http://www. greenpeace.org/usa/Global/usa/report/2010/5/ carting-away-the-oceans.pdf [Accessed May 11, 2009] Tyler, Ellen and Amanda Beal. 2010. By Land and By Sea: Post-Regional Forums Data Summary. Tufts University, Boston.

Catherine V. Schmitt is communications coordinator for the Maine Sea Grant College Program at the University of Maine. She has written about seafood and marine life for magazines and newspapers including Atlantic Salmon Journal, Maine Boats Homes & Harbors, Wild Catch, and The Working Watefront. She blogs about seafood, science, and

the sea at www.seagrant.umaine.edu/blog.

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FISHING: Adrift in a Sea of Information about Sustainable Seafood

By Land and By Sea

By Amanda Beal

M

aine’s primary food producers, fishermen and farmers, face many economic, environmental, political, and market-access challenges. Although often thought of as separate sectors, farmers and fishermen are connected through the mechanisms of our general food system and through the natural resources required to produce food. Could collaboration between Maine’s farming and fishing communities: • Strengthen our local food system?

• Increase market shares and margins for local producers?

• Break down common barriers and challenges?

• Better direct and leverage limited existing resources?

Nearly two years ago, the Eat Local Foods Coalition (ELFC) of Maine, a statewide nonprofit dedicated to helping to put more Maine food on more Maine tables more often, began organizing a project to investigate opportunities that could mutually benefit and strengthen all producer groups. This internationally recognized project, By Land and By Sea (BLBS), has engaged representatives of more than two dozen farming and fishing organizations in Maine, representing thousands of stakeholders, to discuss how best to collaboratively support local food producers, meet infrastructure needs, build consumer support, address policy changes, and determine where it is most beneficial to focus energy and resources to create a food system that is more sustainable, economically viable, and locally based.

Representatives of the BLBS project conducted regional forums across the state where hundreds of farmers and fishermen discussed where they see the

most benefit from shared solutions. Two key “results” documents, available at www.eatmainefoods.org, are guiding ELFC and coalition members in efforts to amplify the voices and needs of our farmers and fishermen and to implement ideas gathered at these forums and from the numerous farming, fishing, and foodrelated organizations participating in the BLBS project.

The By Land and By Sea: Post Regional Forums Data Summary is a complete report of the compiled data gathered at each forum and key themes that arose from discussions that were focused around infrastructure, markets/market access, policy, and consumer education.

A policy brief for policymakers, Food Security, Jobs and the Environment, was compiled and distributed to the governor and members of several legislative committees, asking that policymakers make food and related jobs and environmental impact a priority investment in 2011 and beyond. In this document, numerous short- and long-term policy strategies are recommended that would benefit Maine’s food producers and consumers, such as: • Institute preferential buying measures to favor Maine-caught and -grown products for all food purchases with state funds.

• Facilitate opportunities for in-state processing and cooperative marketing, especially to include lobster, shellfish, and other seafood products and work within existing structures to establish a broad-based, affordable pool of money to jumpstart value-added and innovative food businesses.

• Commit the state to buying 25 percent of available federal fishing permits yearly for the next 10 years to re-establish fishing opportunities for new entrants.

• Provide access to a medical insurance pool to all Maine fishermen and farmers through the adoption of a program modeled after the Massachusetts Fishermen’s Partnership Health Care Plan to begin in 2014.

• Research the capacity of our environment and our food infrastructure to produce and deliver a nutritionally balanced diet to all Maine citizens. -

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 105

Good Food For All

A Maine food system should be durable, resilient, sustainable, and most importantly healthy and affordable. All Maine people deserve access to good food, but unfortunately this is not the case. Hunger and food insecurity is on the rise in Maine as are increases in obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, all linked to food choices. Old and young, immigrant and native, rural and urban—Mainers are experiencing a food emergency made graver by the economic recession and rising health costs. Federal, state, and local policies and programs are helping to some extent, but if we are to keep Maine healthy and productive for the long term, re-envisioning and reprioritizing good food and access to it must be the centerpiece. Authors in this section provide the context to this growing food and health crisis. Dora Anne Mills writes about “poor nutrition amidst plenty,” its causes, consequences, and the programs and policies that address it.

Gus Schumacher, Michel Nischan and Daniel Bowman Simon provide a history and overview of federal efforts, especially food supplement programs. Donna Yellen, Mark Swann and Elena Schmidt discuss hunger in Maine, focusing on private efforts to alleviate it. Michelle Vasquez Jacobus and Reza Jelali present a case study of challenges to food access among African immigrants in Lewiston, Maine and Kirsten Walter discusses Lewiston’s community food assessment.

106 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

By Dora Anne Mills

If malnutrition is like an iceberg, as one authority has suggested, and its greatest mass and greatest danger lie beneath the surface, then it is time for us to look beneath the surface for its hidden signs and causes and to do something about it (Steibiling 1941: 26).

T

his quote from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on nutrition in the U.S. in the mid-1930s is as appropriate today as it relates to poor nutrition as it was nearly 70 years ago related to malnutrition.

Indeed, it takes looking back several decades to see how poor nutrition has evolved to contribute to the leading causes of illnesses and death today. A century ago, our biggest causes of death in Maine were tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhea, and other infectious diseases such as measles and smallpox. By contrast, in recent years nearly three-quarters of Maine people die from four chronic, and for the most part, preventable diseases—cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke), cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes.

Many of these deaths are premature and are preceded by years of illness and disability. All four of these diseases share three factors as major underlying causes: tobacco addiction, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition.

My focus here is on poor nutrition: its causes, consequences, and the programs and policies that can address it. This article draws on and includes some of the material in an article I wrote for Maine Policy Review in 2004, with updated figures and other information (Mills 2004). The indicators of poor nutrition since the 2004 article have, if anything, gotten worse.

However, as we shall see, there are hopeful developments in policies and practices that may be able to

With modest reverse these trends. The breadth improvements in of work being done since I wrote my 2004 article is impresnutri­tion, and in sive, as many of the examples presented here will attest. resulting obesity When we contrast the lives of our ancestors here 100 years and obesity-related ago, it is easy to see why we face this epidemic of chronic diseases. illness, within 10 One hundred years ago, people labored much of their day on years the U.S. farms, and children walked to and from school. Our tables could gain $254 were graced with locally grown produce. Today, one in five is billion in producaddicted to tobacco; our communities are built for cars; tivity and $60 our primary activity while at work or school is sitting; and billion in avoided our tables are filled with many fatty processed foods and sugary health care costs drinks, almost all of which would not be recognized by annually. those living 100 years ago. It is fairly easy, then, to see how the changes over the last century in these three main underlying roots have led to this chronic disease epidemic.

Although this article focuses on poor nutrition, it is important to place this health issue in the overall context of the epidemic of chronic diseases of cardiovascular disease, cancer, chronic lung disease, and diabetes. These diseases are the leading causes of disability, hospitalization, premature death, and account for about three-quarters of all direct health care costs in this country (Maine CDC 2002; DeVol and Bedroussian 2007).

It is only by addressing the underlying causes such as poor nutrition that we can all live longer and healthier lives and our health care costs will become more affordable. With modest improvements in nutrition, and in resulting obesity and obesity-related illness, within 10 years the U.S. could gain $254 billion in productivity and $60 billion in avoided health care costs annually. In fact, the Milken Institute’s economic analysis on chronic diseases in the U.S. states, “we find

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

FIGURE 1: Obese Adults, Maine and the United States, 1990–2009 30%

finding of malnutrition among Blacks, including a large majority of Black families surveyed in the 1930s. The entire emphasis of concern in these survey findings was on insufficient nutrients and calories. Nowhere do the reports mention obesity or overweight as a concern. A 1965 survey, however, showed an increase in the proportion of families with poor diets, from 13 to 21 percent (USDA ARS 1972). This increase was noted to be mainly from a reduction in consumption of fruits and vegetables along with increased consumption of sugary drinks such as soda and punch. It seems these were some early warning signs of the obesity epidemic to come!

25%

% Obese Adults

20%

15%

Maine U.S. 10%

5%

10

09

07

06

08

20

20

20

20

05

20

04

20

03

20

02

20

01

20

20

99

00 20

e

19

97

96

lin se

CAUSES OF POOR NUTRITION

19

98

Ba

19

94

95

19

19

93

19

91

92

19

19

19

19

90

0%

Data, Overweight and Obesity (BMI)

that the single most important way to reduce the burden of disease and reduce costs to society is to reduce obesity”(DeVol and Bedroussian 2007: 22) Addressing poor nutrition and physical inactivity are the two strategies they suggest to reduce obesity.

FROM MALNUTRITION TO POOR NUTRITION

T

hroughout most of American history, the main nutrition concern has been malnutrition as a consequence of insufficient consumption of nutrients and/or calories. A USDA survey of American families in the mid-1930s showed one-third had poor diets consisting of insufficient amounts of nutrients (such as iron) and calories (Steibiling 1941). In 1955 this improved down to 13 percent (USDA ARS 1955).

Both surveys noted the strong association between income and diet, with those living at higher incomes having significantly better diets than those living at lower incomes. Both surveys also noted the common

108 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

A

lthough there are many underlying psychosocial, emotional, and genetic factors that may contribute to poor nutrition and resulting overweight or obesity, the main biological reason is that as individuals and as a society, we are consuming too many calories and not expending enough of them.

As mentioned earlier, over the last century we have exchanged a dinner table with mostly locally grown produce and meats for a table with many massproduced and processed foods that often have added fats and sugars, and are often much more cheaply and easily available than fresh produce. Instead of being filled with milk and water, our glasses are more likely to be filled with a variety of sweetened beverages, again, often more cheaply available than milk. Data indicate we are consuming more and too many calories. How has the type of calorie consumed changed in recent years? Nearly 90 percent of our increased caloric intake is due to a higher consumption of carbohydrates and fats (Putnam, Allshouse and Kantor 2000).

Although many factors help explain the increasing rates of poor nutrition in the U.S., several have been studied and/or well-documented. One—increasing

Source: U.S. CDC, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Prevalence and Trends

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

CURRENT STATUS OF NUTRITION IN MAINE AND THE U.S. portion sizes—is evident Nationally Maine both at home and in eating establishments. There is • 64 percent of adults are either over• 64 percent of adults are either overweight easy availability of inexpenweight or obese (36 percent overweight, or obese (38 percent overweight, 26 sive high-calorie foods; an 27 percent obese); 36 percent are neither percent obese); 36 percent are neither increasing variety of palatoverweight nor obese. overweight nor obese. able foods; increasing sizes • 28 percent of high school students are • 28 percent of high school students are of food units (such as the overweight or obese. overweight or obese. larger size of an average cookie, muffin, or bagel); • Has some of the highest rates in the and an increase in the nation of cancer and respiratory diseases. number of meals and calories eaten outside of the Eat at Least Five Servings of Fruits and Eat at Least Five Servings of Fruits and home. Soda consumption Vegetables Daily: Vegetables Daily: also appears to be a major • 21 percent of high school students.

• 20 percent of high school students. contributing factor to poor nutrition, especially among • 23 percent of adults.

• 28 percent of adults. youth.

• Income matters: 21 percent low income; • Income matters: 22.7 percent low income Over the past 20 years, 25 percent higher income. (<$15,000 annual income); 31 percent 1990–2010, obesity rates higher income (>$50,000 income). in Maine have increased by at least 100 percent in • Education matters: 18 percent less • Education matters: 22 percent less every adult age category. than high school diploma; 28 percent than a high school diploma; 35 percent In fact, 72 percent of college degree college diploma.

Maine adults ages 55–64 • Gender matters: 19 percent men; • Gender matters: 21 percent men; are now self-reported to 28 percent women.

34 percent women. be overweight or obese, making this now the age Sources: Eaton et al. 2008; http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/ group with the highest proportion of overweight or obese (www.cdc.gov/brfss/index.htm). The upward both parents are overweight or obese; they live in trend in adult obesity is also evident in the United smaller families; they live in poor families; they watch States as a whole (Figure 1). a lot of television; and they consume a high proportion Like adult obesity rates, youth rates have increased of calories from fat (USDA CNPP 1999). Other data to epidemic proportions. For instance, in just 20 years, also confirm that children’s obesity levels rise as the the national rate of overweight children doubled, while household income decreases and as head of household the rate of overweight teens tripled (Ogden and Carroll education levels decreases (Ogden et al. 2010).

2010). These youth and adult rates are all self-reported, The sidebar presents some of the key nutrition and the true rates are felt to be higher by several indicators for Maine and the U.S., including obesity percentage points, given that most report their weight rates, consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, and as less than actual measured and height as more than the role of income, education, and gender. actual measured.

It is critical to note the high prevalence of food Although current Maine data on specific factors insecurity and the impact of low income on poor nutriassociated with overweight youth are limited, national tion. In 2009, 15 percent of households in the U.S. data indicate that children with a high body mass and in Maine were food-insecure, meaning they did index often share some characteristics: either one or not have sufficient resources to purchase sufficient food.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

FIGURE 2: Percentage of Obese Adults in Maine 2008,

by County

percent, compared with 25 percent for those with higher incomes (>$50,000).

At first glance there appear to be large differences in the rates of overweight and obese adults among geographical regions, with lower rates in southern Maine. (See Figure 2, which includes age-adjustment.)

However, when these rates are adjusted for income as well as age, these differences are reduced. Therefore, one major factor accounting for geographical differences in obesity is poverty.

Aroostook 6,293

HEALTH IMPACT OF POOR NUTRITION

Piscataquis 1,489 Somerset 4,265

P

Penobscot 7,291 Washington 3,149

Franklin 2,311 Hancock 2,467 Oxford 3,677

Kennebec 5,755

Waldo 2,619

Androscoggin Lincoln Knox 1,699 4,635 1,247 Sagadahoc 829 Cumberland 5,049

≥ 29.8 26.3 – 29.7 22.0 – 26.2

York 5,157

0 – 21.9

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Diabetes Surveillance System. http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/ DDTSTRS/default.aspx. [Accessed 2011]

The USDA finds Maine to have the highest rate of food insecurity in New England (USDA ERS 2011).

Sixty years ago this meant that the food insecure were likely at risk for malnutrition and underweight. Today, however, because many inexpensive foods tend to have higher, though not nutritional, calories, people with food insecurity are often at risk for poor nutrition and obesity as well as for malnutrition and underweight.

Indeed, as noted in the sidebar, Maine obesity rates for those with low incomes (<$15,000) are higher at 34 110 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

oor nutrition leading to obesity has quickly become a leading cause of disease, disability, and death in Maine and the U.S. In fact, from 1990 to 2000 physical inactivity and poor nutrition have nearly caught up with tobacco as the leading underlying causes of death in the U.S., causing almost one in five deaths (17 percent), compared with tobacco, which is estimated at 18 percent (Mokdad et al. 2000).

Being overweight or obese is associated with a myriad of diseases, from pregnancy complications to lung problems to heart disease. There is not an organ system that obesity does not affect. The higher one’s body mass index, the higher is one’s risk for disease, disability, and premature death. Obesity also significantly impairs quality of life (Fontaine and Bartlett 1998). Being overweight or obese is even associated with the risk of death from cancer (Calle et al. 2001).

Indeed, we are seeing increases in many of these diseases concurrent with the unfolding of this overweight/obesity epidemic. For example, the number of people in Maine diagnosed with diabetes has more than doubled during the past 15 years, from an estimated 33,000 in 1994 to more than 87,000 in 2009.

The vast majority of these are type 2 diabetes, which is associated with obesity. Figure 3 shows the incidence of type 2 diabetes in Maine, by age group, which shows an alarming quadrupling of the number of people in the 45–64 age group with diabetes from 1994 to 2009.

Poor nutrition, particularly overweight/obesity, not only has a profound impact on overall health, but also is placing a burden on the national health bill—costs we all pay. Here in Maine, it is estimated that we spend about $1.0 billion in health care dollars to pay for

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

FIGURE 3: Maine Adults with Diagnosed Diabetes, by Age, 1994–2009

OVERALL POLICY CHALLENGES TO POOR NUTRITION

45

18–44

40

45–64 35

65–74 75+

Total Persons (in thousands)

obesity-associated diseases.

Adult obesity in Maine is estimated to incur direct costs of at least 11 percent of the state’s Medicaid expenditures, or roughly $150 million per year.

This is a conservative estimate when one considers that it relies on 1998–2000 data and that it only analyzes adult obesity, not overweight adults and not youth (who comprise a large proportion of the Medicaid population) (Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn and Wang 2004; Bureau of Health, Maine Department of Human Services 2003 estimates).

(in thousands)

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

O

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: National Diabetes Surveillance System. besity and poor nutrihttp://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/DDTSTRS/default.aspx. [Accessed May 29, 2011] tion are one of the most complex health issues of our time since they are interwoven throughout the fabric of society. Although there is As we enter the demographic explosion of elders, much emphasis on the role of personal responsibility, creating communities that promote healthy aging as with most significant and complex public health becomes even more important, especially for a state issues, the environments in which we live, work, play, like Maine, with the oldest median age in the country and attend school contribute heavily to the problem. and with one of the largest proportions of people age Therefore, effective solutions will require a balance of 65 and older. For seniors, maintaining a healthy weight personal along with societal responsibility. and eating well are critical strategies for healthy aging, The impact of such societal changes cannot be even if these strategies are started during the elder years. understated. As leading nutrition experts have stated, Thus, there is a wide breadth of social responsi“when it comes to obesity, our society’s environment bility needed to effectively address poor nutrition. It is ‘toxic’” (Nestle and Jacobson 2000: 18). For many, will take many sectors of society working together to especially those at highest risk, it is nearly impossible have a substantial impact. For instance, our health care to effectively create environments that would support system needs to fully recognize that being overweight healthy eating and weight loss. For instance, they may or obese is a sign of poor nutrition and a disease to be have little flexibility and opportunities for eating screened for and treated using similar strategies to healthily at their workplace; they may not have the those used for cancer and heart disease. Places that funds to purchase enough fresh fruits and vegetables, serve elders, our workplaces, and our schools need to especially in the winter; and they may not know how help to provide easier opportunities for good nutrition. to or have the time to shop for and cook healthy foods.

Social norms need to be changed making it more

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

acceptable to ensure healthy foods are always available at social and group-eating situations.

Similar to the effort launched to combat tobacco use, many have called for a multifaceted, concerted effort to combat poor nutrition. One analysis concluded, “given that such spending [obesity-related] now rivals spending attributable to smoking, it may be increasingly difficult to justify the disparity between the many interventions that have been implemented to reduce smoking rates and the paucity of interventions aimed at reducing obesity rates” (Finkelstein, Fiebelkorn and Wang 2003: 225).

Similar to the effort launched to combat tobacco use, many have called for a multifaceted, concerted effort to combat poor nutrition.

A number of experts are calling for a return to locally produced foods with an emphasis on a plantbased diet. In many ways this is an ideal strategy and a needed win-win for the agricultural economy, our environment, and our health. Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University have proposed a regional approach, called “foodsheds,” much like watershed designations. Each area of the country would have a designated area it would obtain much of its food from, thus reducing transportation and other costs associated with centralized agriculture (Dizikes 2009).

Food Safety

Along with the call for a rebirth of locally grown food, some have also called for a loosening of food and sanitation codes. However, we also want to make sure food is safe, whether it is produced locally or centrally.

Food- and water-borne illnesses were a major killer 100 years ago, and still are today, especially in developing countries. More than 200 illnesses are known to be transmitted through food, and every year in the U.S., one in six Americans will get sick and 3,000 will die 112 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

from foodborne diseases (www.cdc.gov/foodsafety).

The recent severe E. coli outbreak centered in Germany is a reminder of how deadly and widespread foodborne illnesses can be, even in modern, Western societies.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and state food codes have likely saved millions of lives over the years. Advocates for loosening the codes for local agriculture have some valid points, however. Some of these codes were developed with large industries in mind, and there are often several agencies administering different codes to the same business. As a result, much streamlining and improvements for local agriculture can likely be done. However, it is also necessary to make sure public health principles are adhered to. For example, in 2010 a bill was introduced in the Maine legislature to allow baked goods to be sold in farmers’ markets unpackaged and uncovered. Some supporters of the bill scoffed at the idea that flies landing on such baked goods are a health threat. Yet, flies are a well-known transmitter of disease to human beings because of their predilection for landing on excreta and on food and picking up and transmitting harmful microbes from one to the other (Nichols 2005). While many raw foods can be (and should be) washed before eating, thus rinsing off such microbes, baked goods cannot. The bill passed into law, despite concerns about public health that were expressed (Maine Revised Statues Title 22, Chapter 551, § 2174). This bill seems to be a good example of how a balance should be met, one that fully supports local agriculture for both the economic and health benefits, but one that also does not toss out public health principles that protect us from so many diseases that plagued our ancestors and millions across the world today.

Food Costs

The cost of food is a complex issue that also needs to be addressed if the epidemic of poor nutrition is to be successfully dealt with, especially for those living in poverty. For a consumer, high-calorie foods with less nutritional value often cost less than more nutritional foods. One study found that a dollar buys 1,200 calories of potato chips, 875 calories of soda, and just 250 calories of vegetables or 170 calories of fresh fruit (Townsend et al. 2009). If someone is hungry and only has $4 in their pocket, in some quick service restaurants they can buy a $4 salad or four $1 ham-

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burgers. A perusal of a local grocery store’s weekly flyer shows a package of hot dogs and a package of rolls can be purchased for $3. Alternatively, a bag of salad can be purchased for the same amount of money. In general, high-calorie, highly processed foods that offer less nutritional value are often much cheaper per meal than more nutritious foods (Drewnowski 2010). And, the latter often entail more time and effort to prepare, something that stressed families living in poverty often do not have. For instance, chopping and cooking vegetables and cooking beans and rice take more time and effort than boiling hot dogs or eating a meal at a quick service restaurant. The reasons behind these differences in costs of foods are complex and include government policies that subsidize certain agricultural industries such as those that produce corn.

Many people are now promoting the idea of looking at the true costs of the foods we eat. For instance, when one factors in such items as the types of fertilizer (petroleum-based fertilizers are used on many industrial farms), the concentrated animal feeds, handling the massive amounts of animal waste found on industrial farms, the energy required for irrigation and transportation of foods, and the wear and tear on farmland itself, there are overall energy and environmental costs to industrial farming that many say are too high. According to a recent article in The Washington Post by Tim Carman (May 10, 2011), at a recent conference on food, many experts agreed that the most urgent issue the food industry must address is climate change, with a focus on reducing the true energy costs of the food they produce. (For further discussion on this topic, see articles by Jemison and Beal and Beal and Jemison, this issue.)

Food Deserts

An issue related to food costs and local agriculture is that of food deserts, i.e., communities that have limited access to healthy foods. Many times these are low-income communities, often with a high proportion of minorities, in which the main food sources are from fast food restaurants or small grocery stores that sell few fresh fruits and vegetables. A number of solutions are possible, such as developing new grocery stores, improving existing ones, and recruiting farmers’ markets, but each is associated with costs and the need for community engagement. However, the true costs of

food deserts are high, including disability, disease, and premature death from poor nutrition (PolicyLink n.d.).

Changing the System

On the one hand, our food industry and the various roles it plays in poor nutrition are complex and require seismic overall changes. On the other hand, who would have guessed a few years ago that these issues would produce best sellers? Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), and the film Food, Inc., are now wellknown names and titles. And, fortunately for all of us, a more people involved with the food industry are joining the movement. To make significant changes to the fabric of society, it truly takes many partners. Here in Maine, there are a number of private organizations and public-private partnerships dedicated to improving the health of Maine communities and people through addressing nutrition, including policy approaches. (See sidebar for some examples.)

SPECIFIC POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS TO ADDRESS POOR NUTRITION

P

olicy interventions at all levels play a critical role in affecting the changes needed to re-integrate health into the fabric of society. The major goal of local, state, and federal policies should be to make it easier for all, especially those at highest risk, to make healthier nutritional choices. These policies should generally entail an expansion of choices, not limitations. Policies can achieve results in several ways, including the following examples: • Requiring a behavioral change on the part of individuals (e.g., seat belt laws).

• Directly changing the environment (e.g., salt fortified with iodine, water fluoridation, flour fortified with folic acid).

• Requiring a behavioral change that then changes the environment (e.g., public smoking restrictions).

• Requiring organizational policy changes that lead to behavioral changes (e.g., insurance mandates to cover nutritional counseling) (Mensah et al. 2004).

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IT TAKES A VILLAGE University of Maine Cooperative Extension has long-standing programs across Maine that offer education to the public and food producers on such diverse topics as canning foods, gardening, and pest control.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation funds a number of health initiatives in Maine and northern New England, with a focus on nutrition.

Let’s Go! is a collaborative funded by a variety of partners, including businesses, foundations, United Way, and a major health system. Let’s Go! works across many community sectors such as schools, medical practices, and child care programs to promote the adoption of the 5-2-1-0 messages and strategies (five or more fruits and vegetables, two hours or less screen time, one hour or more physical activity, and zero sugary drinks).

Maine Nutrition Network is a collaborative of the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service and Maine Department of Health and Human Services. Using USDA Supplement Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds, they provide interventions and evaluations focusing on nutrition and physical activity, with an emphasis on SNAP recipients.

Maine-Harvard Prevention Research Center is a collaborative of the University of New England, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the Maine Center for Disease Control that focuses on policy and program research related to nutrition, physical activity and obesity.

Health nonprofits, such as Maine’s community hospitals, health centers, the American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association, and American Lung Association Maine affiliates, all work on nutritional policy at the local and/or state level.

MOFGA, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, has been a driving force in assisting farmers, gardeners, schools, and communities grown and eat organic and locally grown foods.

Healthy Maine Partnerships, a tobacco settlement-funded network of community organizations working to address tobacco addiction, physical inactivity, substance abuse, and poor nutrition in communities across Maine.

114 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Although a number of potential policies have been proposed to address poor nutrition, what follows are examples of some specific policies suggested in the public health and medical literature, along with some examples of how these have been implemented here in Maine.

Food Labeling and Marketing

Several national nutrition experts promote improved food labeling with easy-to-read and interpret information about calorie and fat content on food product packaging and/or on menus and menu boards.

These experts point out that as a result of this labeling, consumers can be more aware of what they are purchasing at the point of decision-making, including the “value” of purchasing larger portions when eating away from home. This is especially important since we consume more meals at eating establishments than prior decades (Nestle and Jacobson 2000; U.S. DHHS 2001).

Labeling of chain restaurant menus is being implemented nationally as part of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Health Reform) after already being successfully implemented in California, Vermont, New York City, and numerous counties and cities across the country.

There are also initiatives underway to make the FDA’s required labels on processed foods to be easier to read and interpret.

The Smart Meals for ME initiative, administered by local Healthy Maine Partnerships in the Greater Portland area, is working with non-chain restaurants to provide calorie analysis of food dishes and subsequent calorie information on menus. Such restaurants as Anthony’s Italian Kitchen, Pat’s Pizza, DeMillo’s, Bridgton Hospital, and Sebago Brewing Company are part of this initiative.

Grocery stores such as Hannaford, Whole Foods, Shaws, and many smaller markets have produced a number of health initiatives, such as clustering the ingredients of easy-to-make healthy meals together along with the recipe. Hannaford implemented a food-rating system called “Guiding Star®.” The ratings use tags on shelves, with one star representing good nutritional value, two stars better, and three stars the best nutritional value per 100 calories. Items that do not qualify for any stars have less nutritional value than other foods.

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School Policies

Maine, like many states, has a strong tradition of local control over its schools. However, many in public health argue that a number of school-related policies regarding nutrition need to be made at the state or federal level, so all children are assured equal access to healthy choices. One option that a number of schools in Maine have chosen to comprehensively address health is to implement a coordinated school health program, which is designed to connect health with education through eight main policy-related strategies: • Involving youth, parents, and communities.

• Implementing comprehensive school health education K-12.

• Offering school counseling and physical and behavioral health services.

• Ensuring foods and snacks available at school are nutritious.

• Offering worksite health promotion programs for staff.

• Ensuring the physical environment of the school and grounds is safe and healthy.

• Creating and maintaining a positive, healthy, and respectful atmosphere at school.

Some examples of specific school policies suggested through the literature and/or by some of Maine’s Coordinated School Health Program schools include: • Screening children for body mass index with appropriate referrals to health care providers, similar to how vision and hearing are now screened for and how scoliosis screening was conducted for many years.

• Providing guidelines for parents and children on what is appropriate and healthy for lunches and snacks that are brought from home.

• Eliminating a la carte meals and ensuring that all food and beverages served or offered are nutritious, balanced, and portioned appropriately.

• Requiring the curriculum for health education teachers to include nutrition subjects.

• Including nutrition questions on children’s educational assessment tests.

• Participating in farm-to-school programs.

• Eliminating private industry advertising in schools (Nestle and Jacobson 2000).

One promising initiative is the Farm to School Program, which started in California in the late 1990s and has now spread to all 50 states, including Maine.

Local Healthy Maine Partnerships and Coordinated School Health Programs in Oxford, Washington, and Hancock counties have successfully brought local produce to area schools, thus improving the health of both the children and the economy. Amy Winston in her article in this issue has an extensive discussion on this important program.

The Maine Department of Education, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/ Maine Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS), and Maine schools are in the process of implementing screening for body mass index (BMI) (Maine Revised Statutes Title 20-A, Chapter 223, §6455). Several states, such as Arkansas (in 2003) and California have implemented such programs, which generally have two purposes: screening and surveillance. Those with concerning BMIs are referred to their primary-care provider. The nonidentified data are then aggregated at the school, district, and state level for ongoing monitoring of progress in addressing weight issues in the student population as a whole.

This feedback can be extremely helpful to communities since it gives them an evaluation and comparison tool.

Thus far, there are organizations that promote BMI screening in schools (Institute of Medicine) and others that say there is not yet sufficient evidence for their benefit (U.S. CDC) (Nihiser et al. 2007).

The Maine Department of Education is implementing rules that define nutritional standards for food and beverages sold outside of school meal programs, excluding food that is sold as part of community events outside of school hours. Part of the enabling statute also bans certain types of advertising on school

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

NUTRITION POLICIES IN MAINE AND U.S. SCHOOLS Percentage of schools that did not sell less nutritious foods and beverages anywhere outside the school food service program: 46 percent U.S.; 68 percent Maine.

Percentage of schools that always offered fruits or non­fried vegetables in vending machines and school stores, canteens, or snack bars, and during celebrations when foods and beverages are offered: 13 percent U.S.; 13 percent Maine.

Percentage of schools that prohibited all forms of advertising and promotion of candy, fast food restaurants, or soft drinks in all locations: 50 percent U.S.; 68 percent Maine.

Percentage of schools that used at least three different strategies to promote healthy eating: 22 percent U.S.; 26 percent Maine.

Percentage of schools that taught 14 key nutrition and dietary behavior topics in a required health education course: 64 percent U.S.; 57 percent Maine.

Percentage of schools in which the lead health education teacher received professional development during the two years before the survey on nutrition and dietary behavior: 44 percent U.S.; 46 percent Maine.

Source: www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/profiles

properties. A number of schools across the country have changed their policies in terms of what is served in vending machines. Several states and municipalities also have passed or considered policies to remove soda from vending machines, and the Maine Department of Education has promulgated such a rule. The sidebar depicting some nutrition policies in U.S. and Maine schools shows that Maine is ahead of the nation in many of these indicators.

Worksite Policies

Employers in settings that offer food can assure that employees have easy access to nutritional choices.

Examples include: 116 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

• Ensuring healthy foods are easily available where and when food is served.

• Ensuring vending machines have healthy food and beverage options.

• Allowing onsite Weight Watchers or other such programs.

• Participating in worksite wellness programs such as those recommended by local Healthy Maine Partnerships, hospitals, wellness coalitions, or health insurers.

• Creating incentives for workers to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

• Ensuring that weight management and nutrition counseling is a member benefit in health insurance contracts.

• Providing protected time for lunch.

• Creating work environments such as breastfeeding rooms that promote and support breastfeeding (since breastfeeding is associated with reduced overweight in children).

Some examples in Maine include:1 • Madison Paper Industries routinely provided coffee and doughnuts to attendees at company meetings and training. The mill’s wellness committee worked with those organizing meeting logistics to ensure that all such gatherings would offer fresh fruit, water, and 100 percent juice, in addition to coffee and doughnuts.

• Maine Machine Products Company (MMP Co.) in South Paris at the request of their wellness committee worked with their vendingmachine vendor and obtained a cold vending machine on site with a wide variety of healthy (and some not-so-healthy) choices. Within a year, the proportion of employees reporting they consume at least five servings of fruits and vegetables increased from 29 percent to 43 percent, and there was a 300 percent increase (from 22 percent to 82 percent) of

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

employees who felt that MMP Co. offered opportunities for healthy eating.

• Bath Iron Works in Bath implemented a similar successful vending-machine policy as MMP Co. They provide healthy options in a variety of nonrefrigerated and cold vending machines offering snacks along with beveragevending machines. They also added colored stickers next to the healthy food and beverage items.

• Barber Foods, a Portland-based company that produces poultry-based convenience foods, found a high prevalence of cardiovascular disease among its 750 employees, many of whom are immigrants from more than 50 different countries. The wellness team decided to offer quarterly health screenings, including cholesterol, with appropriate referrals to employees’ primary care providers or risk reduction resources. Within a year, per member per month medical charges for heart and other circulatory diseases for Barber Food employees was reduced by one-third, from $15 to $10. With a large number of employees, this cost savings is significant.

Besides these examples, there are hundreds of other success stories from across Maine of employers engaging in worksite health that include addressing poor nutrition from a policy and direct-care perspective. Maine is fortunate to have a number of statewide organizations working on assisting businesses in these endeavors. They include the Wellness Council of Maine, the Maine Health Management Coalition, Lifeline Workplace Wellness Program, and the Healthy Maine Partnerships. Others exist at the local level.

Policies Focused on Vulnerable Populations

Several government-funded programs in Maine provide food or funds to help those who are low income and eligible (see sidebar). Together, they serve about one in four Americans. Articles in this issue by Schumacher, Nischan and Simon and by Yellen, Swann and Schmidt discuss these programs and their importance in Maine in some detail.

These food-supplement programs primarily began in an era when insufficient calories and malnutrition were the major concerns. As a result of the obesity epidemic, most have made some significant policy changes to improve their ability to address nutritional needs. Some examples include: • Over the last three years, WIC changed the choices of foods provided from decades of offering eggs, whole milk, and cheese, to offering fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains.

• In many areas of the country, including Maine, people with WIC can use their benefits at farmers’ markets.

• TEFAP, CSFP, NSLP, and NSBP have updated their nutritional standards. However, this has not been without controversy. For instance, USDA’s recent (January 2011) proposed updates of the NSLP and NSBP nutritional standards include a weekly limit of one cup for potatoes, a healthy vegetable (especially when cooked in a healthy manner and not fried) that is a major Maine crop.

• SNAP has a more robust nutrition-education component for their recipients, though it does not dictate any nutritional standards.

Although nutrition has been on the radar screen of a number of federal agencies for years, over the past several years, there has been a sharp rise in both coordination of efforts and awareness that all agencies have a role to play. The First Lady’s “Let’s Move” campaign and other cross-sectional federal initiatives likely have energized some of this work.

A number of programs in Maine are involved with these programs since they provide an opportunity to work with people vulnerable to poor nutrition and food insecurity and to leverage government resources.

One example is the Veggie Prescription and Double Dollars programs. The former consists of health care providers providing “prescriptions” for vegetables, which include a $10 voucher for a local farmers’ market. The latter is a matching program, doubling the

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SOME EXAMPLES OF MAJOR GOVERNMENTFUNDED FOOD PROGRAMS TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) Provides food for emergency food organizations (EFOs), such as food banks and soup kitchens.

Funded by USDA and administered in Maine by Maine Department of Agriculture.

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) Formerly known as “food stamps.”

Provides a food supplement card for purchasing food items to eligible clients. About half of the recipients are children.

Funded by USDA and administered in Maine by Maine DHHS. Maine Senior FarmShare Program Provides low-income seniors 60 and older $50 worth of produce at a farmers’ market each year.

Funded by USDA, administered by Maine Department of Agriculture.

WIC (Women Infants and Children) Provides food and nutrition education to low-income pregnant women and families with infants and young children. Serves about 49 percent of infants born in the U.S. Funded by USDA, administered in Maine by Maine CDC in DHHS. CSFP, Child and Adult Care Food Program Provides cash reimbursements to child and adult care providers using USDA standards.

Funded by USDA and administered in Maine by Maine DHHS. NSLP and NSBP, National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs Provide cash assistance or food commodities to schools for lunch, breakfast, and after school snacks.

Funded primarily by USDA (with some state and local school system contributions). http://www.maine.gov/education/sfs/nsbp.htm”

value of SNAP or WIC benefits when used at farmers’ markets. Both of these have involved the support of many, including the Wholesome Wave Foundation, the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, and local health care hospitals and physicians.

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Healthy Portland and Healthy Casco Bay, both Healthy Maine Partnerships (HMPs), are working with food pantries in the area to address barriers to healthy eating for their clients. The HMPs have provided minigrants to food pantries. Some examples include providing classes in healthy cooking for food pantry clients, nutrition education materials, or focus groups to determine issues in common.

Price Policies

Some nutrition experts point out that taxation policies can make healthy foods more affordable and relatively unhealthy foods less affordable. Pricing policies can have an effect by themselves of boosting consumption of healthier foods. For instance, lowering by half the prices of fruits and vegetables in high school vending machines and cafeterias has been shown to double their sales (French et al. 1997). One such study concluded that “reducing prices on healthful foods is a public health strategy that should be implemented through policy initiatives and industry collaborations” (French 2003: 841). Another analysis suggests that “the government could adopt policies to decrease the prices of more healthful foods and increase the prices of foods high in energy” (Nestle and Jacobson 2000: 21).

Some have suggested that taxes be levied on soft drinks (often the syrup is taxed) or candy and on other foods high in calories, fat, or sugar to help fund programs that will in turn address obesity, therefore augmenting any effect of price increases alone.

Suggestions of such programs have included those focused on boosting consumption of healthier foods such as those produced by local farmers; health programs to help prevent and treat obesity; and programs to help preserve family farms (Nestle and Jacobson 2000).

Policies That Affect Health Care

State and federal policies can have a significant impact on the way the health care system addresses nutrition. Government can exert leverage over the health care system via several means, including through regulatory authorities (e.g., certificate of need approvals, facility and professional licensing, and regulations over the insurance industry); the

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creation of financial incentives (e.g., Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement levels); and provision of government funding for public health programs and medical research. A number of experts have suggested that government use these tools to address nutrition.

Some examples include insurance mandates for nutrition and physical activity counseling and regulatory and/or financial incentives for the health care system to implement effective systems (such as the patient-centered medical home model) to address nutrition and related chronic diseases (Nestle and Jacobson 2000).

A significant step was taken at the federal level in July 2004 when Medicare announced that it will classify obesity as an illness, thus paving the way for improved reimbursements by this major insurer.

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 has several policy provisions that will have a substantial impact on nutrition as addressed by the health system. Some examples include mandating insurance reimbursements for preventive services; funding prevention to communities, with a focus on obesity and chronic diseases; and supporting patient-centered medical home pilots.

The health care system itself often implements its own policies by changing its current medical standards of care. These standards of care are critical to addressing poor nutrition since they act as a catalyst for much broader change. For instance, they can result in obesity being addressed more effectively in the health care setting. And second, they often put pressure on government and societal policy changes. For example, there is a movement in Maine and nationally to start treating BMI as a vital sign.

In other words, whenever a patient interacts the medical system, his or her BMI would be measured and noted in the medical record, much as weights are taken today.

Maine’s tribal health departments have collaborated to hire a tribal liaison who helps to coordinate nutritional and other preventive health initiatives, including policy initiatives within tribal communities.

Many of these are communicated through the Maine Intertribal Health Newsletter, which in turn builds support for additional progress.

Limit Marketing to Children

A number of experts have called for limitations on food advertising and marketing to children. For instance, a study on the effects of fast foods on children concluded that “measures to limit marketing of fast food to children may be warranted” (Bowman et al.

2004: 117). An editorial in the same issue of the journal stated: The nation’s children deserve protection from damaging forces. There are early signs of bold action among policymakers to decrease exposure of children to the toxic food and physicalinactivity environment. On the horizon are actions such as removing fast food, snack food, and soft drinks from schools, curbing food advertising directed at children, and enhancing opportunities for physical activity (Brownwell 2004: 132).

State and federal policies can have a significant impact on the way the health care system addresses nutrition.

The American Public Health Association also issued a policy statement in 2004 calling for legislation to ban food advertising to children from schools and children’s television (APHA 2004). After three years’ of work, a task force of the American Psychological Association released its findings in 2004, along with a call for new policies to ban advertisements to children less than eight years of age, especially of harmful or unhealthful products (Wilcox et al. 2004). They cited such evidence as: • The growth in advertising to children to more than $12 billion annually with comparatively few dollars spent on public health campaigns on such topics as nutrition (only $1 million was spent nationally on the 5-A-Day Campaign at the time to promote fresh fruits and vegetables to the adult and youth populations).

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• The inability of young children under eight to understand the persuasive intent of advertising, such as to distinguish advertising from program content and to recognize the bias in advertisements.

• The fact that advertisements to children work to influence their purchasing preferences as well as those of their parents.

• The high percentages of advertisements aimed at children that feature non-nutritious foods and the association of these products with obesity.

While some have called for broad-based bans on advertising to children, others have recommended that advertising of high-calorie low-nutrient foods be the focus of restrictions or that broadcasters provide equal time for messages promoting healthy eating and physical activity (Nestle and Jacobson 2000).

Poor nutrition is built into the fabric of society, from the food industry to the health care system to schools and workplaces.

Promoters of such bans often note that Sweden, Norway, Canada, Australia, and Great Britain already regulate, to some degree, advertisements aimed at children. Sweden’s strictest multimedia advertising bans apply to children under 12 years of age, while less strict bans apply to those under 16. Several leading proponents of these types of restrictions feel that without them, children’s and parents’ food choices are defined and limited by the food industry’s marketing. In the words of the Swedish government, “children have the rights to safe zones” (Jacobsson 2002).

According to an article by William Neuman in the April 28, 2011, edition of The New York Times, the Federal Trade Commission recently released proposed new guidelines developed at the request of Congress that would strongly encourage the food industry to 120 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

reassess how they produce and market their childfocused products. The draft guidelines would be voluntary, and would require food products marketed to children meet certain nutritional guidelines.

CONCLUSION - BACK TO THE FUTURE

O

ver the last 100 years our society has moved from lacking sufficient calories and nutrients to being bombarded by high-calorie lower-nutritional foods and beverages. Poor nutrition is built into the fabric of society, from the food industry to the health care system to schools and workplaces. As a result, the cards are stacked against us to make healthy choices. For some communities, especially those with high poverty rates or a high proportion of minorities, the cards are stacked even higher against making healthy choices.

When it comes to nutrition, one’s zip code is often more important than one’s genetic code.

A policy approach is necessary to rebuild health into society. Yes, we need lifestyle changes, and we all need to take more responsibility for making healthier choices. But for the two-thirds to three-quarters of American who are obese or overweight, personal responsibility alone will not work. We also need to make community-style changes, and policies at the local, state, and national levels are critical to make these changes. Additionally, those policy changes need to focus especially on those populations and communities that face disparities. We all will benefit if the most vulnerable among us are well served.

This review of possible policies suggested by the public health and medical literature, along with some examples from Maine, will serve, I hope, as a catalyst for continuing discussions about how to effectively address this most critical epidemic of poor nutrition and the chronic diseases resulting from it. It will benefit all of us if policies that are appropriate for Maine continue to be implemented. All of us will have easier access to healthy choices where we live, play, work, and attend school. Indeed, health will be designed into the fabric of our communities, and we will all have improved opportunities to live longer and healthier lives.

The summary from a 1941 report on nutrition in America rings true today as it was then:

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STRONG and alert nations are built by strong and alert people. Strong and alert people are built by abundant and well-balanced diets. No nation achieves total strength unless all of its citizens are well fed. To be well fed means more than filling the stomach with foods that appease hunger. It is more than getting the food that barely protects the body from disease due directly to poor diet. It is having each day the kind of food that will promote abounding health and vitality.

Our Nation’s goal is that everyone shall have a diet adequate in every respect for good nutrition... ‘Nutritional diseases,’ says an eminent authority of the United States Public Health Service, ‘in all probability constitute our greatest medical problem, not from the point of view of deaths, but from the point of view of disability and economic loss’ (Steibiling 1941: 26). -

ENDNOTE 1. More information about the examples listed in this section can be found on the following web sites: www.maine.gov/dhhs/boh/hmp/mcvhp/resource_ library.html; and www.healthymainepartnerships. org/goodwork-resource-kit.aspx#1

REFERENCES American Public Health Association (APHA). 2004.

Emerging Public Health Issues Become New Policies for Association. APHA, Washington, DC. htttp://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/468793 [Accessed June 12, 2011] Beal, Amanda and John M. Jemison Jr. 2011.

“Resource, Environment and Energy Considerations for Maine Food Security in 2050 and Beyond.”

Maine Policy Review 20(1): 172–183.

Bowman, Shanthy A., Steven L. Gortmaker, Cara B. Ebbeling, Mark S. Pereira and David S. Ludwig.

2004. “Effects of Fast-Food Consumption on Energy Intake and Diet Quality Among Children in a National Household Survey.” Pediatrics 113: 112–117.

Brownell, Kelly D. 2004. “Fast Food and Obesity in Children.” Pediatrics 113: 132.

Calle, E.E., C. Rodriguez, K. Walker-Thurmond and M. Thun. 2003. “Overweight, Obesity, and Mortality from Cancer in a Prospectively Studied Cohort of U.S. Adults.” New England Journal of Medicine 348(17): 1625–1638.

DeVol, Ross and Armen Bedroussian. 2007. An Unhealthy America: The Economic Burden of Chronic Disease. Milken Institute, San Diego, CA. Dizikes, Peter. 2009. “Good Food Nation.” MIT News (November 10). http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/ foodshed.html [Accessed June 11, 2012] Drewnowski, Adam. 2010. “The Cost of US Foods as Related to Their Nutritive Value.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 92: 1181–1188.

Eaton, Danice K., Laura Kann, Steve Kinchen, Shari Shanklin, James Ross, Joseph Hawkins, William A. Harris, Richard Lowry, Tim McManus, David Chyen, Connie Lim, Nancy D. Brener and Howell Wechsler.

2008. “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance—United States, 2007.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports 57: 1–131.

Finkelstein Eric A, Ian C. Fiebelkorn and Guijing Wang.

2003. “National Medical Spending Attributable to Overweight and Obesity: How Much, and Who’s Paying?” Health Affairs W3: 219–226.

Finkelstein, Eric A., Ian C. Fiebelkorn and Guijing Wang.

2004. “State-Level Estimates of Annual Medical Expenditures Attributable to Obesity.” Obesity Research 12(4): 18–24.

Fontaine, Kevin R. and Susan J. Bartlett. 1998.

“Estimating Health-related Quality of Life in Obese Individuals.” Disease Management & Health Outcomes 3(2): 61–70.

French, Simone A. 2003. “Pricing Effects on Food Choices.” Journal of Nutrition 133: 841–843.

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French, S.A., M. Story, R.W. Jeffrey, P. Snyder, M. Eisenberg, A. Sidebottom and D. Murray. 1997.

“Pricing Strategy to Promote Fruit and Vegetable Purchase in High School Cafeterias.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association 97: 1008–1010.

Jacobsson, Ingrid. 2002. Advertising Ban and Children: “Children Have the Right to Safe Zones.” Swedish Institute.

Jemison, John M. Jr. and Amanda Beal. 2011.

“Historical Perspectives on Resource Use in Food Systems.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 163–171.

Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 2002. Healthy Maine 2010. Maine Public Health Data Reports, Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Augusta. http://www. maine.gov/dhhs/boh/phdata/healthy_maine.htm [Accessed June 12, 2011] Mensah, George A., Richard A. Goodman, Stephanie Zaza, Anthony D. Moulton, Paula L. Kocher, William H. Dietz, Terry F. Pechacek and James S. Marks.

2004. “Law as a Tool for Preventing Chronic Diseases: Expanding the Range of Effective Public Health Strategies.” Preventing Chronic Disease 1(1): 1–8. http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2004/ jan/03_0033.htm [Accessed June 12, 2011] Mills, Dora Anne. “Obesity in Maine: A Policy Approach.” Maine Policy Review 13(1): 28–47.

Mokdad, Ali H., James L. Marks, Donna F. Stroup and Julie L. Gerberding. 2004. Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000. Journal of the American Medical Association 291: 1238–1245.

Nestle, Marion and Michael F. Jacobson. 2000.

“Halting the Obesity Epidemic: A Public Health Policy Approach.” Public Health Reports 115: 12–24.

Nichols, Gordon L. 2005. “Fly Transmission of Campylobacter.” Emerging Infectious Diseases 11(3): 361–264.

Nihiser, A.J., S.M. Lee, H. Wechsler, M. McKenna, E. Odom, C. Reinold, D. Thompson and L. GrummerStrawn. 2007. “Body Mass Index Measurement in Schools.” Journal of School Health 77: 651–671.

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Odgen, Cynthia and Margaret Carroll. 2010. Prevalence of Overweight Among Children and Adolescents: United States, Trends 1963–1965 Through 2007– 2008. National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Hyattsville, MD. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_ child_07_08/obesity_child_07_08.pdf [Accessed June 12, 2011] Ogden, Cynthia L., Molly M. Lamb, Margaret D. Carroll and Katherine M. Flegal. 2010. Obesity and Socioeconomic Status in Children and Adolescents: United States, 2005–2008. National Center for Health Statistics Data Brief No. 51.

PolicyLink. n.d. A Healthy Food Financing Initiative.

PolicyLink, Oakland, CA. http://www.policylink.org/atf/cf/%7B97c6d565-bb43-406d-a6d5eca3bbf35af0%7D/HFFI_ADVOCACY2_SIGN%20 UP%20FOR%20UPDATES.PDF [Accessed June 12, 2011] Putnam, Judy, Jane Allshouse and Linda Scott Kantor.

2000. “Per Capita Food Supply Trends: Progress Toward Dietary Guidelines.” Food Review 25(3): 2–14.

Schumacher, Gus, Michel Nischan and Daniel Bowman Simon. 2011. “Healthy Food Access and Affordability; ‘We Can Pay the Farmer or We Can Pay the Hospital.’” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 124–139.

Steibiling, Hazel K. 1941. Are We Well Fed?: A Report on the Diets of Families in the U.S. U.S. Department of Agriculture Misc. Publication 430.

Townsend, Marilyn S., Grant J. Aaron, Pablo Monsivais, Nancy L. Keim and Adam Drewnowski. 2009.

“Less-Energy-Dense Diets of Low-Income Women in California Are Associated with Higher EnergyAdjusted Diet Costs.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 89: 1220–1226.

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS). 1955. Food Consumption of Households in the United States. Report No. 1.

USDA ARS, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service (USDA ARS) 1972. Food Consumption of Households in the United States: Seasons and Year 1965-1966. Report No. 12. USDA ARS, Washington, DC.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Poor Nutrition Amidst Plenty

A pediatrician by training,

Dora Anne Mills served

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (USDA CNPP). 1999. “Profile of Overweight Children.” Nutrition Insights No. 13. http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/Publications/ NutritionInsights/insight13.pdf [Accessed June 11, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS). 2011. Food Security in the United States: Key Statistics and Graphics. USDA, ERS, Washington, DC. http://www.ers.usda.gov/ Briefing/FoodSecurity/stats_graphs.htm [Accessed June 11, 2011] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (U.S. DHHS). 2001. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity. Rockville: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General. http://www.surgeongeneral. gov/topics/obesity/calltoaction/CalltoAction.pdf [Accessed June 12, 2011]

as director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention for 15 years under governors Angus King and John Baldacci. She is widely recognized for her accomplishments in the area of public health, including reducing Maine’s rate of tobacco use, teen pregnancy, and childhood obesity. She was recently appointed as vice president for clinical affairs at the University of New England.

Wilcox, Brian L., Dale Kunkel, Joanne Cantor, Peter Dowrick, Susan Linn and Edward Palmer. 2004.

Report of the APA Task Force on Advertising and Children.” American Psychologicall Association, Washington, DC. http://www.apa.org/pi/families/ resources/advertising-children.pdf [Accessed June 12, 2011] Winston, Amy. 2011. “Farm to School.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 233–235.

Yellen, Donna, Mark Swann and Elena Schmidt. 2011.

“Hunger in Maine.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 140–150.

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Healthy Food Access and Affordability: “We Can Pay the Farmer or We Can Pay the Hospital”

By Gus Schumacher Michel Nischan Daniel Bowman Simon

INTRODUCTION

O

n a beautiful summer day, a mother takes her kids to the farmers’ market. A farmer recommends some ingredients for a delicious stir-fry: fresh broccoli, carrots, bell pepper, onion, and garlic. The recipe takes less than 15 minutes to prepare. The mom picks the best-looking veggies, while the farmer makes a goofy face and engages the children by sharing why his vegetables are so good for them. The kids show genuine interest. The farmer offers up a high five. The kids ask their mom to buy some apples and peaches, too. As the saying goes “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

How could a mother refuse? So they fill up a bag of fruit, and head home to get dinner ready. The kids help mom wash the veggies and cut them up. It’s a family affair. The mom recently has been laid off from her job at a factory and relies on food assistance.

This true farmers’ market story was made possible because of an innovative nutrition-incentive program that doubles the value of food stamps when used at

124 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

select farmers’ markets in low-income urban and rural areas. What’s fascinating is that this incentive program bears a striking resemblance to program attributes of the original 1939 Food Stamp Plan that was once popular among a majority of Americans. Today, however, a program that for seven decades has helped feed millions of Americans living at or below the poverty level is being challenged.

With the 2012 federal Farm Bill debate underway, lawmakers and advocates are reviewing the potential health and economic impacts of the nearly $100 billion invested annually in American’s food-assistance programs, close to 80 percent of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) overall budget. The debates focusing on the linked problems of diet-related diseases and food insecurity are timely. A lack of affordable, healthful food options in America’s food deserts commonly leads to excess consumption of healthdebilitating food, even when those receiving benefits can be considered clinically malnourished.

Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese (Ogden et al. 2006). More troubling, obesity rates among children ages six to 11 have increased fourfold since 1960, and tripled amongst teenagers between 12 and 19 years over the same period (Ogden, Carroll and Flegal 2008). In Maine, adults and children are similarly at risk, with levels of obesity and diabetes rising. Obesity costs Maine $0.5–$1.0 billion in health care dollars annually, or roughly $400–$800 per capita per year (Mills 2004).

For the first time in history, our children may have a shorter life expectancy than their parents, as a result of diet-related diseases such as cancer, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure (Office of the Surgeon General 2001). These conditions are most prevalent in America’s historically excluded and seriously underserved urban and rural communities.

All Americans are paying a price, and the price is $800 billion spent annually on health care costs directly resulting from the impact of diet- and exerciserelated and preventable diseases.

WHO DO WE PAY?

“W

e can pay the farmer, or we can pay the hospital,” Birke Baehr declared during his

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Healthy Food Access and Affordability

With the 2012 federal recent TEDx talk that’s gone viral (www.birkeonthefarm.com/my-tedx-talk.html). He’s not the first to point out the two options available when examining the true costs of our current food economy. What’s remarkable is that Mr. Baehr is 11 years old. Even children are calling for change in America’s food system. Parents and policy advocates are ramping up their efforts with significant vigor.

In considering young Birke’s comments, some 44.5 million Americans will likely require SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps) in 2011. With all this food assistance available, you might think that people would be relatively well-fed and healthy. Unfortunately, these benefits are spread so thinly that the benefit for food averages only $4.45 per person per day. The only products people on federal assistance can afford to “choose” are the highly processed, carbohydrate-laden foods that lead to weight gain without effectively addressing their hunger. The incidence of obesity and preventable illnesses such as diabetes is exploding, and low-income Americans are bearing the brunt (CDC 2009). The annual cost to tax payers for treating just obesity and diabetes is $115 billion and $130 billion, respectively—and rising, with much higher costs for other diet-related health conditions.

As a result taxpayers are paying for the food for people who can’t afford to pay the farmer and taxpayers are paying the hospital bills for these same people because they can’t afford health insurance. In short, food-assistance recipients cannot afford to pay the farmer, so taxpayers are paying the hospitals.

In Maine, buffeted by unemployment and poverty, 130,653 households (251,789 citizens) were using SNAP as of May 2011 (www.maine.gov/dhhs/ OIAS/reports/2011/geo-may.pdf ), and in November 2010, 26,256 Maine mothers and children were enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance for Women Infants and Children (WIC) (www.fns.usda. gov). In 2011, one-fifth of Maine’s families (260,000 individuals) may need to use SNAP or WIC programs.

Last year, the USDA provision of benefits to Maine amounted to $356 million for SNAP (www.fns.usda. gov) and $12.8 million for WIC (www.fns.usda.gov).

With nearly $369 million in federal food dollars coming into the great agricultural state of Maine, is the

farm business booming? No! Farm Bill debate Consider this: The recent surge in awareness around the underway, lawmakers concept of food deserts has exposed how urban and rural and advocates neighborhoods suffer from a lack of access to healthy, nourishing are reviewing the foods, especially fruits and vegetables. What it hasn’t exposed is potential health and how America’s small- and midsized family farmers are having a economic impacts tough time feeding their own families. In an ultimate irony, of the nearly $100 too many farmers who grow food for us cannot afford food billion invested for themselves—they must rely on SNAP benefits to help feed annually in their families.

The intent of the original American’s food1939 Food Stamp Plan was to provide additional assistance to assistance programs, those in need so they could purchase surplus agricultural close to 80 percent products (pears, cheese, milk, potatoes, snap beans, whole of the [USDA’s] wheat flour, for example). The plan allowed those in need to overall budget. provide their families with “good, basic foods” paid for by the government, thus providing direct support for American farmers. If the Food Stamp Plan were operating in 2011 the way it operated in 1939, 126,964 Maine households would be feeding their families good, basic foods and the Maine farm economy would be benefitting from a good chunk of $400 million in SNAP and WIC that can be spent only on food. A likely result might be fewer people on food stamps overall—fewer farmers on food stamps, for sure. As a bonus, budget busting health care costs would be reduced as well.

COMMON SENSE GONE AWRY

W

e all like to view America as a country of common sense. It appears that the original Food Stamp Plan was guided by common sense. The approach

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seemed to be, “Since we have an agricultural surplus and it is imperative to help farmers get by, we might as well make sure that surplus gets to the families who need to eat.” It was the perfect combination of good intentions and good sense, or empathy and economics.

Today the vast majority of SNAP benefits are spent on artificially cheap, highly processed prepared foods such as instant rice, instant noodles, hamburgerpasta meals without the hamburger (meat is expensive), and bagged snacks to quiet hungry children before bedtime. The program has lost a good deal of its common sense components.

Why did the [food stamp] system shift from what seemed to be one forged by common sense to one that primarily benefits already-subsidized commodity crops and processed-food companies?

Advocates continue their debate as to whether SNAP expenditures facilitate healthier diets, or have a neutral or negative health impact. Some maintain that foods and beverages of minimum or no nutritional value should be eliminated because they do not accomplish the original nutritional goals of the program and because health consequences result in additional taxpayer burden. Others maintain the importance of consumer freedom, arguing that such restrictions punish low-income people and that more effective ways to address obesity are available. In short, the government shouldn’t act as “food police.”

With lively and intense debates springing up around food and nutrition policy today, it’s important to look at the early history of the Food Stamp Plan.

Why was it called “food stamps?” Why was this plan passed unanimously in the Senate, signed into law and supported by liberals and conservatives alike? Why, over time, did conservatives and liberals join together in sometimes selfless acts of bipartisanship when it came to the well-being of our nation’s disadvantaged 126 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

families and farmers? Why did the system shift from what seemed to be one forged by common sense, to one that primarily benefits already-subsidized commodity crops and processed-food companies?

Finally, how might we look back to American policy leaders on both sides of the aisle to find ways to recapture some of that common sense to benefit American farmers, the American economy, and American citizens living at or below the poverty level?

WE ONCE HAD IT RIGHT

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eviewing the early history of the Food Stamp Plan, its goals, and the foods it intentionally included and excluded is fascinating, especially in light of the similar current policy debates.

A March 14, 1939, article in the Washington Post

by Walter Fitzmaurice announced the Food Stamp Plan as a farm-recovery program—the unemployed would benefit from being able to eat the nation’s surplus agricultural product. Under the subheadline “$1.50 in Food for Dollar,” the Post explained: The plan provides the grant by the Government of $1.50 in food orders to the beneficiaries for each dollar of the WPA wages or dole money they expend. For each cash dollar, an unemployed person would get $1 in orange stamps and 50 cents in blue stamps.

Orange stamps are good for any grocery item the purchaser elects, except drugs, liquor, and items consumed on the premises. Blue stamps, however, will buy only surplus foods—dairy products, eggs, citrus fruits, prunes, fresh vegetables, and the like.

The first healthy-food incentive program was born. And, from inception, the government had a say in what could be purchased with food stamps.

On September 26, 1939, the New York Times announced the list of approved foods for blue stamp purchase: “The [food stamp] list, effective Oct. 1, includes butter, eggs, raisins, apples, pork lard, dried prunes, onions, except green onions; dry beans, fresh pears, wheat flour and whole wheat flower, and corn meal. Fresh snap beans were designated as surplus for Oct. 1 through Oct. 31.”

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On December 4, 1939, the USDA’s Milo Perkins, coordinator of the Food Stamp Plan, spoke to the Fruit and Vegetable Committee of the American Farm Bureau Federation, saying the new Food Stamp Plan “improves farm income as well as the public health. For fresh fruits and vegetables there is a tremendous potential market” (Perkins 1939: 4). “Given the purchasing power, poor people will buy trainload after trainload of citrus, tomatoes, cabbage, peaches and other fruits and vegetables” (Perkins 1939: 9). Perkins (1939: 10) emphasized the “great deal of hope for farmers… and [said] we are interested in the Stamp Plan as a means of helping local producers in the area around which the program is in effect.”

Maine was an early adopter of the first Food Stamp Plan. Cities had to apply to participate, and the rollout was gradual. Portland began participation in the program on January 16, 1940. According to a story in the January 15, 1940, Christian Science Monitor, city officials estimated it would raise purchasing power of “10,000 welfare recipients 50 percent. This would translate to $200,000 to $240,000 worth of surplus products annually.” By the fall of 1940, food stamps had spread to Bangor, Belfast, Camden, Owls Head, St. George, and to more towns and cities in 1941.

In May 1941, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, vacationing in Maine, reported in her syndicated “My Day” column: There is one piece of information that I discovered in Maine which pleased me very much.

Ten cities and towns in that State already have the Food Stamp Plan in operation. The entire State has been designated for this program, which means that in the near future, 125,000 needy people in Maine will have the opportunity to increase their food consumption through the use of the free blue surplus stamps.

She continued, explaining the importance of the program to the nation: This is an important step in long range national defense. Our nutrition problems have been great and we are only just beginning to understand that the Government must assist people from the economic and educational

standpoint, in order that we may remedy some of the defects which we now know exist in the feeding of our children.1 And what better program to see that children were appropriately fed? Throughout this early Food Stamp Plan, truly fresh produce was highlighted. In July 1941, at the height of the growing season in many states, all fresh vegetables were placed on the surplus list while canned and frozen vegetables were excluded. At the same time, according to an article in The Herald Statesman (of Yonkers, New York) from August 8, 1941, “soft drinks, such as ginger ale, root beer, sarsaparilla, pop, and all artificial mineral water, whether carbonated or not,” were removed from the list, and retail food merchants were warned not to sell those items for orange stamps or blue stamps. However, natural fruit juices, “such as grapefruit, orange, grape or prune” were not considered “soft drinks” and could still be sold for orange stamps.

Newspaper accounts from that era do not reveal any public or political kerfuffle over the removal of soft drinks from the list of items that food stamps could buy. As reported in The Atlanta Constitution, according to a nation-wide poll conducted by George Gallup himself in November 1939, the majority of Americans—rich and poor, Republican and Democrat—overwhelmingly supported the Food Stamp Plan. The poll asked: “The Government has tried out a Food Stamp Plan which lets people on relief buy certain surplus farm products below their regular selling price. The Government makes up the difference to the merchant. Do you approve or disapprove?”

Approvals outweighed disapprovals 70 percent to 30 percent. It appeared the Food Stamp Plan was a good idea because it helped solve multiple problems at once.

During the years of World War II, crop surpluses became crop scarcities and unemployment dwindled.

Consequently, the first Food Stamp Plan came to an end in March 1943. All seemed well, but as Jan Poppendieck (1985: 241) pointed out in her book Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat, “the truly unemployable needed food assistance more than ever as food prices rose sharply under the pressure of wartime scarcities.”

It was not until the late 1950s, with the coupling of hunger and agricultural surplus, that

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food stamps were again politically viable. As a senator, John F. Kennedy was a sponsor of foodstamp legislation. Congress passed a law in 1959, allowing the USDA to resume food-stamp benefits, but it was not until Kennedy was sworn in as president that real momentum resumed.

In his first official act as president, on January 21, 1961, Kennedy issued Executive Order 10914, entitled “Providing for an Expanded Program of Food Distribution to Needy Families.” The order explained that “the variety of foods currently being made available [to needy families] through commodity distribution programs is limited and its nutritional content inadequate” (www.presidency.ucsb.edu).

Based on this Executive Order, using Section 322 funds, the Food Stamp Program pilot began in Paynesville, West Virginia, in May 1961, and shortly thereafter in seven other locations across the country.

A study of household food consumption in two of the eight pilot areas “showed that families participating in the food stamp program made significant increases in food purchases and in total value of food used since the inauguration of the pilot projects. In the two areas, 85 and 95 percent of the free coupons represented increased food expenditures, with animal products and fruits and vegetables accounting for more than 80 percent of the gains in the value of food consumed” (USDA AMS 1962). Looking at particular expenditures, the study found that in Detroit, in September–October 1961, participants in the food stamp program purchased 11.4 pounds of fruits and vegetables weekly, whereas eligible non-participants only purchased 8.28 pounds of fruits and vegetable weekly (USDA AMS 1962).

According to a USDA web site, by January 1964, the successful pilot program had expanded from eight areas to 43 areas in 22 states, serving 380,000 participants (www.fns.usda.gov/snap/rules).

THE GREAT SOCIETY AND THE FOOD STAMP ACT OF 1964

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uilding upon Kennedy’s Executive Order, President Johnson supported Congressional enactment of the Food Stamp Act of 1964 during the era of Great Society legislation “to permit those households in economic need to receive a greater share of the

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Nation’s food abundance.” The House version of the bill initially defined “eligible foods” as “any food or food product for human consumption except alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and foods identified as being imported from foreign sources” (www.fns.usda.gov/ snap). The bill was then amended to also exclude from purchase “soft drinks, luxury foods, and luxury frozen foods, as defined by the Secretary.” The House passed that version of the bill on April 8, 1964.

But when the conference bill went back to the Senate, the Senate removed the exclusion of soft drinks (as well as luxury foods) in the belief that those restrictions presented an “insurmountable administrative problem.” In addition, the Senate cited studies showing that: “Food stamp households [in the Kennedy pilot] concentrated their purchases on good basic foods. For example, fruit and vegetable consumption was largely accounted for by seasonally abundant fresh items; potatoes, greens, tomatoes, cabbage, apples, and assorted citrus fruits.” In other words, opponents argued that excluding soft drinks was both unwieldy and unnecessary—food stamp recipients were already buying good basic foods on their own.

Still, Senator Paul H. Douglas of Illinois (who had grown up in Piscataquis County, Maine, and graduated from Bowdoin College) was not convinced. He expressed strong concern that the food stamp benefits would be used for items other than “good basic foods,” and made an impassioned plea when he fought to exclude carbonated soft drinks from the food-stamp legislation. He warned that if soft drinks were included “this will be used as propaganda against an otherwise splendid and much needed measure.” He explained that soft drinks “have no nutritional value-none at all.

They are poor alternatives for milk or chocolate milk.

Actually, they are bad for kids, rather than good for them.” Douglas’s proposed amendment to prohibit the use of stamps to purchase carbonated soft drinks was rejected in the Senate version, which passed unanimously on August 11, 1964. President Johnson signed the bill into law on August 31, 1964.

THE ENSUING YEARS: 1965–2011

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ith Senator Douglas’s concern that benefits would be used for other than good basic foods,

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the stage was set for a debate on nutrition. The correlation between the consumption of inexpensive, highly processed foods and obesity (along with obesity-related diseases) was beginning to appear, as was a broader awareness of serious issues of poverty in America’s underserved urban and rural communities.

One evening in 1968, Senator George McGovern watched the first major documentary on hunger in America, Hunger: U.S.A. The documentary featured a young boy who told a reporter he was “ashamed” because he could not afford to buy lunch at school as he watched paying students eat. The senator was emotionally moved. In his own words: “It was not that little boy who should feel ashamed, it was I, a U.S. senator living in comfort, who should be ashamed that there were hungry people–young and old–in my own beloved country” (McGovern 2002: 70). The very next day, Senator McGovern introduced a resolution to create the Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, known as the Senate Hunger Committee.

The time was right to properly address hunger, as the program remained popular among both Republican and Democratic citizens. As reported in The Los Angeles Times, on April 20, 1969, another Gallup Poll on hunger was conducted and published: Senator George McGovern’s (D-S.D.) welfare proposal, which would provide Food Stamps for all families living in extreme poverty (incomes less than $20 per week), receives a bipartisan stamp of approval by the American people. Nearly seven in ten (68%) interviewed in a late March survey favored the idea, with majority support coming from rank and file Republicans and Democrats, and persons at every economic level.

Three decades had passed and the program was still as popular as ever.

In spite of popular support, McGovern’s Congressional Senate Hunger Committee faced serious challenges as some politicians joined to portray the program as the poster child for federal waste, fraud, and abuse (Shrum 2007). Despite the opposition’s best efforts, the committee successfully pushed on.

The key to success was McGovern’s closest ally, Kansas Republican Senator Bob Dole. Once fierce political

enemies, they had become good friends through their work on the Hunger Committee. The two worked tirelessly to craft the Food Stamp Act of 1977 (Shrum 2007). The remarkable difference between this act and previous food-stamp legislation was the change that allowed food stamps to be distributed without the requirement that recipients pay a modest amount to receive the benefits.

…changes to food stamps, and the double subsi­dies it created, opened the door for recipients to shift their purchases from good, basic foods towards items such as sugar-laden soft drinks, carbohydrate-laden minute meals, and low-nutrient chips and snack foods.

At the same time, the effects of eliminating restrictions of food stamp benefits to the purchase of surplus agricultural product began to show negative impacts on the health of those who so heavily relied on the benefits to feed their families. In April 1975, the American Enterprise Institute released a report, “Food Stamps and Nutrition,” concluding that “Overall, the Food Stamp Program has failed to serve its twin objectives of improving nutrition access for the poor and supplementing agricultural incomes despite the tremendous growth in funding over the past decade” (Clarkson 1975: 65). This was not surprising because the report’s principal author, economist Kenneth Clarkson, had previously called for a “Local Nutrition Incentive Program” to address some of the lack of nutritional balance identified in the report. In the report, economist Yale Brozen wrote about the program’s failure to meet its other original intent, support for family farmers: “As to the second objective of the Food Stamp Program, supplementation of the income of poor farmers, Food Stamps fail, as miserably here as they do

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at eliminating malnutrition.” Certainly money was entering the economy, but “the majority of the food dollars spent at retail (62 percent) goes to transportation, processing, and wholesale and retail handling.…

Little of the dollar gets to farmers-and that which does benefits mainly those farmers who are already well off” (Clarkson 1975: 3).

As had Senator Douglas before him, Senator Dole recognized the need for a major change in the food stamp program to improve recipients’ diets. In an August 31, 1975, op-ed in The Los Angeles Times, he reminded readers: “The program’s reason for being presumably is the nutritional enhancement of poor people’s diets.” Senator Dole, cited the American Enterprise Institute report that found, as Senator Douglas had predicted in the 1964 hearings, “vast increases in soft drink purchases and other foods of low nutritional value by program beneficiaries. In one county surveyed, Fayette County, PA, the nutritional level of food stamp users actually declined because the families bought fewer milk products, eggs and grains, and more sweets and fatty foods.” To drive the point home, Dole said, in no uncertain terms, “If these findings should prove generally applicable, they clearly would indict the program.”

There is an old Turkish proverb: “No matter how far you’ve gone down the wrong road, turn back.”

Senators Douglas and Dole demonstrated an uncanny ability to predict the future. Had their concerned predictions been heeded, perhaps we might not have steered the food stamp program down the wrong road.

Despite growing awareness of the connection between obesity and lack of access to healthier foods, despite release of significant studies and countless recommendations over the ensuing decades, Congress could not find its way to change the food content of the food stamp program. The only major change was administrative, shifting from paper food stamps to electronic benefit transfer cards (EBT) and renaming the program “SNAP.” In four and a half decades, the food stamp program had morphed from a common-sense program that blended the traditional American benevolence— lending a firm hand to those in need—to a program that was pumping nearly $70 billion dollars into the American economy in sparse $4.45 per person daily increments. Most of those billions end up in the hands 130 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

of the major food-processing and -distribution corporations, with limited impact on smaller American farmers. From a benefit that was broadly viewed in both 1939 and 1969 by the American public as good and worthwhile, the program became politically painted as a form of welfare abuse. Ironically, growing numbers of the general public, riled by inflammatory campaign statements, began blaming the poor for the program’s high cost and low benefits.

Also, what had been seen as an effective marketsupport program favoring the consumption of “good, wholesome foods” while benefiting fruit, vegetable, and livestock farmers, has largely turned into a double subsidy for large-scale conventional crops, funded by the American taxpayer. Cereal and oilseed crops are subsidized once in direct payments to large-scale farmers and then again by purchases made by SNAP recipients.

American fruit and vegetable farmers receive minimal funding support from the federal government.

So, the farmers who produce fruits and vegetables, the very foods originally designated for market support by the blue stamp benefit in the Food Stamp Plan of 1939–43, have been boxed out of both sides of the economic equation. This is especially ironic since the newest USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010 advise all Americans to “make half your plate fruit and vegetables” (www.cnpp.usda.gov).

THE BIRTH OF WIC (TWO PROGRAMS FOR THE COST OF THREE)

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hese changes to food stamps, and the double subsidies it created, opened the door for recipients to shift their purchases from good, basic foods towards items such as sugar-laden soft drinks, carbohydrateladen minute meals, and low-nutrient chips and snack foods. Major soft drink and convenience food companies significantly increased their marketing budgets to capitalize on the new opportunity, resulting in explosive growth of sales and consumption. The price of these “occasional foods” dropped while the cost of good, basic foods rose. The disparity left families with the conundrum of being able to afford only the foods they previously indulged in as occasional treats.

Concerned doctors began to see the negative health impacts as more mothers and their young

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children arrived at clinics with health issues related to lack of access to affordable healthy food. These doctors were especially concerned with the health of pregnant mothers and infants, and toddlers in their critical developmental years. Studies regarding the health impacts of dietary choices were just beginning, so little scientifically published data were available.

Nevertheless, these doctors were so moved by the evidence before their eyes that they needed no clinical motivation. In 1968, concerned Atlanta doctors established a USDA Food Commissary next to their health clinic. The commissary in this program was stocked with USDA commodity foods.

Experimental programs were launched in Chicago, Illinois, and Bibb County, Georgia, in 1970. On April 5, 1970, in an Atlanta Daily World article titled, “Free Food Program for Babies, Mothers,” Georgia State Welfare Director Bill Burson proclaimed: “We are proud to be part of an experimental program which proposes better health for the nation’s children. At the test stage, it [offers] immediate help to mothers and babies in Bibb County and, if successful and practical, the national program developed from it will have far-reaching effects for the nation’s children.”

In Baltimore, Dr. David Paige of Johns Hopkins University organized a food-voucher program for mothers and young children at his clinic. Building on Dr. Paige’s model, in 1972 Senator Hubert Humphrey sponsored legislation for a Special Supplemental Food Program for Women and Children as a two-year pilot program (Olivera et al. 2002). Unfortunately, the USDA took little action on Senator Humphrey’s new WIC program until a federal court mandated the USDA to implement the congressionally authorized program.

The first authorized WIC pilot site finally opened in Pineville, Kentucky, in 1974 and by the end of 1974, the pilot program was operating in 45 states. In 1975, WIC was established as permanent program with statutory emphasis “to provide supplemental nutritious food as an adjunct to good health during such critical times of growth and development in order to prevent the occurrence of health problems” (Olivera et al. 2002: 8).

The program was organized as additional and supplementary to food stamps.

In effect, an entirely new program had to be created, deployed, administrated, and fully funded in part

Maine Senior FarmShare Maine Senior FarmShare is an unusual agriculture program linking the nutritional needs of 18,000 low-income seniors with the income and marketing needs of 230 medium and small Maine farmers. FarmShare is funded from resources provided under a $15 million 2002 Farm Bill appropriation for the national Senior Farmers’ Market Nutritional Program [SFMNP]. Rather than relying on the traditional coupon method employed by most SFMNP grantees, Maine instead chose to implement an innovative program when it won funding in 2001 for FarmShare under the SFMNP appropriation. FarmShare is designed to foster the economic development needs of Maine’s rural farmers, while also functioning as a nutritional program for low-income elderly.

An innovative program model, relying on the “share-based” system found in community-supported agriculture, forms the heart of the program.

because of the voids created by shifting the food stamp program away from its initial focus on purchase of more healthy basic agricultural products. The original WIC program was not without its shortcomings, as it focused largely on liquid milk, infant formula, and instant baby food. Fresh fruits and vegetables were overlooked.

EXPANDING FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE OPTIONS FOR LOW-INCOME RECIPIENTS

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n 1986, recognizing the lack of a provision concerning fresh fruits and vegetables in the WIC program, the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture organized a $17,000 pilot program to provide vouchers for summer and fall fruits and vegetables to WIC families. These vouchers could only be spent at local farmers’ markets in the state.

Other states quickly followed, including Iowa, Connecticut, and New York. In 1992, Congressman Chet Atkins (MA) and Senator John Kerry (MA) created and managed legislative passage of the first congressionally mandated WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program, now operating in 45 states.

Although voucher amounts are modest at $20 to $30 per WIC participant annually, an estimated 2.2 million WIC participants benefit each year, with $22 million invested with 17,363 farmers at 3,645 farmers’ markets (USDA FNS 2011a).

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In 1989, Massachusetts created a Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program for low-income seniors, modeled on the successful WIC program. In 2000, USDA used authorities under its Commodity Credit Corporation to provide one-year funding nationally for the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (SFMNP). To sustain the program, Congressman John Baldacci (ME) initiated funding in the Farm Bill that year. Reauthorized in 2008, this popular program benefits 809,000 low-income seniors and nearly 19,000 small farmers at 2,200 farmers markets (USDA FNS 2011b).

While much attention is paid to the costs of…food-assistance programs, there has been limited discussion with regard to their impact on the U.S. economy…these tens of billions of dollars yield a significant impact.

Recognizing the success of these nutrition-incentive programs that use farmers’ markets, the USDA implemented the WIC Cash Vegetable Voucher Program in 2007. The investment of $700 million annually to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables appears significant, but it is thinly spread among one million mothers and seven million infants and children, for an average annual benefit of $97 per person. With nearly tenfold that amount spent on highly processed convenience foods—the only affordable food choices available through the current form of SNAP—WIC cash vegetable vouchers seem destined to provide limited impact.

Hidden in plain sight, the result of all this becomes apparent in the cost to the American economy of diet-related, diet-preventable diseases, such as complications from obesity and Type-2 diabetes. These two conditions cost the American public close to $250 billion annually.

On the surface, it appears suspect to invest nearly $70 billion annually on SNAP benefits that cause a portion of those $250 billion in diet-related medical costs. However, one can imagine that had the list of 132 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

authorized foods in the original 1939–43 Food Stamp Plan, such as beans, apples, and all fresh vegetables, not been expanded to include and indeed favor nutrient-poor foods in 1964, the need for a supplementary WIC program may have never arisen, and health care costs would undoubtedly be lower.

“GOLD IN THEM THAR HILLS”: FOOD ASSISTANCE AND THE ECONOMY

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hile much attention is paid to the costs of both food-assistance programs, there has been limited discussion with regard to their impact on the U.S. economy. But indeed, these tens of billions of dollars yield a significant impact. While figures on exactly how much of which products are being purchased using SNAP benefits are not collected by the USDA from retailers, there are studies that indicate the program’s significant economic impact.

A USDA report, The Business Case for Increasing Food Stamp Participation, published during the Bush administration found that every $5.00 in new SNAP benefits generated $9.20 in total economic activity, or $1.84 for every dollar spent (Hanson and Golan 2002). In an independent study, Moody’s Economy.com found that every SNAP dollar spent generates $1.73 in real GDP increase. In fact, the Moody’s study found that “expanding Food Stamps… is the most effective way to prime the economy’s pump (Zandi 2008). The argument is clear that the program creates positive economic impact.

Consider this question: If $1.00 in SNAP purchases creates $1.73 in overall spending when spent in the global food-distribution system, what might it create if spent on basic agricultural products within the producing states where the benefit is spent?

President George W. Bush was a proponent of improved access to the SNAP program. Troubled that only half of eligible recipients were actually participating in the program in key states such as California, he instructed USDA to improve access and established the Office for Strategic Partnership and Outreach in 2007 in an effort to close the gap.

California is at the top of the list where state and local political leaders tend to consider SNAP a blatant example of waste, fraud, and abuse. When the USDA

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encouraged states to develop their own regulations around SNAP sign-up, some implemented mandatory finger printing and other intimidating processes that have resulted in remarkably low participation in the program. SNAP sign-up for eligible California recipients is estimated at 50 percent, leaving 50 percent of its vulnerable citizens uncovered (Cunnyngham and Castner 2010). (California could look to Maine for some pointers, as Maine has the best participation rate in the entire nation, at 94 percent of eligible participants actually enrolled.) The resulting loss to California’s troubled economy is an estimated $4 billion in direct SNAP spending. When applying the stimulus match of the USDA and Moody’s studies, the negative economic impact on California in the name of “fraud protection” nears $7 billion. Imagine what the impact would be if the benefits were spent on the agricultural products of California. Realizing the financial impact of only a 50 percent sign up for food stamps, California’s Board of Agriculture passed a “Resolution on Access to Safe, Healthy Foods for All” on May 25, 2011, to foster improved access to SNAP and encourage nutrition incentives.

Economists are beginning to study the economic impacts of purchasing locally produced goods. While conclusive studies have yet to be published, one might assume that if $1.00 in SNAP benefit spent creates $1.73 in GDP when spent in the global food-distribution system, the same dollar will likely create more economic “bang” in the local economy if spent on products grown in the state where the benefit is distributed. It is also important to understand that small- and mid-sized farms are small businesses. With the intense focus of both political parties on the important role of small businesses in spurring meaningful economic recovery, such an approach makes tremendous sense.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

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e often wish we could turn back the hands of time when we have either made a questionable decision or realize we might have decided differently if we were fully aware of the decision’s impacts. In the case of the Food Stamp Program, we actually have an opportunity to do just that. There is intense interest in revitalizing the U.S. economy, resisting the shipment

of jobs and revenues overseas as a result of intense globalization. Retooling a program that once pumped real money directly into the U.S. agricultural economy, into the pockets of farmers who grew foods that people cooked and ate, might be just what the doctor ordered.

Specialty-crop production (fruits and vegetables) creates more economic value (jobs, equipment, and infrastructure support) than cereal and seed-crop agriculture. A 2010 Leopold Center study found that by converting Midwest conventional crop production to fruit and vegetable production at a level to meet the existing demand for those products, the Midwest would benefit from a $1 billon increase in related economic activity (Swenson 2010). Along the same lines, if Maine had the opportunity to rely on the existing SNAP and WIC funding in the state, it is certain that economic activity would increase.

Today, we have the tools to finance and establish the food-related businesses necessary to convert back toward a more regionalized food system that supports and encourages specialty crops and other viable food production in the region. There are a number of financial sponsors willing to underwrite these investments.

Private grants and financing in the form of programrelated investments and mission-related investments, along with other instruments from financial institutions that focus on the triple bottom line (or people, planet, profit) can complement the low-interest loans made possible through the Community Development Finance Institutions Fund ($5 billion annually) in rebuilding seriously underserved urban and rural communities.

We have an opportunity to turn back the clock and correct some of our earlier mistakes. To prove the concept, several nonprofit organizations, private funders, and some municipal, state and federal leaders have been supporting programs that offer incentives for healthy foods, directing existing federal food-assistance dollars towards locally grown agricultural products.

The programs have been enthusiastically embraced by food-assistance recipients, market managers, farmers, funders, and citizens alike. It seems like following the original intent of the Food Stamp Plan is a promising concept. (See Wholesome Wave sidebar.)

In further exploring how these incentives might be scaled to benefit local economies within the states, there is an opportunity to restore to our farmers and

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Wholesome Wave The mission of Wholesome Wave is to empower communities to make better food choices. By creating partnershipbased programs in historically excluded urban and rural communities, Wholesome Wave increases access to and affordability of fresh, locally grown food to nourish neighborhoods across America. Initiatives, such as the Double Value Coupon Program (DVCP) and the Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Program (FVRx), demonstrate and support the viability of healthy-food commerce and its ability to rebuild our nation’s food system. Wholesome Wave leverages private and public funds, along with existing federal, state, and local government programs, to foster collaborative efforts through a national network of strategically targeted program partners. This network of partners works in concert to try to transform current realities in the American food system.

Wholesome Wave’s national accomplishments in 2010 include successful expansion of DVCP into 20 states, working through 35 program partners in more than 160 farmers’ markets nationally. These programs were successful in redeeming almost $600,000 in federal benefits, and more than $400,000 in incentives, affecting more than 1,700 American farmers. Wholesome Wave was successful in achieving the elimination of the Demonstration Exception Pilot and Alternative Currency waivers and in streamlining the USDA Food and Nutrition Services FNS application process for farmers’ markets. Wholesome Wave was cited as a model in Solving the Problem of Childhood Obesity With in a Generations: White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity Report of the President, May 2010.

In Maine, with the generous support of a consortium of Maine funders including, John T. Gorman Foundation, Broad Reach, the Jane B. Cook Trust, and anonymous donors, Wholesome Wave brought both the DVCP and FVRx innovations to action in Maine through the work of four talented Maine-based non-profit partners.

Cultivating Communities piloted a FVRx program for highrisk consumers in collaboration with the City of Portland’s Minority Health Department, with physicians from Mercy Hospital’s diabetes clinic through participating in the Only Women/Healthy Portland program.

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The Down East Business Alliance (DBA) implemented DVCP at one market, making this particular market their best “Get Your Veggies” partner for the 2010 season. Two large farms that serve multiple markets throughout eastern Maine accepted DVCP. FVRx benefits were distributed through two health clinics at the two Native American population centers and the local hospital in Washington County. The program successfully attracted patients into the doctor’s office who hadn’t visited in years.

The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) is the oldest and largest statewide organic organization in the country. MOFGA was instrumental in expanding its community-supported agriculture (CSA) program to include incentives.

The Skowhegan Farmers’ Market (SFM) began implementing Wholesome Wave programming in 2010 at a market with an existing electronic benefits transfer (EBT) program. SFM was successful in increasing EBT sales by 100 percent to total more than $7,000. According to Amber Lambke, executive director of the Skowhegan farmers’ market, “It is hard to express how profound the support of WW has been on Skowhegan. The families who embraced the program expressed life-changing impacts on their routines and health habits. The vote of confidence WW has offered to farmers who have worked hard to provide healthy food at a fair price for the last 15 years renewed their energy and commitment to their chosen vocation. In a small town that has faced tough economic challenges, this good news was greeted with a tremendous amount of joy.”

The first monies contributed by the funding consortium triggered matching public and private monies from the State of Maine Department of Agriculture Specialty Crops Program and the City of Portland’s Community Development Block Grant, resulting in the Maine being the first state to match private philanthropy with significant public funds within the first year of the program. Additional private matching funds were made available by the Maine Health Access Fund, Somerset Heart Health (an affiliate of RedingtonFairview General Hospital), Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Skowhegan Savings Bank, the Jenny Jones Foundation, the Mud Season Pottery Sale and New Balance Foundation.

The combined funds totaled more than $200,000.

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our disadvantaged citizens their unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Hyperbole?

Maybe not. In truth, life is richer when people have access to a healthful, meaningful diet. Liberty is realized when all people have real choices of what they can feed their families. Happiness is the joy of being able to afford fresh, locally grown foods, cooking them as a family, and sharing a good secure life together.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR MAINE AND NATIONAL NUTRITION-INCENTIVE PROGRAMS

I think it is important for us to recognize that there is a difference between a sometimes food and everyday foods.…There are occasions when those sometimes foods are appropriate and okay. And we think the approach ought to be an educational approach and an incentive driven approach.

—Secretary Tom Vilsack in an address to the National Press Club, February 23, 2010.

Private funding from supporting foundations, donor-advised funds, private individuals, and national corporations have been deployed to launch nutritionincentive pilots in historically excluded urban and rural communities. These incentives were designed to increase the purchasing power for SNAP, WIC, and other foodassistance recipients when spent on local produce at farmers’ markets, farm stands, and in some cases, community-supported agriculture (CSA) programs.

These recent incentive programs are similar to the orange stamp-blue stamp food stamp approach in the original Food Stamp Plan that designated additional purchasing power for good, basic agricultural products.

This nutrition-incentive approach has yet to have serious detractors. Perhaps this is because the program allows the recipients to maintain freedom of choice within the existing structure of the program. Recipients can still spend their SNAP benefit on any food they want. If they choose to use them to buy fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables, the incentive programs adds value to their purchasing power. Because these incentive programs afford recipients the opportunity to choose foods they currently cannot afford, they

increase choice, along with as the likelihood that recipients will purchase good, basic foods. In areas where programs have been implemented, the programs have been popular among benefit recipients, participating farmers, and the general public.

With data emerging from pilots in more than 20 states, including Maine, and managed by a collaborative of more than 30 nonprofit food organizations devoted to issues of food access and affordability, a series of policy recommendations can be explored.

Early evaluations indicate that pilot programs in Maine and nationally have been successful. But scalability remains elusive. After all, providing the cash to create the incentives is difficult in tough economic times.

…recent incentive programs are similar to the orange stamp-blue stamp food stamp approach in the original Food Stamp Plan that designated addi­tional purchasing power for good, basic agricultural products.

In exploring options for federal, state, and local governments, and traditional funders and health care foundations, there are a variety of policy options that might effectively address scalability. Recalling the annual allocation of $700 million in WIC Fruit and Vegetable Cash Value Voucher, the policy objectives would be twofold: (1) to improve the nutrition of Americans relying on federal food assistance and reduce future diet-related health care costs generated by SNAP and WIC clients, and (2) to increase income to small family farmers to allow them to stay in business and to create viable job opportunities for the next generation of new farmers.

USDA Specialty-Crop Allocations

In finalizing the upcoming 2012 Farm Bill, Congress should increase funding for specialty crops

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from the current level of $55 million to $95 million, annually, with guidance that $15 million could be allocated to the states to promote nutrition incentives for SNAP and WIC clients at local farmers’ markets, CSAs and roadside market stands. The funding offset for the $40 million increase would be through Congressional Budget Office recognition (called “scoring” ) of future health care savings realized, especially in Medicaid, as a direct result of increased fruit and vegetable consumption by vulnerable families using SNAP and WIC along with nutrition incentives.

While the federal government plays an outsized role in the SNAP and WIC programs, the state of Maine can also implement programs and policies to facilitate a healthier, more economically

CDC Community Transformation Grants: Prevention Funding in 2010 Health Care Legislation

vibrant and secure Maine.

USDA SNAP-Ed

The goal of SNAP-Ed is to improve the likelihood that persons eligible for SNAP will make healthy food choices within a limited budget and choose physically active lifestyles consistent with the current dietary guidelines for Americans and MyPyramid.

In reviewing authorities within USDA’s SNAP-Ed programs, USDA should revise guidance to allow states to allocate funding to support local food incentives and their necessary infrastructure consistent with USDA’s Secretary Vilsack’s 2010 National Press Club call for a linked approach coupling nutrition education and incentive programs. The early focus would be on nutrition incentives for SNAP participants to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables at farmers’ markets, CSAs, and roadside stands.

USDA SNAP Outreach

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helping to enroll those who are eligible in SNAP. Food banks, local health agencies, and hunger-relief agencies are typically included in state outreach plans, which reimburse these agencies and organizations for up to 50 percent of expenses incurred through their outreach activities. Farmers’ markets and other organizations that promote access to local foods have found it difficult to be added to the state outreach plan, even though many groups have shown impressive results through incentive programs. In reviewing authorities with USDA’s SNAP outreach programs, USDA should issue new guidelines to participating states to encourage and enable states to greatly simplify procedures for farmers’ markets that promote SNAP-eligible clients to sign up for SNAP benefits. There should be easier access to USDA and state-provided funding for SNAP outreach and promotion programs at farmers’ markets. It should also be simpler for farmers’ market organizations to be reimbursed for their expenditures on promoting SNAP outreach and SNAP enrollment at local markets.

Funding authorities for health prevention (Community Transformation Grants) allocated to CDC by the 2010 health care reform legislation (The Affordable Care Act, if funded by Congress for 2011), provide no less than $50 million annually for a joint USDA/FNS and CDC competitive pilot program for prevention and outreach in support of nutrition education and incentive programs with emphasis on purchasing fresh fruits and vegetables at participating farmers’ markets and CSAs.

State Sales Tax Credits for Locally Grown Foods

Most states legislate sales taxes on foods eaten at restaurants and a number tax foods sold at retail stores.

One state is reviewing a reduction in restaurant sales taxes if those restaurants purchase locally grown foods.

If other states could encourage legislation to reduce sales taxes for restaurants and other food businesses, including retail food outlets, which procure and sell locally grown foods, such actions could further support a vibrant local food system.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Healthy Food Access and Affordability

Healthy Food Finance Initiative

The Administration proposed a national Healthy Food Finance Initiative (HFFI) for the 2011 budget.

According to a news release by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, if appropriated by Congress, this initiative would “promote a range of interventions that expand access to nutritious foods.”

The stated goal is to “eliminate food deserts across the country within seven years”. Because of difficulties in passing the FY2011 budget, no funding yet has been directed to this initiative; however, moneys from the existing Community Development Financial Institutions Fund ($5 billion annually) can be applied to food businesses that improve access to food.

Should HFFI be funded, the resulting loans and grants should be used to help to develop more socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable food systems that provide nutritious food options for all people. HFFI funding should be directed toward development of whole sustainable food systems (agricultural production, manufacturing, distribution, retail, and waste management and composting) that integrate low-income communities in economically and socially meaningful ways, rather than solely toward developing quality food markets in underserved rural and urban communities.

Maine Nutrition Incentive Programs

Now in Maine, a group of private funders including the Broadreach Fund, the Jane B. Cook Charitable Trust, the JTG Foundation, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, the New Balance Foundation, and an anonymous donor have provided funding for four Maine-based nonprofit organizations to deploy local incentive programs specifically targeting SNAP and WIC recipients. Cultivating Community in Portland and Lewiston reached hundreds of new refugee families and supported a dozen new refugee farmers. DownEast Alliance established innovative nutrition incentive work with Native Americans. In Skowhegan, doctors participated in piloting an innovative program to provide prescriptions for fruits and vegetables to benefit 150 women during pregnancy and through the postpartum period. And in Unity, the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association

(MOFGA) started a unique CSA system allowing double-value coupon incentives to be applied to SNAP benefits for participating vulnerable rural families.

This timely and focused support from Maine’s private foundations was instrumental in triggering successful grant applications through the Maine Department of Agriculture for the USDA’s highly competitive Specialty Crop Program to further leverage funding for these innovative programs. But a few grants have limited impact and don’t last long enough to create long-term change. There are, however, some innovative options for Maine to develop future policies to deepen and sustain these initial successes.

State of Maine Public and Private Initiatives

While the federal government plays an outsized role in the SNAP and WIC programs, the state of Maine can also implement programs and policies to facilitate a healthier, more economically vibrant and secure Maine. The state should (1) develop a strategic three-year program to enable at least two percent of Maine’s annual allocation of SNAP funding to provide incentives for the purchase of healthy, affordable food from local farmers; (2) encourage local community foundations, health care organizations and their foundations, and the medical teams at Maine hospitals and clinics to expand innovative pilot programs such as the farmers’ market fruit-and-vegetable-prescription program; (3) encourage Maine nonprofit organizations to apply for funding from the USDA’s specialty crop program and Farmers’ Market Promotion Program, from SNAP-Ed and CDC’s Community Transformation Grant Program (Communities Putting Prevention to Work) to support staff needed to deploy such incentives at local direct-marketing outlets with access to existing federal food-assistance benefits; and (4) continue to support and fund infrastructure technology at farmers’ markets, CSAs, and roadside markets that underpins these innovative nutritionincentive programs. -

Please turn the page for notes, references and information about the authors.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Material in the sections entitled “We Once Had It Right” and “The Great Society and the Food Stamp Act of 1964” appeared originally in a blog written by Daniel Bowman Simon and published November 30, 2010, in the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com/danielbowman-simon/post_1347_b_789547.htm).

ENDNOTES 1. The First Lady’s “My Day column can be found on the following web site: http://www.gwu. edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1941&_ f=md055895 2. Funds generated from Section 32 in USDA’s budget are derived from tariffs placed on imported food to the United States.

REFERENCES Center for Disease Control. 2009. “Differences in Prevalence of Obesity Among Black, White, and Hispanic Adults—United States, 2006–2008.

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 58(27): 740–744. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/ mmwrhtml/mm5827a2.htm [Accessed May 25, 2011] Clarkson, Kenneth W. 1975. Food Stamps and Nutrition. American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, DC. Cunnyngham, Karen E. and Laura A. Castner. 2010.

Reaching Those in Need: State Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Participation Rates in 2008. Mathematica Policy Research, Princeton, NJ. http://www.fns.usda.gov/ora/menu/Published/snap/ FILES/Participation/Reaching2008.pdf [Accessed May 26, 2011] Hanson, Kenneth and Elise Golan. 2002. “Effects of Changes in Food Stamp Expenditures Across the U.S. Economy.” Issues in Food Assistance, FANRR26-6, USDA, Economic Research Service. http:// www.ers.usda.gov/publications/fanrr26/fanrr26-6/ fanrr26-6.pdf [Accessed May 26, 2011] McGovern, George. 2002. The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.

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Mills, Dora Anne. 2004. “Obesity in Maine: A Policy Approach.” Maine Policy Review (Spring/ Summer): 28-47.

Office of the Surgeon General. 2001. The Surgeon General’s Call to Action to Prevent and Decrease Overweight and Obesity. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General, Rockville, MD. http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/obesity/ calltoaction/CalltoAction.pdf [Accessed May 25, 2011] Ogden, Cynthia L. Margaret D. Carroll, Lester R. Curtin, Margaret A. McDowell, Carolyn J. Tabak and Katherin M. Flegal. 2006. “Prevalence of Overweight and Obesity in the United States, 1999–2004.” Journal of the American Medical Association 295: 1549–1555.

Ogden, Cynthia L., Margaret D. Carroll and Katherine M. Flegal. 2008. “High Body Mass Index for Age among US Children and Adolescents, 2003-2006.”

Journal of the American Medical Association 299: 2401–2405.

Ogden, Cynthia and Margaret D. Carroll. 2010.

“Prevalence of Obesity Among Children and Adolescents: United States, Trends 1963-1965 Through 2007-2008.” NCHS Health E-Stats.

National Center for Health Statistics, Hyattsville, MD. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_ child_07_08/obesity_child_07_08.htm [Accessed May 25, 2011] Oliveira, Victor, Elizabeth Racine, Jennifer Olmstead and Linda M. Ghelfi. 2002. “History of the WIC Program.” The WIC Program: Background Trends, and Economic Issues. FANRR-27, USDA, Economic Research Service. http://www.ers.usda.gov/ publications/fanrr27/fanrr27c.pdf [Accessed May 26, 2011] Perkins, Milo. 1939. The Food Stamp Plan and the Farmer. Statement before the Fruit and Vegetable Committee, Farm Bureau, Chicago.

Poppendieck, Janet. 1985. Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat: Food Assistance in the Great Depression.

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ. Shrum, Robert. 2007. No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner. Simon and Schuster, New York.

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Michel Nischan is founder, CEO, and president of

Swenson, David. 2010. Selected Measures of the Economic Values of Increased Fruit and Vegetable Production and Consumption in the Upper Midwest. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, Ames, IA. http://www.econ.iastate.edu/ research/other/p11285 [Accessed May 26, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service (USDA AMS). 1962. The Food Stamp Program: An Initial Evaluation of the Pilot Projects.

USDA AMS, Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). 2011a. WIC Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. USDA, FNS, Alexandria, VA. http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/WIC-FMNP-Fact-Sheet. pdf [Accessed June 11, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). 2011b. Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program. USDA, FNS, Alexandria, VA. http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/SFMNP-Fact-Sheet. pdf [Accessed June 11, 2011]

Wholesome Wave. A James Beard Award–winning chef, restaurateur, and author, Nischan has spent his career working toward restoring local, sustainable food systems and the cultures they support. He was recently elected a lifetime Ashoka Fellow and serves on the board of trustees for the James Beard Foundation and the Rodale Institute, and as an advisory board member for the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

Daniel Bowman Simon is the founder of SNAPgardens.

Zandi, Mark. 2008. Assessing the Macro Economic Impact of the Fiscal Stimulus 2008. Moody’s Economy.com, West Chester, PA. http://www. economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/assissing-theimpact-of-the-fiscal-stimulus.pdf [Accessed May 26, 2011]

org, which raises awareness that SNAP (food stamp) benefits can be used to purchase food-producing plants and seeds and strives to facilitate

Gus Schumacher is executive vice president of Wholesome Wave and formerly was commis-

successful gardening.

During the election cycle of 2008, he founded TheWhoFarm, a nonpartisan advocacy campaign for an organic farm on the White House lawn.

sioner of the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture, served earlier as a senior agricultural project lender at the World Bank and later served as USDA’s undersecretary of farm and foreign agricultural services.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Hunger in Maine

Hunger in Maine:

By Donna Yellen Mark Swann Elena Schmidt

INTRODUCTION

I

n November 2010 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its annual hunger data.

Maine is now second in the nation for “very low food security” and ninth for “food insecurity” (Campaign to Promote Food Security in Cumberland County 2010). This highly sophisticated indicator of food insecurity has been measured closely by the USDA since 1995. Previously called “hunger,” the USDA changed the vernacular to very low food security in 2006 when hunger in the nation continued to rise and the USDA wanted to describe ranges of food insecurity.

The methods used to assess household food security remained the same, so statistics are comparable.

The USDA defines very low food security as missing multiple meals during an extended period of time or eating food that is inappropriate for that meal.

Food insecurity is defined as the consistent worry about having enough income to pay for household food needs and if not, how to provide food for their family.

Without making change and finding solutions, these numbers are expected to rise. Feeding America (2010) predicts a 50 percent increase in the number of seniors facing hunger by 2025, and U.S. Census data reveal that Maine is one of the oldest states in the nation.

A solution-oriented approach to hunger in Maine will help now and protect elders in the future.

Though there are many suppositions as to why Maine has the second highest rate of hunger in the nation, there are no clear answers. Some of the factors

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include the relative scarcity of livable-wage jobs, high housing and heating costs, and an aging population with high medical costs. Though Maine has wonderful agricultural and fishing bases for certain crops and markets, it is a vastly wooded state, lacking the long growing season for backyard gardens that many of our country’s poorer southern states have, where people are able to can and preserve foods from the garden. Food is more expensive and available in smaller quantities because the state is at the end of the U.S. trucking lines (Beck et al., this issue). Yet Maine is far from the poorest state, and further adding to the mystery, our neighbor New Hampshire has the lowest rates of hunger in the nation.

Whatever the reasons for Maine’s poor national ranking, there is no question that the problem is being dealt with on several fronts, including both governmental and nongovernmental efforts. Ultimately, solving the problem of hunger in Maine and the nation lies in trying to solve its root causes. In this article, however, our concern is with food-assistance programs to feed the hungry now. We begin with a brief review of federal food-assistance programs, which are covered in greater detail by Schumacher, Nischan and Simon (this issue). Then, we provide an extensive description of nongovernmental anti-hunger programs in Maine. Government programs include the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly called food stamps; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance for Women Infants and Children (WIC) program; school lunch and breakfast programs; and commodity programs that distribute surplus food.

Nongovernmental programs include food pantries, soup kitchens, and food banks, along with a number of recent innovative public-private partnerships. We conclude some with some thoughts on how to work toward achieving a “hunger-free” Maine.

FEDERAL PROGRAMS

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program

Fifty years ago President John F. Kennedy signed his first executive order titled, “Providing for an Expanded Program of Food Distribution to Needy Families.” This pilot program expanded over the years to be what is

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[The Supplemental known in Maine today as the Food Supplement Program. Originally called food stamps, the federal government appropriately changed the program name to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), with states individualizing their program’s name.

This food supplement program is the most significant resource in fighting hunger in Maine, offering independence, food choice, and flexibility for people working toward self-sufficiency. When capabilities for online electronic application are launched in Maine this summer, people who are hesitant to ask for assistance at a Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) office or who cannot get to the county office during business hours because of work commitments will be able to apply online in the privacy of their own home. With SNAP benefits distributed through an electronic benefit transfer (EBT) card, the working poor can shop for their children where it’s convenient, elders can buy the nutritious food they need while maintaining respect and privacy, and business—from farmers to producers to shopkeepers—gain the economic benefit. Based on USDA research, it is estimated that each $1 in food supplement benefits generates nearly twice that in economic activity in the local economy (Hanson and Golan 2002).

WIC (Women, Infants and Children)

WIC is another successful federal anti-hunger program. It provides vouchers for selected healthy foods for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and for infants and children up to age five. WIC vouchers can be used for healthy foods such as milk, eggs, fruits, vegetables, cereal, and infant foods; and in the summer, vouchers are given for produce from Maine farmers. Currently there is a proposal in the federal budget to cut WIC by 10 percent. Such a reduction to a successful, working program will mean food pantries will find mothers with infants in line seeking baby food and formula.

National School Lunch Program: Maine’s Participation

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides both commodity and cash support for the purchase of food to provide nutritionally balanced, reduced-price or free lunches for children every day

during the school year.

Nutrition Assistance Children from families with incomes at or below 130 Program] is the percent of the poverty level ($23,803 per year for a family most significant of three) are eligible for free meals. Those with incomes resource in fighting between 130 percent and 185 percent of the poverty level hunger in Mane, ($33,874 per year for a family of three) are eligible for offering indepenreduced-price meals. According to the Maine Department of dence, food choice Education, 45 percent of Maine school children are eligible to and flexibility receive a free or reduced lunch.

Schools participating in the for people NSLP get donated commodities from USDA and are reimbursed working toward for each meal served. The current reimbursement rate is self-sufficiency. $2.72 for a “free” lunch and $2.32 for a “reduced” lunch.

For the 2007–2008 school year, more than $25 million came to Maine in federal reimbursements for school lunches (USDA FNS 2011b).

School meals provide a vital nutrient source for Maine’s children living in poverty and are a budget stretcher for their hardworking families. When school vacation arrives, many food pantries report an increase in families. Extra long lines are caused by families who are barely making ends meet during the school year and must provide between five and 10 extra meals per week for each child. The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is designed to ensure that children can get meals during the summer months. Through the SFSP, school districts and local agencies provide free meals to children at a variety of locations, including parks, schools, community centers, churches, housing complexes, and nonprofit organizations. Sponsors are reimbursed for meals served to eligible children up to $3.25 per lunch. The SFSP may be offered to all children at any site where more than 50 percent of the children are eligible for free or reduced-price meals under the NSLP or if census tract data supports the

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need. Known as “open sites,” they are permitted to serve free meals to any child who shows up and are the easiest sites to administer (www.fns.usda.gov).

Maine currently ranks 26th in the nation for accessing available federal dollars for summer feeding programs (FRAC 2011). Only 16 percent of children eligible for the SFSP in Maine are receiving a meal in the summer. In Piscataquis County, a county with a population of 16,795 and 24.8 percent of its children living in poverty, only one program exists. Four of Maine’s 16 counties have no sites for children to obtain a meal during the summer: Franklin, Hancock, Knox and Lincoln (Maine DOE 2010). According to the Kids Count Data Center web site, child poverty in these counties ranges from 18.3 percent (Hancock) to 21.5 percent (Franklin).

Commodity Programs

The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) was established in 1969 and administers the nutritionassistance programs including SNAP and WIC. FNS programs that provide food to food pantries and soup kitchens are less direct and more complicated to follow.

A major source of food for many of these programs is The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), a commodity program. Originally established in 1933 as the Commodity Credit Corporation, its purpose was to boost farm prices and help farmers suffering from the Great Depression. A 1994 USDA Economic Research Service report found that for every $1 USDA spends for TEFAP commodities, farmers and producers receive between 27 and 85 cents, one of the highest rates of farm return of any federal nutrition program (Levedahl, Ballenger and Harold 1994).

TEFAP was first authorized in 1981 to distribute surplus foods to households. At a time when the economy was weak and unemployment, homelessness, and hunger were rising, there was also an increase in the amount of commodities available, which schools were unable to absorb. TEFAP expanded to food pantries and soup kitchens. Ultimately under the 1990 federal Farm Bill, the name of the program changed from “Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program to TEFAP, acknowledging the intractability of the fight against hunger. Similarly, unable to make headway in ending hunger, many food pantry providers stopped 142 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

referring to themselves as “emergency” food pantries (USDA FNS 2010).

The USDA buys TEFAP food, processes, packs, and ships it to Maine and other states. The amount received by each state depends on unemployment and poverty level data, and is updated every few years based on survey and census data. In Maine, TEFAP is administered using the same formula and is distributed by local community action programs in all counties, except for Cumberland County, where a food rescue agency is the distributing agency. These agencies distribute TEFAP commodities to area organizations such as food pantries and soup kitchens. It is important to note that pantry volunteers have to pick up the commodities from the distribution agency.

Each year, the USDA publishes a list of the types and quantities of commodities they expect to purchase from farmers and producers during the coming year.

These include canned and dried fruits, canned vegetables, fruit juice, peanut butter, rice, beans, and cereal.

States may select the TEFAP entitlement foods they are interested in. In addition to the food that USDA purchases, it provides surplus or bonus commodities.

Bonus purchases are made at the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture to effectively stabilize market prices for at-risk commodities and help to boost farm income. Bonus foods are offered only as they become available through agricultural surplus. Bonus commodities are available for food pantries to pick up between TEFAP distributions. Bonus foods, as opposed to entitlement foods, are unpredictable, susceptible to delays and cancellations, and communities have no input into purchasing decisions (USDA FNS 2010).

Though many food pantries and soup kitchens rely on TEFAP as a major food source, there are several problems that impede broader use. In southern Maine, fewer than half of food pantries access TEFAP, citing several reasons. One reason given was that the amount and variety of USDA commodities vary greatly from month to month. This unreliability means food pantries have to depend on other sources for food to provide a balance of nutritional choices. Between 2002 and 2007, USDA bonus commodities coming to Maine decreased from more than three million pounds of food to less than 300,000 pounds. This translates to more than $2.2 million of food in 2002 to approximately $500,000 in

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2007. During the intervening years, many local food pantries were not informed or aware of the cause of the precipitous decline. The interactions between food providers and the TEFAP system have suffered from haphazard and incomplete communication. At this same time, according to the USDA, Maine’s rate of food insecurity, not surprisingly, rose more rapidly than any other state in the nation. Year after year, food pantry lines were getting longer and shelves were bare more often, but there was no clear channel of communication about national shortages that would create great impact on local communities and no concerted effort to work together to offset the loss.

Furthermore, in addition to needing adequate storage, TEFAP foods must be kept in a locked facility.

In the case of those providers occupying shared space, which is the situation for many pantries residing in church and town hall basements, the food must be kept in a separate, locked area. This mandate prevents some food pantries from qualifying for this food source.

Additionally, food pantries have difficulty transporting TEFAP foods. Other FNS programs provide reimbursement that can cover transportation and staff time, but there is no administrative funding available through TEFAP to cover these additional costs to food pantries.

TEFAP eligibility restrictions also make distribution more complicated and confusing for food pantries.

The guidelines instruct distributing agencies to serve people who are at or below 185 percent of the poverty level, with an exception that states: “You also may be eligible to receive food from TEFAP if your income is greater than shown in the above table providing you are unable to meet the nutritional needs of your household due to an emergency situation.” Food pantries are given a one page self-declaration TEFAP form with this information and are asked to collect this form from their clients once a year. The intent and instructions for the self-declaration form are, unfortunately, misinterpreted at times. Although food pantries are not asked to verify or collect information, some pantries assume they must.

Others mistakenly ask for or keep detailed income verification information. Some mistakenly turn people away who have an urgent need but are above 185 percent of the poverty level. For many pantries, income guidelines compromise their fundamental philosophy of serving those in need without imposing any barriers.

Finally, receiving TEFAP foods requires food pantries to send a monthly report to their local TEFAP administering agency. The monthly report must include the number of households that received TEFAP food during the month and a monthly inventory of the TEFAP foods distributed and currently available for distribution the following month. For many food pantries this type of information gathering is nearly impossible.

Food pantries do not have the time, sophistication, or technology to collect the data or to physically count TEFAP food items going in and out of their inventory.

The TEFAP process needs to be streamlined to reduce the burden on food pantries which are already working beyond their capacity to get food to hungry people.

A relatively new FNS program to Maine is the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides food to supplement the diets of lowincome mothers with children up to age six and the elderly. In 2003, Maine was put on a waitlist for the CFSP program and was offered the program in 2009.

Requesting a caseload of 9,000/month, Maine was granted a caseload of approximately 3,000/month, and a large number of people currently remain on a waitlist.

Unlike TEFAP, CFSP participants need to prove income to receive a pre-packed box, which may include cereal, milk, cheese, canned fruits and vegetables, and canned meat. Participants must be diligent about picking up their CFSP food, and strict punitive measures apply if the person is unable to get to the pickup spot and time. The CFSP program allows for two missed pickups and then eliminates the recipient from the program. Unfortunately, the CFSP program in Maine is targeted largely to elderly people, and it is not unusual for low-income elderly to be ill or otherwise unable to get to a CFSP pickup site. Food pantries that assist the elderly in accessing their CFSP are asked to manage an internal waitlist each month. If someone does not show up to receive the food package the onus is on the pantry volunteers to call the next person on the waitlist to receive the food for that week only. This month-by-month system is confusing and hard to organize for pantry volunteers and CFSP participants (USDA FNS 2011a).

Administered by the Maine Department of Agriculture (DOA), the CFSP is distributed through the same agencies that distribute TEFAP food.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Hunger in Maine

Preble Street Preble Street integrates social work with soup kitchens and food pantries to afford people the opportunity to find the resources they need to move beyond hunger, to insist that it is not enough to applaud the efforts of the noble citizens who hand out boxes of emergency food, and that food lines are not the most respectful or effective way to address hunger.

In the early 1980s, with policy changes instituted under the Reagan administration and a Democratic Congress, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development budget was decimated by a 77 percent budget cut, and more than $12 billion was cut from the federal food stamp and child nutrition programs.

As the emergency shelter system began and evolved in the 1980s in response to these drastic cuts, the emergency food system developed to meet a parallel survival need for food for citizens unable to provide for themselves. At this time, Preble Street was a small, neighborhood-based organization in Portland run solely by a handful of social work student interns under the guidance of Joe Kreisler, chair of the Department of Social Work at the University of Southern Maine. As homelessness and hunger emerged in Portland, Maine, and the rest of the country, Preble Street shifted its emphasis to respond to a growing tragedy.

In 1982, a few dozen people would gather for coffee at Preble Street. By 1990 the resource center provided 200 breakfast meals each day. In the early 1990s the organization moved into a larger facility, the Resource Center, and several other small, independent, volunteer-led emergency soup kitchens joined. Workers combined emergency food service with the social work model of Preble Street and comprehensive health services of Portland’s Public Health Department. By the mid 1990s, the combined soup kitchens at the Resource Center served approximately 400 meals each day and were supplemented by a food pantry. By 2008, with a staggering recession in full effect, unmanageable numbers reached 700 meals a day at the soup kitchens and 3,500 meals a week at the food pantry. Preble Street currently serves 1,000 meals each day at its soup kitchens, and serves 150 families who receive groceries at the food pantry weekly. Besides its food programs, Preble Street also has adult and teen day program services and operates residences aimed at reducing homelessness.

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Although it was great news that another nutrition program was available in Maine, the initial implementation, application, and distribution process was unclear. There was no outreach conducted and no statewide communication process for disseminating information, leaving agencies and individuals unclear how the program would be administered and how to sign people up. Sadly, proposed federal budget cuts also threaten this essential program. There are also several critical anti-hunger programs that do not directly supply food to food pantries but greatly affect the numbers showing up at those pantries.

NONGOVERNMENTAL ANTI-HUNGER EFFORTS

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he U.S. has long had private group and individual charitable efforts to help those in need.

Locally, churches, fraternal organizations, and other volunteer groups have tried to fill needs. As hunger became a public issue, the concept of “temporary emergency food assistance” emerged, optimistically presuming that this was a temporary problem that would soon go away. More than 20 years later, the “emergency food system” in Maine remains an emergency, but it is neither temporary nor a system.

Hunger relief in Maine is a constant, necessary response with complex, varying factors and without any unifying, cohesive system. All over Maine there are small grassroots efforts emanating from town halls, church basements, and civic groups scrambling purposefully to help feed their neighbors. There are food pantries, soup kitchens, food banking, and food rescue. Recently, there have been efforts to have farmers and home gardeners plant extra crops to help provide additional fresh food for distribution by food pantries and in soup kitchens.

Although there are many private anti-hunger efforts around Maine, to date there is no systematic inventory or list that indicates where they are or exactly how many there are. For the state as a whole, there are an estimated 450 food pantries. Food pantries are disparate church, civic, and community volunteer groups, varying in size, capacity, and mission. Some operate only one day per month, while others are open weekly. Some provide cooked meals along with food to

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Hunger in Maine

FIGURE 1: Growth in Food Pantries in Southern Maine

take home to prepare. Preble Street, as an example, currently serves more than 1,000 meals per day at its several soup kitchens and provides groceries to 150 families weekly from its food pantry (see sidebar).

Southern Maine Food Pantries

In 2010, Preble Street’s Maine Hunger Initiative (MHI)1 conducted an analysis of food pantries in Cumberland and York counties in an attempt to put hunger-relief efforts in the spotlight; to foster awareness of the magnitude of the need; and to inspire input and investment in a permanent solution to the plight of the hungry. This is the most heavily populated part of the state, and while the numbers are unique to this region and this survey, the pattern of responses and issues is likely to be similar in other parts of the state. If anything, with higher poverty rates than in southern Maine, the situation may well be worse in other counties.

In Cumberland County, multiple available food pantry lists compiled by reputable organizations initially identified approximately 30 pantries.

Through the process of conducting the research and learning of undocumented sites from other pantries in neighboring towns, the comprehensive list grew to a total of 49 pantries in Cumberland County and 31 in York County. In 1940 there was one food pantry in southern Maine. In 1979, there were four pantries.

Today there are 80. In the last five years the number of food pantries in York and Cumberland counties has increased by one-third (Figure 1).

Once the 80 pantries had been identified, the MHI conducted a survey of each pantry. Question topics included food sourcing, food choices, volunteers, storage capacity, increase in need, and client documentation and residency requirements. Surveys were conducted in person, over the phone, and by mail. There was a 100 percent return rate in York County and a 96 percent return rate in Cumberland County, which provided remarkable and disturbing data. More than 9,000 households consisting of more than 25,000 individuals were served by food pantries each month in Cumberland and York counties.

Pantries report serving 42 percent more people than they did the year before, and 21 percent report increases of 100 percent or more. Half report having

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

no working budget, and of those that have a budget, for 55 percent it is under $500 per month.

The majority of southern Maine pantries, nearly 98 percent, rely on volunteers to operate, and 79 percent are solely dependent on volunteers.

Volunteers are expected to sort donations, stock shelves, assist clients, load and unload crates of food, manage administrative tasks, and raise money.

Pantries in southern Maine experience hardships with transportation and storage capacity. Eighty-seven percent report they cannot get food delivered and must rely on volunteers to pick up donated and purchased food with their personal vehicles. Another 36 percent report they do not have enough space to operate their pantry oftentimes lacking on-site refrigeration and freezer space.

The analysis of southern Maine food pantries also sheds light on the experience of people seeking food assistance. Approximately half the pantries are open and allow access once every one to two weeks or as needed; the other half only allow people to use the pantry once a month or less. Some pantries provide a week’s worth of food, while others only give enough for a few days.

Only 26 percent serve people regardless of residency, meaning 74 percent serve only residents of the town/ neighborhood where they are located and possibly the neighboring town. About 40 percent require proof of residence such as a photo ID or utility bill.

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FIGURE 2: Sources of Food in Southern Maine Food

Pantries Collectively

USDA/ TEFAP 8% Good Shepherd Food Bank 26%

Individual Pantry Food Rescue 12%

Purchased Food Retail/Wholesale 14% Donations 22%

Food Rescue Organizations 18/%

Sixty-eight percent of southern Maine pantries impose eligibility requirements for people to receive a box of food. Some towns require a referral from a staff person at the town hall. Others require multiple forms of information for each household member, including proof of residence, photo ID, social security number, and proof of income.

To deal with the increased need since the start of the recent deep recession, 82 percent of southern Maine pantries report having had to give less food or to turn people away. In a time of unprecedented hunger in Maine, it is alarming that food pantries rely wholly on volunteers, have little or no budgets, and yet are expected to be sustainable and to meet communities’ needs.

The Maine Hunger Initiative’s southern Maine survey results provided a litany of difficulties that face neighbors on both sides of the food table: what stands in the way of food security for the hungry and the obstacles helpers face. Similar problems are likely to be encountered throughout the state.

Getting a marriage license in Maine can require less documentation then getting a box of donated food.

For people trying to feed their families by resorting to a food pantry, it can be a difficult and humiliating process. Sometimes a family must access a pantry several times a month just to keep food on the table.

Residential requirements are a hardship to those who 146 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

want to access pantries outside of the town they live because of embarrassment, availability of transportation, or hours that coincide with their work hours.

Volunteers also face difficult decisions when operating a pantry on limited resources. Many aging volunteers can no longer handle the physical tasks of pantry operations. A volunteer might have to drive hours to secure food from the food bank. Survey results indi­cate that southern Maine food pantries obtain their food from a variety of sources, some more consistent and accessible than others (Figure 2). Many pantries that would like to increase capacity have to turn away food (and clients) because they lack adequate storage for perishable, frozen, and dry foods.

The Good Shepherd Food Bank and the DOA can provide lists of their member organizations, but do not currently clearly differentiate which are food pantries, which are soup kitchens, which are halfway houses, which are drop-in centers, which are transitional housing programs, which are after school programs, and which are camps. Food pantries are a minority of the organizations the food bank serves. There are many other food pantries that do not receive food from either source, including 40 percent of the pantries in southern Maine who were not members of the food bank and 35 percent who did not receive USDA TEFAP foods. Figure 3 is a schematic that illustrates how complex food sourcing is for food pantries.

FOOD RESCUE AND THE CHARITY MODEL

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eeding America is the nation’s largest private provider to the charitable food system. The organization distributes eight million pounds of food to more than 200 food banks throughout the country each day (Feeding America 2010). Food banks, as the name implies, collect and store donated and wholesale food and redistribute it to local food pantries. Maine’s sole food bank is the Good Shepherd Food Bank, headquartered in Auburn, with additional warehouses in Brewer and Portland. Food pantries purchase food from the food bank, pick it up, transport it, unload it, sort it, and distribute it.

Soon after the advent of food banking, and reacting to the culture of overconsumption in America, “food rescue” also became a popular practice. Food rescue

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FIGURE 3: Complexity of Food Sourcing

involves collecting and distributing prepared foods donated by colleges, hospitals, restaurants, hotels and food vendors. While sharing leftover food seems like a common-sense way to avoid waste and do some good, its availability is inconsistent and therefore difficult to control; it can be unsafe; and it presents challenges to pantries with limited hours and storage capacity.

By the 1990s, an extensive and in some places in the nation, well-organized charitable food movement had been built. Throughout the country, hunger became an issue that Americans felt they could do something about. Countless food drives, empty bowl dinners, cans of food in lieu of admission fees, walkathons, and canned-food donation boxes emerged.

From Boy Scouts to letter carriers and race car drivers, people who know there is something inherently wrong with hunger in our country, do their best to respond in a charitable way.

The private, charitable instinct in America is admirable, strong, and critical to keeping our neighbors fed.

However, in a model that relies on charity to fill a basic need, there are problems of reliability, appropriateness, adequacy, and consistency. There are often too many cans of pumpkin, and never enough meat, dairy, and fresh produce on food pantry shelves. The legacy of our state depends on the health and well-being of our citizens. We need a food access system for all Mainers that is dependable, accountable, and trustworthy.

The fundamental questions should be whether standing on lines for donated food is the best system for feeding citizens in a wealthy, democratic nation today. Can a model built on a foundation of erratic charity protect Maine’s citizens from hunger? Has the unintended consequence of our charitable zeal been to cloud awareness of the loss of food access through public entitlements?

In the Clinton administration’s 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (AKA “Welfare Reform”), there were deep cuts to food stamp eligibility, benefits, and child nutrition programs. These severe blows to the foundation of a benevolent society were overshadowed by the public attention garnered by the good work being done by charity. Instead of outrage at the effect of the “sledgehammer” that had been taken to government programs for the public good, the focus shifted to the kind

Donations

TEFAP

Purchased Food Retail/ Wholesale

Good Shepherd Food Bank

Food Rescue

Source: Maine Department of Health and Human Services

gestures of folks who scrambled to patch up the holes and shore up the joists in a crumbling structure.

There was no attempt to study the feasibility of the charity model, to test its capacity or its ability to improve the health and well-being of those forced to rely on it. In this political climate there is an uncomfortable parallel to the late Latin American archbishop Dom Helder Camera’s famous quote, “When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist.”

The goodness of the private charitable model too often prevents examination of the failure of public policy to keep Maine’s children, elderly, disabled and working poor, nourished.

NORTHEAST ANTI-HUNGER WORK

F

ood banks, nonprofits, and advocacy groups in other states provide examples of ways to end hunger. There are great models of organizations that are front and center in advocating for systems’ change, so not only will hungry people be fed but the problems that cause hunger will begin to be addressed and systems created to address the conditions that perpetuate hunger.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Hunger in Maine

For example, Hunger Free Vermont partnered with the Vermont Food Bank to support legislation to address the problem of childhood hunger during the summer (www.hungerfreevt.org). The Massachusetts Law Reform Institute leads an energetic coalition that provides trainings on benefit access and organizes efforts to advocate for good public policy (www.mlri. org). End Hunger Connecticut has partnered with the AARP to take the stigma out of SNAP for the elderly, and enlisted many elders in the program through its cooperative public/private effort (www.endhungerct. org). NERAHN, the North East Regional Anti-Hunger Network, is a partnership of Bread for the World, the Food Research and Action Center and two organizations representing each of the seven northeast states, whose member meet regularly to learn from each other (www.nerahn.org).

Anti-hunger work does not mean opening up more emergency food sites, but rather learning best practices from successful efforts, which includes taking stands on public policies and initiating new ones.

PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS

P

artnerships between private and government entities are providing additional mechanisms to address hunger in Maine. Preble Street, Maine DHHS and private funders formed a unique partnership which brought more than a million dollars of ARRA (“recovery act”) emergency food funding to Maine.

This provided 13,897 of the poorest families across the state, families with minor children and annual incomes of less than $9,000 per year, with $100 grocery card food supplements.

The Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps VISTA program brought two volunteers to Maine to provide technical assistance for emergency food pantries in Cumberland County. In addition to helping build sustainable organizational practices, the VISTAs are, as USDA Under Secretary for Food and Nutrition Services Kevin Concannon told the volunteers at the swearing-in ceremony, “helping remind people that in our midst, in this country of plenty, there are millions of people who are struggling.” The two volunteers in Maine join others working in 18 states across the country in helping people who are on food pantry lines

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apply for federal SNAP benefits. A survey of people accessing food pantries in Cumberland County revealed that approximately one-third may be eligible for these benefits but have not applied. As electronic application access becomes available, the VISTAs will be equipped with laptops and able to help people while they stand on food lines.

Cultivating Community is another Maine organization working to end hunger, to strengthen communities by growing food, preparing youth leaders and new farmers, and promoting social and environmental justice; it offers double coupon values at their farm stands to people who use EBT cards there. They are making local organic produce affordable to low-income people and investing food supplement dollars in Maine communities.

The MHI Farm to Pantry project, modeled after the USDA successful Farm to School program, contracted with local farmers to grow specifically for neighboring food pantries. In this market-based model that complements philanthropic dollars invested in ending hunger, low-income families at food pantries get fresh local produce; food pantries have an additional resource; and the farmers use contract money to strengthen their businesses. Last year MHI piloted the initiative in southern Maine with a grant from the Sam L. Cohen Foundation, and this year, with a grant from TDBank, will replicate that efficient food system model work.

Working with well-informed, respected, and experienced organizations—AARP Maine, Maine Center for Economic Policy, Maine Council of Churches, Maine Equal Justice Partners, Muskie School of Public Service—the MHI will provide a statewide voice specific to hunger, raise awareness, research and evaluate best practices that have been successful elsewhere, and lead public policy advocacy efforts to introduce policies and laws to alleviate hunger in Maine.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: BELIEVE IN A HUNGER-FREE MAINE

T

he ultimate answer to ending hunger is a strong economy with livable wage jobs, affordable housing and affordable healthcare. Until then, Maine needs to support policies which maintain the safety net that keeps residents healthy. There also needs to be

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Hunger in Maine

advocacy for improved access to federally funded food and nutrition programs. Investment in public/private partnerships that work efficiently and effectively to address hunger should be strengthened.

Some specific actions in Maine could make a real difference in the short run. For example, currently there are efforts with the Department of Education to bring food pantry coordinators, the food service industry, schools, social service agencies, and community partners together in Cumberland County to expand summer meal sites so that hundreds more children can access nutritious meals this summer. Underutilized federal monies available to feed Maine’s poorest and hungry children should be more aggressively pursued and legislation introduced that can ensure that. Maine should also target a USDA demonstration project that provides extra SNAP funds through EBT cards to lowincome families with school-age children during the summer months. For a mostly rural state with long distances between homes and summer feeding sites, it makes much more economic and environmental sense to help parents feed their children at home.

It is important to note that despite these obvious options for improving access to food, they represent piecemeal efforts and need to be examined individually and together to determine the most effective cohesive approach to redirect and invigorate successful hunger relief efforts. Joel Berg, in his book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America?, has a colorful, fold-out chart labeled, “What is the Best Way to End Hunger in the US?” (Berg 2008). In 1996, there were 35.5 million Americans who were food insecure. By doubling the nation’s charitable food system, food insecurity would be reduced to affect 32 million Americans.

If federal nutrition-assistance programs, however, were increased by 10 percent, it would decrease food insecurity to 26.7 million Americans. If federal nutrition programs were increased by 41 percent, we would successfully eliminate food insecurity in America.

Absent increases in federal nutrition programs, food pantries will continue feeding their neighbors and participating in advocacy efforts to improve public policies to try to end hunger. Collaborations between social service agencies and food pantries must be created to provide application assistance to nutrition programs and employment and casework services for other assistance

that will help people and families become food secure.

Faith communities can lead the way in both charity and advocacy, as the Maine Council of Churches has done with their General Assistance project, educating lowincome people on accessing programs that will help them get food and other basic needs met.

What if every person who earns below Maine’s livable wage qualified for food supplement benefits?

What if food supplement benefits were tied to local foods such as produce, dairy, eggs, meat, and fish and added economic value to the local community while minimizing the environmental damage from transporting food great distances? If no one were hungry, children would do better in school; the elderly would be healthier; working families could improve and invest in their neighborhoods; local farmers, fishers and shopkeepers would reap economic benefits.

Our country decided to have clean, running water in all communities, everyone benefited from it, and today no other way of living is imaginable. If policy is enacted to truly end hunger, all would benefit and we would no longer be able to imagine another way of living. -

ENDNOTE 1. Information about Cumberland County food pantries presented in this section comes from Preble Street’s Maine Hunger Initiative web site: (www.preblestreet.org/mainehungerinitiative.php).

REFERENCES Berg, Joel. 2008. All You Can Eat - How Hungry is America. Seven Stories Press, New York.

Campaign to Promote Food Security in Cumberland County. 2010. Coalition Report, 2010. Campaign to Promote Food Security, Portland, ME. Feeding America. 2010. Leading the Fight Against Hunger, Annual Report. Feeding America, Chicago. http://annualreport.feedingamerica.org/ misc/FeedingAmerica_2010_Annual_Report.pdf [Accessed February 24, 2011]

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Donna Yellen has been a social worker at Preble

Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). 2011. State of the States 2010: Maine. FRAC, Washington, DC. http://frac.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/me.pdf [Accessed, February 24, 2011] Hanson, Kenneth and Elise Golan. 2002. “Effects of Changes in Food Stamp Expenditures Across the U.S. Economy.” Issues in Food Assistance, FANRR26-6, USDA, Economic Research Service. http:// www.ers.usda.gov/publications/fanrr26/fanrr26-6/ fanrr26-6.pdf [Accessed May 26, 2011] Levedahl, J.W, Ballenger, N. and Harold, C. 1994.

Comparing the Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Food Stamp Program.” AER-689, USDA, Economic Research Service, Washington, DC.

Street for 16 years, where she is responsible for advocacy efforts including the Maine Hunger Initiative and the work of Homeless Voices for Justice. Her experience with community organizing and advocacy includes successful collaborations with people living in poverty and public and private, civic, and faith-based organizations seeking social justice.

Mark Swann has been

Mabli, James, Rhoda Cohen, Frank Potter and Zhanyun Zhao. 2010. Hunger in America, 2010: National Report Prepared for Feeding America.

Feeding America, Washington, DC.

executive director of Preble Street since 1991 and has

Maine Department of Education (DOE). 2010. “Groups Needed to Feed Hungry Children Over Summer.”

Maine DOE, Augusta. http://www.maine.gov/tools/ whatsnew/index.php?topic=DOENews&id=167378 &v=article [Accessed January 14, 2011]

overseen significant growth

Schumacher, Nischan and Simon. 2011. “Healthy Food Access and Affordability: “We Can Pay the Farmer or We Can Pay the Hospital.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 124–139.

several awards and national

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA, FNS). 2010. The Emergency Food Assistance Program. Food Distribution Fact Sheet, USDA, FNS, Washington, DC. http://www.fns.usda. gov/fdd/programs/tefap/pfs-tefap.pdf [Accessed June 5, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). 2011a. Commodities Supplemental Food Program. Nutrition Program Fact Sheet, USDA, FNS, Washington, DC. http:// www.fns.usda.gov/fdd/programs/csfp/pfs-csfp.pdf [Accessed February 15, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Service (USDA FNS). 2011b. National School Lunch Program. USDA, FNS, Washington, DC. http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/AboutLunch/ NSLPFactSheet.pdf [Accessed February 15, 2011]

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and expansion of the agency and its mission in that time. Preble Street has won recognition for its dual efforts of providing basic, street-level services while also advocating for and building sustainable solutions to end homelessness and hunger.

Elena Schmidt has been director of development at Preble Street for eight years, and has worked for 20 years with Portland social service agencies to provide services and opportunities for people in need. She serves on the executive committee of Cultivating Community and Project FEED.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

by Michelle Vasquez Jacobus Reza Jalali

INTRODUCTION

After many challenging discussions, Abdi and his sister, Zahra, finally reach an agreement: Abdi agrees to borrow a car and travel all the way downtown to purchase halal [religiously permitted] chicken at the Somali-owned store; Zahra, in turn, agrees to mix it with the significantly less expensive chicken they can purchase at the Save-A-Lot. Zahra is concerned: Mixing the chicken, she says, makes it all haram [religiously prohibited]. Abdi counters that, though under some interpretations this may be the case, if they eat only halal chicken, they can only afford to eat chicken once a month.

T

his scenario describes a situation not uncommon among Maine’s African immigrant population in Lewiston. It is a story of insufficient resources, loss,

…food and compromise, adjustment, and access to food resiliency. This scenario exemplifies how food and access is determined to food is determined by our culture, income, location, and by our culture, familiarity; and how these accessibility factors determine what income, location, foods we eat, how we eat them, and how well our nutritional and familiarity. needs are met. It also illustrates elements of food access that go beyond biological and public health concerns, but touch on the essence of how we are connected to our family, our religion, our community, and our identity.

We have been conducting an ongoing community food assessment in Lewiston. In this article, we discuss what we have learned about the particular food needs and assets of this African immigrant population. We consider how these findings may transfer to a better understanding of the unique food needs of other African immigrant populations and the policy implications and ways for guiding communitybuilding decisions.

BACKGROUND

A

s the picture of immigrants entering the U.S. over the past two decades has changed, research increasingly focuses on the unique needs and assets of the “new” immigrant population. Between 2001 and 2010, nearly 8,000 African immigrants relocated to Lewiston, mostly as secondary migrants (Nadeau 2010; Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010).

Community leaders estimate that currently (2010) approximately 10 percent of Lewiston’s population is comprised of African immigrants as compared with less than one percent people of color in 2000 (Martin 2010; Nadeau 2010). These “new Mainers” in Lewiston are for the most part from Somalia (approximately 80 percent) (Rector 2008), most live in families including two or more children (Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010), many live in public or low-income housing, and nearly all are adjusting to learning a new language and integrating to a population that is culturally and socially different

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

from that of their home country (Ismail Ahmed, personal communication, 2009; Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010).

Although nearly every element of life is dramatically different in Maine, food is among the most profound differences for Somalis. Food is also a primary embodiment of religious and cultural practice.

African immigrants are accustomed to eating different foods, fruits, vegetables, and spices in their diet than they are able to easily access in Lewiston. They are used to shopping differently for food, preparing food differently, and consuming food differently, all factors that must be considered in accessing food availability for Lewiston’s immigrant population.

Food access includes factors such as affordability, opportunity, proximity, comfort, and cultural and religious guidelines. As defined by Hadley and Sellen (2006: 369), “food insecurity occurs whenever the availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or the ability to acquire them is limited” (emphasis added). The USDA reported that in 2009, 14.7 percent of U.S. households were food insecure (Nord et al. 2010) while in Maine it was 14.8 percent. Rates of food insecurity are particularly high for low-income and minority households (Nord et al. 2010).

Achieving a richer understanding of food insecurity among Lewiston’s most vulnerable populations is a primary function of the Local Food for Lewiston (LFL) project, a community assessment of assets and challenges to food access in Lewiston, Maine. (For more in-depth descriptions of Lewiston’s community food assessment, Local Food for Lewiston, see Harris et al.

[2010], Vazquez Jacobus and Harris [2007], and Walter, this issue.) How and why Lewiston’s immigrant population might be vulnerable to food insecurity and how to ameliorate this condition are important policy issues that need to be assessed in Maine.

QUALITATIVE ASSESSMENT OF FOOD ACCESS FOR AFRICAN IMMIGRANTS

T

o develop the picture of food access for African immigrants in Lewiston, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine community leaders including Somali social service providers and owners of halal stores from August 2009 through October 2010.

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Although asked specific questions regarding food access, differences in consumption practices, and recommendations for ameliorating challenges, the interviews were held informally and inquiries were made in an open-ended fashion. These leaders were consulted specifically because of their various expertise and interests; they do not represent a cross section of the African population of Lewiston.1 As parents, refugee resettlement workers, business owners, and neighborhood residents, their knowledge provides an inroad to the complex map of food accessibility among vulnerable new Americans.

Food Access, Expense, Proximity, and Familiarity

Research in a number of diverse cities indicates that immigrants and refugees have high levels of food insecurity (Hadley and Selen 2006) and nutritionrelated health problems (Chilton et al. 2009; Kalil and Chen 2008; Patil, Hadley and Nahayo 2008).

As is true of many new immigrant populations, most of Lewiston’s African immigrants are low income (Nadeau 2010; Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010). It is estimated that more than 50 percent of the African immigrant population in Lewiston are unemployed (Nadeau 2010; Rector 2008), more than 75 percent live at or below poverty level (Nadeau 2010; Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010), and more than 90 percent of Lewiston’s immigrant school children qualify for free or reduced lunch (Maine Department of Education 2010; Martin 2010).

A few years ago we found out that one of the infant formula products that many of us were buying included a pork product but we didn’t understand this because it was written in its chemical name….

Many single moms will pay three times the price for THE SAME Nestle powdered milk written in Arabic than the one written in English because they feel safe that it is not haram.

Most of the African immigrants in Lewiston are Muslim and as such, are religiously prohibited from eating food that is not halal. Haram food includes primarily pork, but also includes meats that are not

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

butchered according to the Islamic laws. Halal meat is not generally sold in stores in Lewiston. Because the halal process requires special personnel and because there are few sources of halal products, they are generally more expensive. In addition to halal meats, many African immigrants and many Muslims in Lewiston, are most comfortable buying specialty items that are prepared in a way to assure Muslim consumers that they are not haram. Thus rice, spices, dried fruits, and condiments must also be imported from specialty distributors abroad. Often these sources are in Muslim or Middle Eastern nations, and the import, security, and inspection process can be quite expensive. These items are often carried only at the halal specialty shops in Lewiston, are of limited availability, and can be relatively costly.

I would rather buy my food from the shop on Lisbon Street but the big stores are much less expensive. When I am buying for clients with very limited money I buy their staples at Walmart and then give them some money to buy their meat at the halal store where they can feel better. The environment in a store like Walmart makes us uncomfortable—with all the bright lights, it seems so sterile—and there is so much of everything. You can’t even find what you want because there is so much! And it doesn’t even smell like food! How can you have a food store that doesn’t even smell like food?

An important influence on access is proximity to a food source. According to an August 29, 2010, article in The Sun Journal by Bonnie Washuk, all but two of Lewiston’s African food stores are located downtown on lower Lisbon Street. Many recently arrived refugees live in the downtown Lewiston area, and refugee resettlement workers often try to place them there because of the proximity of stores and services that meet their cultural needs (Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010). Most of Lewiston’s African immigrants, however, do not live within walking distance of the downtown. They live either in one of the large publichousing complexes at the outskirts of Lewiston, or in one of several property-management-owned buildings that are closer, but still not easily walkable, to down-

town (Hussein Ahmed, personal communication, 2010; Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010; Khadra Jama, personal communication, 2010).

Because so many residents live far from the African stores, their use of these stores is dependent on access to a vehicle or public transportation. The city of Lewiston has been taking measures to improve access to their public bus system, but the buses do not yet run to the more distant areas of the city and it has limited evening and weekend hours. Thus, for most of Lewiston’s African residents who do not live downtown, accessing culturally familiar food requires use of a private vehicle.

Food is a means of connection to culture; dietary practices from shopping to eating can be among the most profound bonds to country, family and home.

Food and Culture: Differences in Dietary Practices We are losing some of our culture here. I don’t brag but I am the best chapatti maker in the community. But my 16-yearold daughter—she does not know how to make the chapatti.

Food is a means of connection to culture; dietary practices from shopping to eating can be among the most profound bonds to country, family and home. “The foods that people eat are critical in defining them and are an integral part of shaping ethnic identity [citations omitted] so that maintenance of food related cultural practices in situations of forced relocation beyond the homeland may play an important psychological role in continually reconfirming ties to ones culture and traditions” (Hadley and Sellen 2006: 373).

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We used to walk everywhere—we had to buy food every day and it was our social time. It’s so different here: no one walks anymore—we all take the car.

From food preparation to consumption, all of the immigrants with whom we spoke reported significant differences in dietary practices upon relocating to Lewiston. For many immigrants shopping in their home country involved physical activity as they daily walked from the baker, to the butcher, to the green grocer to gather their menu. In addition, food shopping and preparation were social opportunities involving sharing of recipes and skills, where pride was established and techniques demonstrated. Care was taken in the choosing of ingredients and value placed on how food was prepared. In addition, diets in the home country were different. Many Somalis were used to eating relatively more meat in Africa, different greens and tubers, and more and different grains and spices. In the U.S., inexpensive, heavily processed and prepared foods are readily available.

For families on limited budgets, or with limited understanding or access to culturally familiar foods, these preprocessed foods are in many cases the only accessible option.

In most cases, the walking social trips to the shops are replaced by drives to the supermarket, and processed calorie-dense foods substitute for the carefully prepared stews simmered for hours. In addition, where a family is on a limited budget, receiving the support of food stamps or WIC, the more expensive halal meats or the trip to the cultural specialty shop may be beyond their reach (Hadley and Sellen 2006).

Socioemotional factors may also play a role in varying diets. Immigrants who have experienced famine or great deprivation, may readily opt for calorie-dense (even if low nutritive value) foods as a compensatory behavior to assure that neither they nor their children experience hunger (Rosas et al. 2009; Patil, Hadley and Nahayo 2008). There may also be issues of perspective and priority. A Somali social service worker with whom we spoke observed that not many of her clients seem to appreciate the potential severity of nutrition-related health concerns: “When you have lived in a refugee camp for years and worried about having enough food

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to feed your family, things like high cholesterol or diabetes seem like minor worries.”

POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Access Single moms will shop at the [halal] market.

They can buy bananas and put it on a “tab.”

They can’t do that at a big market and [the halal shop owner] will explain about the baby formula or translate the label. They don’t have to worry about not speaking English or how they are dressed or that anyone will bother them. They even get help with getting the groceries home.

Improving access to culturally appropriate healthy food begins by working through the community’s already substantial assets. A number of African stores are already in business in downtown Lewiston, and new ones are opening on a regular basis. Africanowned businesses provide many functions to the community. These stores operate as social centers, cultural consultants, language translators, and centers of “safe” and comfortable food and products. For single parents and for newly arrived immigrants especially, these cultural businesses can be a lifeline of support.

Kosher food is safe for us to eat too. It is required that it be “slaughtered by a man of God” and kosher food is prepared this way so if we teach people to look for the kosher symbols, they can do that.

To meet the needs of Lewiston’s immigrant population, and indeed all community members living downtown, efforts should be made to provide access to healthy fresh food in underserved areas. Many of the dietary challenges immigrants face center around adherence to halal practices for meat consumption.

Currently, African storekeepers are faced with expensive procedures to import halal meat from as far as Australia. When they buy halal products “locally” from New Jersey or Boston, they find prices are much higher due to the lack of competition. Cooperative buying

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

groups could be facilitated so that small businesses, including the African stores, have some buying power to negotiate with larger food distributors. These negotiations ought to try to include local farms as sources of this food so that the area’s own organically and locally produced meat and produce can be sold through these stores. During the growing months, connections with organizations such as St. Mary’s Nutrition Center/Lots to Gardens and other community farms may provide a source of locally grown produce that could be made available through local stores. There are many opportunities here for innovative business people to develop arrangements between local farms and African businesses to supply USDA-certified and halal meats to local stores. Perhaps local farmers can be offered incentives or subsidies to grow or raise culturally familiar produce such as tubers or greens along with goat or beef for halal butchering. Complementarily, community members might be afforded increased opportunities to cooperatively cultivate land or raise food for their own consumption.

of welfare reform (Kalil and Chen 2008) or other social or emotional factors, as long as needy members of the community do not receive the services they require, food insecurity will continue to be a challenge.

Many authors describe culturally specific barriers to provision of social services (Kalil and Chen 2008; Patil, Hadley and Nahayo 2008). Immigrant clientele find few African Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) workers in Lewiston. Other complicating factors include clan politics, gender or age barriers, and confidentiality concerns. Even if they receive benefits, they may find their allotments quickly depleted by the higher price of halal and culturally familiar food, and existing food pantries and soup kitchens may not always carry food that is culturally “safe” for Muslim clientele.

Food-supplementation programs and government-assistance programs should

Social Services

Researchers have demonstrated that governmentassistance programs such as the Food Stamp Program alleviate food insecurity (Borjas 2004). Furthermore, in states where welfare benefits have been significantly limited, the social problems they were designed to ameliorate have become more acute (Borjas 2004).

Thus, although programs such Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), and the Food Stamp Program are helpful in preventing and ameliorating food insecurity, it is vital that Maine maintain its flexibility and continuation of food and health support programs, especially for the most vulnerable. In addition, although refugees are exempted from restrictions imposed on noncitizen immigrants, most of Lewiston’s African immigrants are secondary migrants, so they are often caught in a confusing morass of regulations. It is estimated that a significant portion of Lewiston’s eligible immigrants do not receive benefits (Hussein Ahmed, personal communication, 2010; Qamar Bashir, personal communication, 2010). Whether this is because of the “chilling effect” described by social scientists investigating the impact

be evaluated to assure that the programs are well targeted and culturally sensitive to the needs of the population served.

Food-supplementation programs and governmentassistance programs should be evaluated to assure that the programs are well targeted and culturally sensitive to the needs of the population served. Service personnel, style, and delivery all need to be current with the changing needs of the population. For example, it may be necessary to provide greater allowances for provision of halal products and to review food lists to ascertain whether haram food additives are included among the products given to Muslim families.

Where possible, consultants and social workers should be trained and hired from the African community. To enhance services generally, all service providers need be culturally informed and aware of the dietary and social requirements of their immigrant clients. Furthermore, these limitations in the provision of social services may compromise the potential diversity and cultural

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inclusiveness of our state and may have a negative impact on Maine’s growth and economic strength.

Supporting Indigenous Social and Cultural Capital There are many assets in the Lewiston Auburn area who are trapped in their homes—great assets of selling, cooking, parenting—all with creative ideas and new business opportunities that simply don’t get out. The key is for us to work together to figure out how to get them into the community.

We need to enhance the indigenous resources already a part of Maine’s social capital and use them to expand access to healthy food for our communities.

Lewiston is fortunate to have a rich network of community organizations and leaders with a long history of collaborative problem solving. Many of the envisioned solutions require only that these innovative leaders combine their strengths.

Administrators, educators, and policymakers alike must find ways to empower immigrant families to take pride in their cultural dietary practices and to find support and strength from their networks and families.

Local Somali leaders and Lewiston city officials agree that one of the greatest challenges to new Mainers is a lack of jobs for which they are both qualified and well-suited (Nadeau 2010; Rector 2008; Said Mohamud, personal communication, 2010).

By developing incentive programs for scholarships and career placement, we can encourage immigrants to take advantage of local higher education opportunities and to use their skills to work with the community.

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Several states offer financial support for college in exchange for entering high-need fields such as health care, nutrition, and education. Such programs could be of great mutual benefit in Maine.

I was here for two years before I realized that collard greens are the greens that we are used to. And cilantro—we have that but I didn’t know what you call it. I found that the Latino tubers and spices are closest to what we are used to—the plantains, mango, cilantro—we eat all that.

Recognizing the inherent expertise of Lewiston’s immigrants, a network of cultural food consultants and social service advocates can be developed to enhance programs. Cultural food consultants could be in attendance at DHHS when immigrants are signing up for benefits, at local stores to provide shopping guidance, at soup kitchens and food pantries to inform provisioning, and at local schools to assist with culturally appropriate food choices and preparation. A contingent of cultural peer advocates could be organized to provide informal cultural and language translation services to immigrants as they navigate the food system or to accompany community members on shopping trips or to meetings with administrative personnel. These cultural experts could work with local business owners and social service agencies to issue a resource book that lists the culturally friendly businesses along with the services and products available. They could author a recipe book that not only includes familiar recipes from home, but substitutes affordable, available, and healthy options where appropriate and provides guidance about where these items can be found. Through programs such as Fresh Start Farms (community-supported agriculture employing African immigrant farmers as entrepreneurs) in nearby Lisbon, cultural brokers could connect local farmers with sources for their produce.

One of the most significant policy changes we recommend occurs at the most familiar level.

Administrators, educators, and policymakers alike must find ways to empower immigrant families to take pride in their cultural dietary practices and to find support and strength from their networks and families.

Informed parents can make wise and healthy food choices for their families. Schools and day care providers

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Challenges to Food Access Among Lewiston’s African Immigrants

can reinforce this by providing and celebrating diverse cultural options. Family chefs can be lauded as they demonstrate cultural recipes for school lunch programs and provide cooking classes at community centers.

From advertising to parenting, there are numerous ways in which we can promote the continuation of healthy, culturally focused dietary practices.

Cultural renewal is critical to maintaining family ties and identity, but also to improving health. Just as there are risk factors that predispose us toward food insecurity, there are also factors that protect us from it (Burns 2004). Cultural practices that involve activity, care in selection of food, attention to ingredients, aesthetic presentation, and shared dining help people to avoid unhealthy eating habits. In addition, teaching food provision and preparation practices that sustain health and food is a culturally powerful way to promote healthy nutrition practices.

CONCLUSION

I

n a society where food insecurity and nutritional ill health are so highly associated with barriers to food access, we must recognize and encourage the factors that protect against unhealthy dietary practices. We can also overcome challenges to food access through our social networks, friends, neighbors, and family and with connections to heritage. We must be aware of and ready to resist the overarching influence of what we see in advertising and what is promoted, inadvertently at times, by our social institutions. This increased corporate and media influence enhances the allure of abundant, tasty processed foods that are not nutritionally optimal. Our appetites, however, can be reclaimed. Somali food, like Mexican and Chinese food, can be made with local ingredients, with care to decreasing saturated fats, and with attention to spice, ingredients, preparation, and presentation. Local chefs and cultural purveyors can be consulted for their expertise and lauded for their community engagement as they share their gifts.

The picture of food access for immigrants in Lewiston is the picture of general access to society for these new Mainers. Currently, this picture is compromised, but it offers many points of access for improvement—through children, through creativity, and through collaboration. -

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This piece is a collaborative effort representing the knowledge and ideas of multiple cultural and community experts. Thus we owe not only our gratitude, but the work itself, to the invaluable contribution of the following, without whose expertise, perspective, and generosity it would not be possible: Hussein Ahmed, Ismail Ahmed, Qamar Bashir, Robert Baskett, David Harris, Khadra Jama, Said Mohamud, and Zam Zam Mohamud.

ENDNOTES 1. Where the information provided by our interviewees is based in their expertise or professional knowledge they are cited by name as a primary source of the information provided. However, where their quotes are anecdotal and based in their experience as Somalis, which is more generalizable to the experiences of relocated African refugees in Lewiston, the quotes are unattributed as intended to speak for a broader voice.

REFERENCES Borjas, George J. 2004. “Food Insecurity and Public Assistance.” Journal of Public Economics 88: 1421–1443.

Burns, Cate. 2004. “Effect of Migration on Food Habits of Somali Women Living as Refugees in Australia.”

Ecology of Food and Nutrition 43: 213–229.

Chilton, Mariana, Maureen M. Black, Carol Berkowitz, Patrick H. Casey, John Cook, Diana Cutts, Ruth Rose Jacobs, Timothy Heeren, Stephanie Ettinger de Cuba, Sharon Coleman, Alan Meyers and Deborah A. Frank. 2009. “Food Insecurity and Risk of Poor Health among US-Born Children of Immigrants.” American Journal of Public Health 99(3): 556–562.

Hadley, Craig and Daniel Sellen. 2006. “Food Security and Child Hunger among Recently Resettled Liberian Refugees and Asylum Seekers: A Pilot Study.” Journal of Immigrant Health 8: 369–375.

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Harris, David, AbouEl-Makarim Aboueissa, Michelle Vazquez Jacobus, Jigna Dharod and Kirsten Walter, 2010. “Mapping Food Stores & People at Risk for Food Insecurity in Lewiston, Maine.” Journal of Extension 48(6): 1–14. http://www.joe.org/ joe/2010december/rb3.php [Accessed May 9, 2011] Kalil, Ariel and Jen-Hao Chen. 2008. “Mothers’ Citizenship Status and Household Food Insecurity among Low-Income Children of Immigrants.” New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development 121:43–62.

Maine Department of Education, 2010. School Lunch Monthly Reimbursements, Percent Free and Reduced School Lunch Report. Augusta, Maine. https://portal.maine.gov/sfsr/sfsrdev.ed534.ed534_ parameters [Accessed May 9, 2011]

Rosas, Lisa G., Kim Harley, Lia C.H. Fernald, Sylvia Guendelman, Fabiola Mejia, Lynnette M. Neufeld and Brenda Eskenazi. 2009. “Dietary Associations of Household Food Insecurity among Children of Mexican Descent: Results of a Binational Study.”

Journal of the American Dietetic Association 109(12): 2001–2009.

Vazquez Jacobus, Michelle and David E. Harris.

2007. “Mapping Hunger in Maine: A Complex Collaboration.” Academic Exchange Quarterly 11(4): 202–209.

Walter, Kirsten. 2011. “Local Food for Lewiston: Exploring the Role of Food Assessment as Part of Broader Work in Community-engaged Food Systems.” Maine Policy Review 20(1):

Martin, Susan. 2010. Panel discussion held by Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce regarding Immigration in Lewiston, University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College, October 20.

Michelle Vasquez Jacobus is an assistant professor at the University

Nadeau, Phillip. 2010. Panel discussion held by Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce on Immigration in Lewiston, University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn College, October 20.

Nord, Mark, Alisha Coleman-Jensen, Margaret Andrews and Steven Carlson. 2010. Household Food Security in the United States, 2009. ERR-108, USDA, Economic Research Service. http://www. ers.usda.gov/Publications/ERR108/ERR108.pdf [Accessed May 15, 2011] Patil, Crystal, Craig Hadley and Perpetue Djona Nahayo. 2008. “Unpacking Dietary Acculturation among New Americans: Results from Formative Research with African Refugees.” Journal of Immigrant Minority Health 8(4): 369–375.

of Southern Maine’s Lewiston Auburn College with a dual appointment in Social and Behavioral Sciences and Leadership and Organizational Studies.

Working from backgrounds in both social work and law, she focuses her work on community engagement/service learning and community capacity building, particularly through promoting diversity and multiculturalism.

Reza Jalali

Rector, Amanda. 2008. An Analysis of the Employment Patterns of Somali Immigrants to Lewiston from 2001 through 2006. Center for Workforce Research and Information, Maine Department of Labor and Maine State Planning Office, Augusta. http:// www.maine.gov/labor/lmis/publications/pdf/ LewistonMigrantReport.pdf [Accessed May 9, 2011]

Reza Jalali works at the University of Southern Maine in Multicultural Student Affairs. He also teaches at the Bangor Theological Seminary and is the Muslim chaplain at Bates College. Jalali was a contributing writer to a number of publications and multimedia productions.

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Local Food for Lewiston

Local Food for Lewiston: Exploring the Role of Food Assessment as Part of Broader Work in Community-engaged Food Systems1

By Kirsten Walter

T

his case study tells the story of a work in progress: a community effort that explores the relationship between grassroots action and a more strategic approach to building a healthy food system.

Intuition tells us that we need a balanced blend of both elements. We are learning that at least two other factors are critical: the ability to use multiple strategies in concert, and the dexterity to move up and down the spectrum of research, planning, and action with grace. Faced with a challenging learning curve, we are relying upon a strong foundation of community-based work to guide this journey into food assessment and planning.

HISTORY

T

he St. Mary’s Nutrition Center in Lewiston, Maine, historically used programmatic approaches to create fair access to healthy, local foods. The simplest way to describe this work is to employ a laundry list: 12 community gardens for low-income families; hands-on cooking and nutrition education for all ages; garden-education programs for children; intensive job-training programs for teens; fresh-food-access

…there are far points including three farmers’ more options for markets; culturally relevant peer-led nutrition education unhealthy foods and emergency food distribution that serves more than 60 than healthy foods percent of all food boxes in the city. Combined, these activities in close vicinity create a potent mix for grassroots change. to low-income We began, however, to ask ourselves a daunting question: households, and if the Nutrition Center and its partners just continued the prices are higher. on-the-ground work, or even multiplied it tenfold, would Lewiston have a thriving, secure, and just food system?

In a city with a childhood poverty rate of nearly 42 percent and with a downtown elementary school where 94 percent of students qualify for free or reduced-price meal programs, it was important to take the question seriously.

The honest answer seemed to be “no.” In response, the Nutrition Center initiated a multi-sector response to food and nutrition needs as a fundamental approach to preventative health. The initiative, now called “Local Food for Lewiston (LFL),” brought together diverse stakeholders to conduct a community food assessment (CFA) to enable us to better understand the landscape of local food insecurity and food systems.

COMMUNITY FOOD ASSESSMENTS: LEWISTON’S APPROACH

L

ocal Food for Lewiston is a collaborative effort guided by a core group: Healthy Androscoggin, St. Mary’s Nutrition Center, the Downtown Education Collaborative, and the Harward Center for Community Partnerships at Bates College. These partners bring diverse expertise in the fields of public health, local food and nutrition, and communityengaged academic research. From this core, the effort has grown to include residents as participants in research and as researchers, along with many other stakeholders. Academic partners at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn campus, Muskie

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School of Public Service, and Bates College guided the CFA design and methodology.

The CFA’s research focuses on the following: • To what extent is household food insecurity a problem in Lewiston and who is at high risk?

• What does the food resource environment look like? Is healthy food available, accessible, and affordable? Where do people get healthy foods?

• What are the specific barriers that prevent people from accessing healthy food in Lewiston?

How do people get to their food sources?

• To what extent is household food insecurity in Lewiston determined by community food resources; accessibility, availability, and affordability of healthy foods; and/or socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic characteristics?

• What resources and community factors are assets in strengthening our food system?

The research has been more heavily weighted on the consumer sector of the food system, in large part a reflection of the Nutrition Center’s mission and past work. The CFA looked primarily at the municipality of Lewiston, even though the city is a part of the larger Lewiston/Auburn metropolitan area. Limited resources affect the scope of the research, and because most secondary data is available at a county or city level, we decided to keep to the city boundaries.

The overarching principles guiding the methodology were that the research should be useful for community planning and developing solutions and be robust and of high quality, while being grounded by communitybased approaches. We used multiple methods to balance qualitative and quantitative data. For the quantitative part, the collaborative gathered secondary economic and demographic data, which included a survey of food stores and emergency food providers, and GIS mapping of these resources along with fast-food outlets and transportation routes. To compliment these data, we conducted a series of focus groups, interviews, and photo essays to elicit detailed information about residents’ experiences with the food system. Community action researchers (CARs) conducted a majority of the

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qualitative data gathering for the CFA and continue to be key components of LFL’s leadership group. The CARs are community members who have deep connections in Lewiston and have been advocating for lowincome populations for many years.

A FEW OF THE FINDINGS

T

he findings reflect trends seen in other communities and the anecdotal evidence gathered from over a decade of community-based food work.

Food Stores and Fast Food We know we need nutritious food but we can’t afford it. If you buy nutritious food every time you go to the store, the children will be hungry next week.

Out of the 59 stores selling fresh and prepackaged foods in Lewiston, 19 percent accepted WIC, 58 percent accepted EBT/SNAP, 100 percent sold soda, 68 percent sold beer, and 31 percent sold cigarettes. In comparison, only 12 percent carried any variety of healthy foods (at least one item from at least six of the seven healthy food categories). Supermarkets were 40 percent less expensive than the community markets, but were not located in low-income neighborhoods, whereas fast-food restaurants were clustered near these neighborhoods.

Put simply, there are far more options for unhealthy foods than healthy foods in close vicinity to low-income households, and prices are higher. These trends could describe many towns and cities across the country. But, what is interesting about Lewiston is that the low-income downtown residential area is also home to several mid-sized community markets that fall in the 12 percent of stores that carry a variety of healthy foods. These stores, along with the many Somaliowned halal markets, are critical resources with great potential for being part of a more vibrant food environment in the future.

Emergency Food Access

Less than 50 percent of single-parent households live within 1 kilometer of a soup kitchen or a food pantry. Nearly all emergency food pantries (EFPs),

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GOOD FOOD FOR ALL: Local Food for Lewiston

however, are close to a bus line. The CFA charted the hours of EFP operation along with the hours buses operate. This information can be used to help emergency food providers to identify and address gaps in service.

Transportation

I have to go to the bigger stores. They don’t even sell whole pasta, zucchini, or squash in the little stores.

Lewiston’s public bus, CityLink, is a relatively affordable and moderately used system. Buses run from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. on weekdays, and CityLink recently added a few routes on Saturdays from 9 to 3. Many buses travel directly to grocery stores in the area and are therefore an important means of accessing food for people without cars. Through surveys, interviews, photo, and documentation of travel time, the CFA examined the benefits and challenges related to transportation. Those who use the bus must limit their grocery purchases to what they can carry. Less nutrientdense foods are often lighter and therefore easier to carry. More frequent trips to the store are necessary for regular access to perishable foods, requiring more time for transportation and shopping.

to fresh food for low-income individuals at farmers’ markets; and as a new FoodCorps site, expanded school garden programs in the fall.

CONCLUSION

H

aving a clear understanding of a community’s access (or lack of ) to quality food and engaging stakeholders in the planning process create the foundation and excitement needed for finding effective solutions. The assessment and subsequent road map serve as important tools. They help to raise awareness, provide educational opportunities, and aid in securing additional resources to create long-lasting solutions for providing access to healthy, local food. Additionally, they broaden the base of support and the community’s capacity to respond with effective, committed action.

The momentum and energy garnered by Local Food for Lewiston will be crucial in propelling work on our food systems in the years to come. -

ENDNOTE 1. Some language for this article was modified from the draft of our community report, which has many authors who were involved in Local Food for Lewiston.

NEXT STEPS: PLANNING AND ACTION

T

Kirsten Walter began her food systems work in Lewiston, Maine, by founding Lots to Gardens in 1999. She now serves as Photo: J. Gonzalez

he next phase, a community planning process, will result in three major outcomes: (1) five- and 15-year community vision “road maps”; (2) a clear action plan; and (3) a community food council. The council will oversee implementation efforts, guide local policy, and provide long-term sustainability. This will be a diverse group, including government agencies and officials, community organizations, advocacy groups, community members, farmers, and local civic and community leaders.

It will be critical in this phase to master the delicate ebb and flow of planning and action. The Nutrition Center and LFL will keep the on-the-ground work going throughout the planning process. This summer, the Nutrition Center is leading some exciting projects designed in response to the preliminary assessment findings, including expanded farmers’ market sites; innovative incentive programs to increase access

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director of the St. Mary’s Nutrition Center.

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Environment, Resources and Food Safety

No one would deny that industrial agriculture and fishing have been highly productive—but at what cost? Articles in this section explore the historical development and contemporary impact of food production on the environment, availability of water and other resources, energy, food safety, and even our waistlines. John Jemison and Amanda Beal note that today’s food system has become dependent on inputs that may no longer be sustainable, or may become too costly to produce. They discuss some of the expensive “externalities” produced such as impaired watershed quality, soil degradation, pollution, reduction in biodiversity, and impacts on human health. Alfred Bushway, Beth Calder and Jason Bolton describe the importance of food safety regulations and practices in this era of global food systems and illustrate some of the challenges facing Maine’s small food producers and processors; Henrietta Beaufait discusses Maine meat and poultry processing and the need for increased safety inspection capacity to allow this important food sector to continue to grow. Maine needs to invest considerable thought and time into building capacity in our local food systems to assure that resources will be protected over time as we strive to feed ourselves safely and healthily going into the future.

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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Historical Perspectives on Resource Use in Food Systems

Historical Perspectives on Resource Use in Food Systems

by John M. Jemison Jr. Amanda Beal

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o understand our food system’s structure and function today, a historical perspective is helpful. This article addresses several key themes influencing the growth and development of the food system. Since the food system represents almost 20 percent of the U.S. gross national product, food is subject to the same basic economic principles that affect other marketed goods.

Food production, however, is also a biological process.

Although economy of scale, increasing farm size, and lowest-cost production methods appear to be economically profitable and highly productive based on today’s food supply, these same principles threaten the longterm productive capacity of agriculture and fisheries, the environment, and consumer health. We argue that sustainable agriculture is, in reality, a new concept and is essential to agriculture’s future. Finally, quality food should be a right for all people, not just the privileged.

No one questions the importance of food to human existence. For almost all of early human history, food was obtained by hunting and gathering. This early food system was generally egalitarian, such that when food was abundant, all benefitted; when limited, all went hungry and the group moved on. Overall, however, the skeletal record indicates that early human beings had a reasonably healthy balanced diet. With the development of agriculture, starting about 10,000 years ago, human relationships with natural resources

Although economy and with each other changed of scale, increasing dramatically. The word agriculture comes from the Latin ager farm size, and (field) and cultura, which means cultivation. Agriculture lowest-cost producis a systematic manipulation of the environment (Manning tion methods appear 2004). Sustainable use of the soil resource was rarely, if ever, to be economi­cally practiced in the past. Abundant land resources allowed people profitable and highly to destroy the soil and move on.

Early development of civilizaproductive…, these tions in the Tigris-Euphrates, Nile, and Indus valleys was no same principles accident, and agriculture was the key to the success of civilithreaten the longzations. Its failure, whether caused by climate change or term productive resource exploitation, was also the downfall of many of those capacity of agriculcivilizations.

The development of agriture and fisheries, culture led to class-based societies, which continued through the environment, and the Middle Ages. In Europe, landed gentry owned and consumer health. controlled the land, and peasants farmed for a share of food.

Almost all food produced was consumed locally. A rudimentary three-field rotation system was used, where one field was planted for summer crops, a second for winter crops, and a third was left fallow for soil improvement.

Farm implements were simple, yields low, and there was little incentive to improve the land. Later, the medieval agricultural model was replaced by a smallfarm-enclosure system in which peasants were given land on which to produce crops for themselves and the manor. This gave peasants some impetus to improve the land, practice crop improvement, and use improved crop rotations. This small-farm model would serve as the basis for the Jeffersonian ideal of the self-sufficient farm owned by individual Americans.

As the population grew, pressure to produce more food further stressed resources during the Colonial era.

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Because of the cause-and-effect relationship between population growth and agricultural production, famine has been a regular occurrence throughout ancient and modern history. But during the Colonial period, population increases stressed real food production capacity on a widespread level. While more land was cleared and wet areas filled for crop production, much of the population remained in what has been referred to as “nutritional purgatory,” most with enough calories on a daily basis to survive but malnourished to the point where they could barely work (Roberts 2008). Three things served to boost caloric supply in the late Colonial period in Europe: (1) emigration of people to Argentina, Australia, and America to farm (including slave labor from Africa); (2) the importation of corn, sugar, and potatoes into Europe by the Spanish; and (3) the industrial revolution which allowed the development of an international food-production and transportation system to increase food for Europeans (Kloppenburg 1988).

The Great Depression changed how the government approached agricultural farm policies. New prac­tices and policies… changed the face of agriculture.

EARLY U.S. AGRICULTURAL HISTORY

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n the early decades after American independence, agricultural policy focused on clearing land and growing crops. Most colonists settled and farmed along the productive alluvial bottomlands in the east and south (Effland 2000). Most farmers relied on shifting cultivation, where trees were felled and burned to provide alkalinity and release phosphorus and potassium for crop production (Kellogg 1963). Legumes, soil organic matter, and animal manure provided nutrients to the crops. Most farmers owned and worked relatively small amounts of land, and through a self-sufficiency model, produced enough food to feed their families

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and support their livestock; some staple crops of corn, cotton, or tobacco were grown for sale. By the 1850s, some farmers began to adopt market-based strategies of raising staple crops for sale, while saving a percentage for food and feed; others chose to purchase all their food (Helms 2000). Farming was extremely labor intensive; for example, in 1850 it took an estimated 250 hours to harvest 100 bushels of wheat (author, unpublished data). The self-sufficient model of agriculture endorsed social and familial relationships over profit as a motive for production, and it fostered a nascent environmentalism among farmers (Reznick 2007).

The Homestead Act of 1860 was landmark agricultural legislation that facilitated agricultural growth across the U.S. In contrast to European agricultural models, this transfer of public land to individuals was based on the Jeffersonian ideals of one family-one farm, land improvement, and an egalitarian value of land ownership (Lockeritz 1984). Farmers were granted 160-acre parcels if they would agree to settle and farm them. The Act implemented a one-sized model across the U.S., and farmers were encouraged to use the same farming methods across the semi-arid Great Plains and the humid prairies. Lockeritz (1984) attributed some of the exacerbated soil loss during the Dust Bowl era to this. By 1890, most of the better farmland in the U.S. was settled.

Maine’s agricultural history followed a similar subsistence-based production model. Most of Maine’s dairy farms were established in the central and southern parts of the state while the high-quality loam soils in Aroostook County were well-suited for potato production (Day 1963). Maine’s blueberry industry began in the 1840s. Most Maine farms were rather productive for the 1850s: corn yields ranged from 60 to 80 bushels per acre for the approximately 100,000 acres produced, and potato yields averaged around 250 and 300 bushels per acre (Maine Board of Agriculture 1860).

GROWTH OF INDUSTRIAL FARMING AND A MARKET-BASED FARM ECONOMY

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he break from subsistence-oriented farming to a market-based, industrial model started with the arrival of the railroad. In Maine, rail allowed farmers to market crops such as sweet corn and potatoes

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throughout the East Coast and marked a period of great farm growth in Aroostook County (Reznick 2007). At the peak in early 1900s, the Maine sweet corn industry supported more than 110 canneries.

Fertilizer use on farms began to increase with improvements in transportation across the U.S. The discovery, mining, and production of rock phosphate from apatite deposits in South Carolina greatly boosted productive capacity for farmers growing crops in phosphorus-limited soils.

Peak agricultural growth in the U.S. occurred at the end of World War I. Urban population growth, spurred by a growing manufacturing industry, increased demand for food and stimulated food prices such that farm incomes were on par with those in other sectors of the economy. The U.S. farming population peaked with 32 million people working on 6.5 million farms in 1920. By 1920, farming efficiency continued to improve: fertilizer sales were at 3.7 million tons/year, and it took 25 hours to harvest 100 bushels of wheat (author, unpublished data).

Maine farm numbers peaked with 64,309 farms in 1880 (Smith 2004). The arrival of the railroad brought new industries to Maine; starch manufacturing, for example, helped stimulate a seven-fold increase in potato production between 1870 and 1890.

While in 1870 there were 1,600 potato farms smaller than 50 acres, by 1900, there were more than 2,500 farms under 100 acres and another 2,500 farms between 100 and 175 acres in size (Reznick 2007).

By 1900, potato acreage had grown to 42,000 acres (Watson 1942), and by 1910 potatoes represented 50 percent of farm revenues in the state (Smith 2004). By 1930, there were more than 6,000 farmers involved in potato production on almost 250,000 acres and more than 1,200 dairy farms (Day 1963).

While the steam engine facilitated fertilizer and commodity shipments around the U.S., the gasolinepowered tractor revolutionized the transition to industrial agriculture. Tractors improved timeliness of planting and harvest and often made the difference between crop success and failure. Stock required feed, and tractors allowed hay land to be converted to cropland. Some 4.5 million horses and mules used on U.S. farms in 1920 were replaced by 1.2 million tractors by the end of World War II (White 2008). Many farm

workers replaced by tractors moved to the cities and became part of the industrial economy.

The Great Depression changed how the government approached agricultural farm policies. New practices and policies such as price supports, purchasing grain to reduce inventories, and payments to farmers to not grow crops when supply exceeded demand changed the face of agriculture. This was important to maintain farm numbers and farm economic health, and this model of economic support continued through the 1970s. (See Hayes, this issue, for further details on the history of federal farm policy.)

HISTORY OF THE NORTHEAST U.S. FISHING INDUSTRY

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he early history of fishing in Maine was built on a great wealth of resources. The abundance of fish in the Gulf sustained Native Americans and attracted the first European settlers. For centuries following the European settlement of Maine, when fish were plentiful in the Gulf of Maine, it seemed unlikely to most that there would ever be a day when these fisheries would be at risk for depletion or collapse. Due in part to many human-related factors, including inaccurate or insufficient data collection and monitoring, disruption of fish-spawning grounds, damming of rivers, industrial and residential pollution, and greater mechanization of fishing techniques which allowed for larger catches, however, the abundance of fish— groundfish in particular—in the Gulf of Maine has declined greatly.

In recent years, Maine’s fishery has lost its diversity, becoming heavily dependent on lobster. This has been driven by an unprecedented increase in lobster population, depletion in several other important Maine fisheries, and federal regulations that have shifted access to the fishery out of state and consolidated control of those resources away from small-scale, owner-operated entities. The increase in lobster population is reflected in the landings. In 2011, landings are projected at 100 million pounds, after a steady increase that started in the late 1980s.

On land, much of the processing infrastructure has been lost. As a result, 70 percent of lobster is now shipped to Canada for processing. Along with the lost

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processing jobs and fewer fishermen involved in fisheries other than lobster, we also run the risk of losing the knowledge and skill that these workers have obtained through generations of labor, which can affect future opportunities for economic development in Maine’s fisheries. (Alden, this issue, discusses prospects for Maine’s fisheries.)

CHANGING NATURE OF U.S. FARMS

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ollowing World War II (WWII), a highly industrial farm model focused on maximizing farm efficiency replaced any vestige of Jeffersonian farm idealism. Agricultural production themes of concentration, specialization and standardization have shaped the entire food system (Fitzgerald 2005). Growers readily adopted new technologies to replace older ones, including synthetic nitrogen fertilizers for biologically fixed nitrogen from clover rotations; herbicides for cultivation for weed control; and synthetic insecticides for crop rotations to control pests. The ramifications of these soil- and crop-management decisions are discussed further in Beal and Jemison (this issue), but include increasing eutrophic dead zones in coastal waters (Diaz and Rosenberg 2008), pesticides in surface and ground water (Sullivan et al. 2009), numerous failed agricultural chemicals due to herbicide and insecticide resistance (Chaudhry 2008), and a growing list of dangerous microbes that haunt the food supply apparently as a direct result of specific farming practices (Altekruse 1999; Rocourt 2003). With each of these decisions came greater efficiency, ease, and improved yields. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, growers adopted genetically modified (transgenic) crops with the fastest rate of adoption in agricultural history.

One might question why these changes were so readily adopted by farmers and tolerated by consumers.

It is possible that the post-WWII optimism created by the successful use of technology that led the U.S. and its allies to victory may have been seen as the answer to feeding a growing population? Another possible answer may lie in what Burkhardt (1992) called productionism, which describes a deep, primarily Western, desire to generate products, service, work, or outputs.

Immigrants who settled into farm life in America came from families that had struggled economically in the

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“old country,” and they found farm life in the U.S. to be a similar existence. Farmers offered an opportunity to produce more with less physical work may have readily adopted new technology as it appealed to their natural drive to be productive. Further, with industrial agriculture came a promise of more time to enjoy life.

Unfortunately, for the most part, the promise of an easier life was not realized. Increasing farm specialization exacerbated the problem. Corn farmers for example all sold the same product: #2 grain corn.

The way to get ahead in the increasingly specialized agricultural market was to produce more corn than one’s neighbor, and grow it as cheaply as possible.

Farmers bought bigger tractors, larger improved combines, and hybrid seed, and they produced more corn. But, the more corn they sold, the lower the price fell. As Roberts (2008) describes, although it was a boon to consumers, for farmers it was a slow motion disaster. Growers had to spread costs over more acres, forcing them to buy more land and buy out smaller farms, causing farm numbers to fall and farm size to grow. Since the adoption of the industrial model, conventional commodity farmers have had little choice but to expand their farms or sell out. Livestock farmers involved in vertically integrated livestock production are in a similar position.

Interestingly, despite the obvious failures of the system, support for industrial agriculture today continues virtually unabated. It is particularly difficult to understand when the safety of the food system and health of the consumer have degraded, the number of producers leaving farming continues to increase, companies supplying fertilizers and chemicals to farmers continue to merge or be bought out, and governmental support for research and extension continues to decline.

What appears to propel agriculture forward is an apparent steady supply of inexpensive food and a strong industry lobby that works to ensure the food system, as we know it today, remains on course.

GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF INTENSIVE LIVESTOCK PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING

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ew topics in agriculture generate as much (often highly polarizing) discussion as the livestock industry. To some, livestock production and meat

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consumption are an anathema. To others, livestock production is essential to the food system due to their capacity to convert cellulose to protein. No solution will be acceptable to all, but understanding the positive and negative ramifications of various means of livestock management may be informative.

Industrialization of the meat industry directly reflects changes found on other production farms across the U.S. Poultry, pork, and beef operations have grown larger and fewer in numbers. Changes in breeding and widespread use of prophylactic antibiotics to promote growth have improved production efficiency and decreased the length of time to get animals to harvest (Roberts 2008). However, this has caused an overabundance of meat leading to (1) low meat prices and difficult economic times for livestock producers; (2) food marketers being forced to create new uses for poultry and pork, increasing average caloric intake; (3) concerns about aquifer depletion from irrigating grain; and (4) increased concerns about greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on the environment. Further, intensive production and high-volume meat-processing conditions featured recently in popular films such as Food, Inc. have caused many consumers to seek meat produced using organic or natural production methods or to eliminate meat from their diet.

Researchers have evaluated the efficiencies of various types of cattle-production methods. Some such as Capper, Cady and Bauman (2009), using a strictly economic life-cycle analysis approach, have stated that confined-animal-feeding operations (CAFOs) are less environmentally damaging than grazing livestock.

However, they do not take into account reduced externalities, the esthetic benefit of seeing livestock grazing, or cow health. Cattle grown on grass take longer to reach slaughter weight and may have higher overall methane emissions compared to feed lot beef (Johnson and Johnson 1995), but grass-fed beef has also been shown to have an improved fatty-acid profile and have a higher antioxidant content than grain-fed beef (Daley et al. 2010). Grass feeding also may reduce the risk of shedding E. coli 0157 contamination (Smith 2006), and provides an efficient means of manure distribution and reduced risk of water contamination compared to feedlot beef production. We believe grazing livestock is an effective means of converting cellulose to protein and

provides a vital source of plant nutrients to organic farms. In contrast, feeding cattle seven to eight pounds of grain per pound of cattle weight gain is a poor use of limited resources. Finally, reducing consumption of meat produced from high-input grain systems should improve human health and reduce environmental externalities

What appears to propel agricul­ture forward is an apparent steady supply of inexpen­sive food and a strong industry lobby that works to ensure the food system, as we know it today, remains on course.

ALTERNATIVE/SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE

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ritique of the industrial model of agricultural production and support for alternative farming models began to grow in the 1960s and 1970s. Perhaps no one has more eloquently described the art of farming, along with the beauty and value of the small farm to the rural community, than Wendell Berry (1977, 2009). His writings, combined with those of Rachel Carson, Wes Jackson and others, built the foundation for the sustainable agriculture movement that would gain significant traction a decade later and ultimately gain widespread acceptance (Jackson 1984).

In Maine, dissent with industrial agriculture started with the foundation of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). Formed in 1971 as an educational organization to support organic farmers, today MOFGA is the oldest organic agriculture organization in the U.S. Despite sustainable agriculture’s mainstream acceptance, a single definition of sustainable agriculture remains elusive. To some, sustainable agriculture involves how the food is produced (organic or biodynamic, for example); to others, it concerns where it

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is produced (local being more important than process); or it may be a blend of these with concerns over carbon emissions. To the dismay of some, Monsanto recently adopted the term for its corporate promotion: “Sustainable agriculture is at the core of Monsanto.

We are committed to developing the technologies that enable farmers to produce more crops while conserving more of the natural resources that are essential to their success” (www.monsanto.com). A cynic might argue that Monsanto co-opted the organic moniker to garner market advantage; others have argued that sustainable agriculture, as a term, is so broad and vague that almost anything can fit (Farshad and Zinck 1993).

Key components that we find critical to a successful, sustainable future for agriculture are (1) conservative soil-management and soil-fertility practices that build the soil resource; (2) use of cultural and alternative pest-management methods; (3) local food systems that build rural communities; (4) a closer interaction of grower and consumer through farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA); and (5) a just pricing structure that will ensure farm success. Few of these characteristics are found in today’s industrial agricultural model.

GROWING WAISTLINES AND INDUSTRIAL FOOD

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he trends in industrial agriculture, particularly efficiency, concentration, and standardization reflect the changes seen within the U.S. food system over the past 40 years. Food processors are expanding by buying out other processors and vertically integrating supply and distribution networks, which allows increasing control over food output and costs (Wallinga 2009). A definite power shift has occurred in the food system; where farmers once had great influence over policies and production strategies, crop and livestock production decisions are controlled more by food processors and marketers dictating what is on grocery shelves. Further, food processors have influenced USDA to develop third-party audit systems so that processors can verify that farmers are following specific agricultural practices (www.ams.usda.gov).

While dietary guidelines have been developed to help Americans eat a balanced diet, few Americans

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meet the guidance for fruit and vegetable consumption. Today, the majority of grocery store shelf space is filled with processed foods. Due to improved production efficiencies and concentration within the food industries, it is often less expensive to buy processed food products than to buy meats, fruits, and vegetables and produce home-cooked meals. Unfortunately, processed foods are higher in fats and sugar and generally more calorie dense than fruits and vegetables.

Between 1970 and 2003, Americans’ caloric consumption increased on average more than 500 calories per day (Farrah and Buzby 2005). Exacerbating the problem is the increased demand for, and consumption of, food away from home (FAFH); consumption of calories derived from FAFH grew from 18 percent in the late 1970s to approximately 32 percent in the mid-1990s (Guthrie, Lin and Frazao 2002). Binkley (2006) has recently reported similar percentage increases in FAFH since the mid-1990s. By giving away much of the responsibility of food preparation, consumers lose control over food content (fats, sugar, sodium) and portion size with FAFH; but they have gained extra time.

People are increasingly choosing to trade food preparation for the opportunity to work more and increase their disposable income. This has apparently been an easy sell, as Americans spend more than $100 billion per year for FAFH (Jahren and Kraft 2008).

The downside has been increased average weight, poorer health, increased diabetes, and a loss of food culture and capacity in the kitchen. It is hard to imagine, but we live in a world where a billion people are malnourished and another billion are overweight.

QUI BONO?

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he winners in the new U.S. food system are grain commodity dealers (ADM and Cargill, for example), producers of processed foods, and most livestock producers (primarily chicken and pork producers). Their profits are well served by prices remaining at or below the cost of production. They benefit from improved crop pricing and are mostly unaffected by production externalities such as nitrate leaching, estuary eutrophication, and pesticide contamination of water supplies. Losers in the new system

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include most grain farmers, the environment, and consumers. While gross farm income has risen steadily over the last 80 years, long-term real net worth on farms has slowly declined (Wise 2006). Farmers who have survived have increased farm size and bought equipment that will allow them to cover the land and produce food more efficiently (Paul and Nehring 2003).

As Berry (2009) stated there is a limit to how much land a farmer can work and manage well from a basis of knowledge. This leads to further soil and nutrient loss, poorer ecosystem health, and increased dependence on oil. With fewer farmers, political influence is diminished and reliance on food imports increases, stressing petroleum reserves. By growing grain at low prices and shipping it to other countries, we effectively get all the externalities at taxpayer expense. Finally, the health ramifications of cheap food are becoming increasingly apparent. What is not always apparent is the socioeconomic tie between income and poor foodconsumption patterns. Lower-income Americans tend to purchase higher-calorie foods and are less likely to meet the dietary guidelines than wealthier Americans (Golan et al. 2008). Many low income Americans work more than one job, and most do not have the money or the time to prepare quality food. As we look to develop a sustainable future food system, ensuring quality food for people of all income levels is essential.

CONCLUSIONS

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ur relationship with food has changed dramatically over the course of history. This brief look at some of these changes is useful to help us plan and develop a more sustainable food system in the future.

The importance of developing sustainable food systems now will be essential to avoid food shortages, famine, and economic/governmental collapse. With population rising, arable soils declining, and water resources affected, the challenges are clear. The following paper delves into the challenges our food system faces as we look to the future. Knowledge of where we have been is essential to direct where our food system must go.

Given our land area, water resources, and proximity to markets, Maine will play a key role in what seems surely to be a very different food system from that which we have today. -

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John M. Jemison Jr. is an extension professor at

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the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. In addition to his work as

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a water-quality and soil specialist, he has been interested in sustainable food systems on a community and regional level. He recently taught an honors class entitled “Food Systems: Challenges and Opportunities.”

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Maine Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 413.

Amanda Beal is cofounder of the Eat Local Foods

White, William J. 2008. “Economic History of Tractors in the United States.” EH.net. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/white.tractors.history.us [Accessed May 13, 2011]

Coalition of Maine’s “By Land and By Sea” project.

She is a 2011 master’s

Wise, Timothy. 2006. Identifying the Real Winners from U.S. Agricultural Policies. Global Development and Environment Institute Working Paper No. 05-07.

Tufts University, Medford, MA. http://ase.tufts.edu/ gdae/pubs/wp/05-07realwinnersusag.pdf [Accessed May 13, 2011]

degree candidate in the agriculture, food and environment program at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Previously, she spent several years working in public health on various initiatives on sustainable food systems in Maine.

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Resource, Environment and Energy Considerations for Maine Food Security in 2050 and Beyond

by Amanda Beal John M. Jemison Jr.

H

ow will we feed the world in 2050? This popular and perplexing question is being asked by policymakers, agronomists, academics, economists, and scientists from many disciplines around the world today.

As the global population continues to grow, there will be increasing pressure on the collective resources we currently depend on to produce food. Fossil fuel is one of the most talked-about food-production inputs with potential to greatly affect food prices and availability.

Other critical resources, however, such as viable soil, essential nutrients, and water, are also of great concern.

In the case of some inputs, scientists warn that we are now traveling on the downside of the supply curve for multiple resources on which we are heavily reliant

172 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

for conventional food production. Some have likely “peaked” in their availability, or at least easy accessibility, already. If we are to take these projections into account as we look for answers to the “2050” question, certain methods we have come to rely on for food production may not be viable in the future.

Answers and opinions differ about this complex question of feeding the world. Unfortunately, many of the proposed solutions receiving the most research dollars rely on increasing food production and distribution using means that either expedite the depletion of limited resources or degrade other resources critical to ensuring long-term food production. Some proposed solutions to the 2050 paradox are also highly reliant on the hope that new technologies can be developed in time to head off a food-supply crisis. Yet, for a growing global population with increasing energy demands, combined with current energy volatility, it is unclear how—or whether—technology-dependent solutions will be economically accessible and practical for farmers and fishermen in the future.

It is also important to recognize that it may not be forward-thinking enough to resolve how to feed the world in 2050 if it means we are not also equipped to feed the world 50 or even 250 years beyond that. If we are to meet this longer-reaching goal, we should challenge how “sustainable” our current practices are in the face of diminishing resources; further, we must strategize how to create food-production systems that conserve and recycle key resources as much as possible and are highly resilient and adaptable in the face of ongoing ecosystem changes and human population needs.

It is difficult for many people to understand that there could be a future food-security crisis. And perhaps even more difficult to imagine is how it would affect us here in Maine, a state that is currently resource rich and located in the wealthiest nation on the planet.

The answer may have everything to do with how we, in Maine, prioritize our use of resources and the investments we make to develop our local food-production and -distribution capabilities over the next few decades.

What we cannot rely on in the future is the ongoing availability of abundantly cheap food. Today’s food system is dependent on intensive inputs, some of which may become too costly to extract or produce. It is also the source of many undesirable externalities that

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Today’s food system affect watershed quality, ecosystem balance, and human health. The system is vulnerable to numerous global events, including natural disasters and economic and political events such as price spikes and export bans.

For these reasons and others that will be described in greater detail in the remainder of this paper, it is in our best interest for Maine to consider its capacity to feed itself and also to contribute to a larger regional foodshed in 2050 and beyond.

In the following sections of this paper, we look more closely at the resource- and energy-related factors that must be considered, both globally and locally, as we think about the best course forward to ensure that we are able to make decisions about how to best use our own resources. In the conclusion, we emphasize the existing assets and opportunities for building a successful and resilient food system that can assure long-term food security for Maine’s people.

RESOURCES

A

lthough often talked about as isolated components, the food system relies on a web of related resource availability. Many incomplete or misleading arguments are crafted around omissions or distortions of the interrelated nature of these relationships. However, to move toward more sustainable food-production systems, we must look at the interconnection of resource issues.

We believe we must protect the wealth of alreadyexisting “natural capital,” keeping in mind both resources with quantifiable value that we rely on for economic development and income generation and resources that provide valuable ecosystem services via natural cycles such as nutrient recycling, water filtration, and erosion control. Currently, it looks as though we are on track to deplete certain types of natural capital whose depletion we could conceivably adapt to, such as fossil fuel. There are others, such as fresh water, without which it would be extremely difficult to exist. The importance of considering the value of natural capital is often overlooked in the focus on financial, physical, human, and social capital elements of the economic nexus. Although determining valuation of natural capital is a complicated process, understanding the costs of failing to protect against the degradation of these resources is of growing interest to industry and environmentalists. In global

terms, it is estimated that, overall, “the economic cost of biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation” lies somewhere between “US$2 and US$4.5 trillion (3.3 – 7.5% of global GDP)” (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2010: 2). Understanding the value of natural capital will become increasingly important as key resources are depleted.

Following is a brief snapshot of issues and projections pertaining to specific key resources on which we are currently reliant for food production.

Energy

is dependent on intensive inputs, some of which may become too costly to extract or produce. It is also the source of many undesirable externalities that affect

Ongoing discussion about watershed quality, peak oil has been driving interest in alternative-energy developecosystem balance, ment to a certain degree.

However, recent reports indicate and human health. that this is an area of research and development that will need to accelerate to keep pace with overall energy demands, which are steadily increasing as some developing nations, such as China, acquire more wealth and model the energyconsumption patterns of developed nations. World oil demand is projected to grow 50 percent by 2025 (Hirsch 2005). Remaining oil reserves may be markedly lower than was once thought, further increasing the urgency to find ways to generate energy through alternative sources and to pursue concurrent strategies that could conserve energy or reduce energy usage.

Researchers report that oil reserves may have been exaggerated by as much as one-third by OPEC, accused of over-reporting reserve levels since the 1980s as a strategy for securing global market share; demand for oil could begin to outpace supply by 2015 (Owen Inderwildi and Kinga 2010). The conclusions concur with Hirsch’s notion that the “era of plentiful, low-cost petroleum is approaching an end” (Hirsch 2005: 1).

Domestically, the U.S. Geological Survey (2010) has found that the estimated volume of undiscovered oil in

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the Alaskan National Petroleum Reserve is as much as 90 percent lower than previously released estimates.

The report by Hirsch (2005: 7–8) points out that “motor vehicles, aircraft, trains, and ships simply have no ready alternative to liquid fuels,” and that the widespread availability of alternative and renewable energy sources for “use in transportation is at best many decades in the future.” This has implications for the cost of producing and moving food around the globe in the way to which we have become accustomed.

Although some researchers argue that building locally based food systems is not a cost-effective strategy for feeding people, based on these energy predictions, it is probably wise to entertain the idea that this may not always be the case, and in fact, shortening the transportation chain from producer to consumer may prove to be a necessary strategy for reducing the impact of rising energy costs.

…shortening the transportation chain from producer to consumer may… be a necessary strategy for reducing

Nutrients and Energy

the impact of rising energy costs.

In the U.S., the majority of our energy comes from fossil fuels. Estimates suggest that 19 percent of our total fossil use is dedicated to food-production activities, including agricultural production and post-farm activities such as processing, packaging, distribution, and storage, corresponding to about 2,000 liters of oil per person per year (Pimentel et al. 2008). Although not the largest user of energy in the U.S., agriculture and food-production activities are areas of interest for promoting reduced use of fossil fuels and the use of renewable energy because of the certain impact increased energy prices would have on food prices.

Fishing boats today operate primarily on diesel fuel, with some gasoline and kerosene use, which ultimately accounts for about 1.2 percent of annual global oil consumption (Tyedmers, Watson and Pauly 2005).

Although this translates to a relatively small percentage 174 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

of overall U.S. energy use, the increasing growth of scale and mechanization in the fishing industry leaves it quite vulnerable to rising energy costs. On the topic of scale, it has been estimated that, “small-scale fisheries employ 25 times more people and use one-quarter the fuel to catch roughly the same amount of edible fish” (Jacquet and Pauly 2008: 832). This, along with numerous other concerns related to the sustainability of this industry, is why many fisheries advocates have been calling for policies that are more supportive of smallscale, independent-operator fishing vessels and that protect the industry from further consolidation.

There is another important relationship between overall energy use and the world’s fisheries. The oceans absorb an estimated 25 percent of the CO2 emitted from human activities annually, and as we use more energy, we produce more CO2 (Hoegh-Guldberg et al.

2007). Increasing ocean acidity affects photosynthetic processes, dissolves coral reef structures, and inhibits the ability for shellfish to effectively access calcium carbonate to build their shells. This could potentially lead to “disturbances in the populations of shelled organisms…leading to ecosystem-wide changes” (Chai et. al 2009: 19).

Synthetic nitrogen is the fertilizer nutrient used most in conventional agriculture. Its availability and relationship to energy is a growing concern. More than half the nitrogen ever used as a synthetic fertilizer has been used since 1985 (McIntyre et al. 2009). And although nitrogen itself is abundant, converting it to a plant-available fertilizer form (starting with anhydrous ammonia) requires natural gas as an input in the highly energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process. The link between rising energy costs and the mechanisms we rely on to produce nitrogen fertilizer have resulted in the theory that we may be moving toward “peak nitrogen.” As Pimental et al. (2008: 462) note, “As fossil fuels become scarce, costs for the production of synthetic fertilizers will rise. This economic pressure will force farmers to seek alternative sources to meet their nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium demands.”

Fortunately, legume cover crops, the pre-World War II standby to supply nitrogen to grass crops, remain a viable alternative. This would require considerably

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more land to be in production, but legumes grown as cover crops are also beneficial in terms of carbon sequestration, a goal of greenhouse-gas mitigation (Wang, Li and Alva 2010).

Intensive corn production continues to be a serious threat to water resources and coastal fisheries in many areas of the U.S., with 25 to 30 percent of the nitrogen applied at economic optimum rates leached to ground water (Jemison and Fox 1994; Toth and Fox 1998).

Since ground water feeds most surface water supplies, most of the leached nitrogen ends up in coastal systems. This disrupts nutrient balance, leading to algal blooms and die-offs; bacteria that decompose the algae deplete oxygen, leaving levels too low to support fisheries in the hypoxic zones. The relationship indicates that we must adopt more sustainable fertility practices.

As Maine looks to increase production of local foods, we should strive to implement more efficient food- and livestock-production systems to protect fisheries.

Phosphorus is another essential and abundantly applied nutrient in agriculture. World phosphorus use in agriculture tripled from 1960 to 1990 and continues to rise (McIntyre et al. 2009). In fact, peak phosphorus may be even closer than peak nitrogen. It is estimated that we will have depleted sources of this nutrient readily available through mining activities by 2033, after which time phosphorus is likely to become increasingly more expensive to obtain (Soil Association 2010).

Poorly timed or excess applications of phosphorus can result in nutrient loss to surface waters, contribute to eutrophication, and degrade water resources.

Phosphorus added to livestock feed provides another pathway for this nutrient to be excreted and eventually leach into the watershed. Efforts to reduce the amount of phosphorus added to feed can help reduce this effect, and maintaining proper storage and application of animal wastes are key factors in mitigating nitrogen and phosphorus loss also. Approximately 90 percent of phosphorus eventually excreted by humans is never returned to the soil, suggesting the need for greater investment into systems that can safely recapture phosphorus from sewage treatment systems (Soil Association 2010).

Pesticides and Energy

Pesticide production represents another use of energy in agriculture, as synthetic pesticides used in

conventional farming are petroleum-based materials.

To make one pound of the active ingredients in synthetic pesticides, it takes the equivalent of a gallon of diesel (Duffy 2001). Utilizing techniques to reduce pesticide use, such as Integrated Pest Management (IPM), and adopting alternative weed and pest management practices are part of the collection of forwardthinking strategies we will need in order to assure economically feasible and abundant food production in the future. Methods include using novel cropping sequences (e.g., double cropping wheat and short season corn to control weeds), increasing on-farm biodiversity, improving soil health and incorporating insect management methods such as interplanting crops that repels target pests and/or planting a diversion crops that attracts pests away from the crop of interest.

Water

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization Water Development and Management Unit, agriculture is responsible for 70 percent of global water use (www.fao.org). Water is one of the main limiting factors for feeding a growing population (Rosegrant, Cai and Cline 2002). By 2030, demand for water is projected to outstrip supply by 40 percent, and an estimated half the world’s population is likely to live in areas of high water stress (Enviromental Resources Management 2010). In some areas the rate of water use has already resulted in depleted groundwater stores and drained lakes and riverbeds, leading to conflicts over water rights, and in some cases, commodification and privatization of water access. This can ultimately lead to decreased opportunities for localized food production.

In some coastal areas, excessive water drawdown has also caused salinization, as sea water encroaches into aquifers, further reducing available freshwater supply.

Increasing areas of irrigation for agricultural purposes is one of the strategies proposed for increasing world food production, which clearly may not be sustainable and may actually threaten the long-term supply of water available for other essential purposes.

Water “hot-spots” in the U.S. have already been identified, mostly in the West where agriculture is highly dependent on irrigation for crop success. This area is also one that is most likely to experience reduced water availability due to population growth, increased

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competition for water use, and effects of climate change (resulting in predicted shifts in precipitation and evapotranspiration) (NRDC 2010). Maine and other New England states have a lower overall risk of water shortage than other parts of the U.S., suggesting that agriculture may be less directly affected by water supply issues. Water quality, however, is of great importance.

Various sources of pollution are continuously compromising freshwater sources and marine environments, and consequently affected the health of our marine and freshwater fisheries (Sumpter 2009). Human use of chemicals has a great impact on water quality, stemming from agricultural inputs such as nitrates, phosphorus and pesticides, along with chemicals used in aquaculture, discharges from other types of industry, pharmaceutical use in people and animals, stormwater runoff and overflows from sewage-treatment facilities.

A recently published multi-state needs assessment estimates that the Gulf of Maine would require $3 billion and a five-year intensive clean-up to restore water quality and overall habitat (Taylor 2010).

Land

Currently, more than half of the earth’s land surface is intensively used for agricultural purposes, including cultivation, grazing, plantation forestry, and aquaculture; since 1950, it is estimated that a third of the arable land used for agriculture has been subjected to moderate to severe degradation (McIntyre et al. 2009).

Five to seven million hectares of productive land is lost each year due to degradation (of physical, chemical, and biological origin) (FAO 1996). The estimated cost of global soil erosion related to agriculture is $400 billion per year, and in the U.S., $44 billion per year is attributed to erosion costs (Eswaran, Lal and Reich 2001).

Projections for anticipated future global land use change, which predicts an expansion of 400 million hectares, is also expected to affect land use-related air emissions and overall air quality (McIntyre et al. 2009).

In the conversion of land, there are rising concerns that acquisition will be at the cost of some of the world’s most economically disadvantaged. Rising food costs in 2007 and 2008 have resulted in an acceleration of “land grabbing” as more affluent countries have been making deals with landowners or government representatives to purchase large tracts of land for their own 176 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

present or future food needs. Along with significant social-justice implications, there is also the question of who will have access to water “downstream.” Rarely are any legal protections available to abutting landowners, leaving them without recourse if the new landholders diverts water for their own use.

As global interest in acquiring arable land rises, here in the U.S. we are allowing viable farmland to slip away.

The 2007 Natural Resources Inventory reported that between 2002 and 2007, 4,080,300 acres of active agricultural land (crop, pasture, range, and land formerly enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program) were converted to developed uses; there was a 13,773,400acre decline in prime farmland between 1982 and 2007 nationwide (USDA 2009). In Maine, from 1982 to 2007 cropland showed a nearly 30 percent decline while pastureland was reduced by 50 percent.

OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

Waste

Each year, as much as 40 percent of total food produced is lost to waste. In developing countries, waste takes place largely on farms or during transport or processing, primarily due to insufficient infrastructure to get food to market. However, in developed countries most food waste is produced at the foodservice, retail, or home stage of storage or preparation (Godfray et al.

2010). In considering factors leading to food waste, it is important to recognize that all of the inputs, limited and unlimited, used to produce this food are also wasted, which in the case of energy can be quantified: “The energy embedded in wasted food represents approximately 2% of annual energy consumption in the United States, which is substantial when compared to other energy conservation and production proposals” (Cuellar and Webber 2010: 6464). In addition, estimates suggest that more than one-quarter of all freshwater use is accounted for by wasted food (Hall et al.

2009). This also raises the question of how much additional food we will really need to produce by 2050, and how much of our attention should be focused on where it is produced or how it is distributed, in addition to reducing consumer food waste in developed countries.

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Climate Change and Biodiversity

The scientific consensus on the reality of climate change is beyond debate, leaving one of the biggest questions now, “how fast should we seek to move from the status quo to a sustainable food system? The challenges of climate change and competition for water, fossil fuels, and other resources suggest that a rapid transition is essential” (Godfray et al. 2010: 814).

Agriculture is a contributor to climate change. There are also a myriad of ways in which climate change may affect food production: shifting temperatures and seasonal cycles; changing hardiness zones, which could bring new agricultural opportunities along with challenges, as disease and pest patterns are altered; increasing weather events and less predictable rainfall patterns; rising water temperatures resulting in transitioning of resident aquatic species; and numerous other effects. At the same time, agriculture can play a role in mitigating climate change by using methods that increase carbon sequestration (cover cropping), absorbing greenhouse gases and reducing energy consumption.

A comprehensive 2009 University of Maine report details the potential impacts of climate change on the state’s ecosystem and economy. A crucial point is that, “…more than any other state, our social and economic well-being depends on the health and productivity of Maine’s forests, fields, lakes, rivers, and the marine waters of the Gulf of Maine. The diversity of these natural systems and the plants and animals within them result from the wide range of geologic, topographic, and climatic conditions present in the state” (Jacobson et al. 2009: 3).

To protect against the vagaries of weather, we should work to protect and/or enhance the biodiversity of plant and animal species used in food production.

Although current, predominant agricultural methods rely on the widespread use of monoculture crops, we will ultimately have more options for adaptation to a changing ecosystem if we make maintaining a broader genetic profile in seed and animal stocks a priority.

According to an essay in The Economist from October 16, 2008, “Biodiversity underpins ecosystem services.

Bees can’t pollinate, nor can trees store carbon, if they have all died….Diverse systems are better at capturing carbon, storing water and preserving fisheries.”

Other Natural Shocks

The design of our food system, where we produce vast amounts of food (often the same crop or animal) in concentrated areas, provides multiple levels of vulnerability to various natural events. The past several years have seen major natural disasters in different parts of the world—earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, droughts—all of which have affected the food security of the regions where the shock occurred and in some cases produced a ripple effect as vulnerable countries banned exports to assure their own food supply.

If any one of these events had happened—or does happen—in a region that the U.S. depends on for food production or inputs, it is quite possible that we would be affected by a notable disruption to our food system.

Human use of chemicals has a great impact on water quality, stem­ming from agricultural inputs such as nitrates, phos­phorus and pesticides….

Consider this domestic scenario. California is home to five of the 10 top-producing agricultural counties in the U.S. (USDA NASS 2009). The area already experiences volatility in its water supply in a region highly dependent on irrigation. In addition, the San Andreas Fault passes through two of the country’s five largest agricultural counties in California (Kern and Monterey) and through counties directly adjacent to the other three (Fresno, Merced, and Tulare) (USDA ERS 2010). Simulation-based predictions suggest there is up to a 60 percent chance that a moderately intense earthquake could occur on the San Andreas Fault line within the next 25 years, which could significantly disrupt food distribution networks (Rundle et al. 2005; USGS 2008).

Currently, it is estimated that Maine citizens acquire 80 percent of their calories from food imported from outside of the state, making the state especially vulnerable to disasters elsewhere (Maine Department

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Transgenic Crops and Our Vision of a Sustainable Food System As we address the “2050 food problem,” many people are placing their money on transgenic (genetically engineered) crops as the solution. Some supporters argue that we need all options on the table; other times transgenic crops are promoted as the main solution to the problem. Those voicing opposition or questioning the crops are viewed as anti-science or luddites.

Benbrook’s assertion that transgenic crops have increased pesticide use, not decreased it (Benbrook 2009).

For technology to help sustain the food system, it should meet qualities mentioned previously: increase yields, reduce petroleum use, control pests effectively and safely, be safe to consume, and be profitable for farmers. Current transgenic crops have met few of these criteria. To see if a crop technology has a strong influence on yield, governmental statistics on crop yields can be analyzed. Soybean yields from 1979 to 2009 are presented in Figure 1. No one questions that yields have improved over time due to advancements in conventional plant breeding. Using National Agricultural Statistics Service data, we present 30 years of soybean yields. The data show a steady linear increase over time; however, there is no change in slope after Roundup-Ready soybeans were released in 1996. Given the rapid adoption of these soybeans, one should expect an increased slope if the technology were increasing yield. A similar analysis was done with transgenic corn and yielded similar results.

New drought-tolerant and nitrogen-efficient transgenic crops are more complex. Many scientists and policy leaders want to reduce barriers to release these crops.

However, given the complex genetic transformations that effect drought tolerance or nitrogen efficiency, more testing should be required—not less.

Transgenic crops have been profitable to the companies that produce them and have eased crop management.

While crop yield and quality continue to improve, there is little evidence that the gains have been due to herbicide- or insect-resistance technologies. Clearly, transgenic crops will remain a part of our food system. But instead of relying on industry’s claims of doubling crop yield in the next 20 years, we should be teaching farmers to improve soil quality, practice crop rotation, and rely on agroecological methods of production, which provide plants a resilient foundation to feed a growing population in an uncertain climatic future.

Figure 1: Soybean Yields Over Time (USDA

National Agriculture Statistics Service)

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Soybean Yields

Research has been conducted in Maine to evaluate Bt corn (Jemison and Reberg-Horton 2010). In seven experiments conducted over four years, Bt corn reduced insect feeding, but yield and forage quality were not influenced. In research conducted in Pennsylvania, Bt corn benefited growers about 20 percent of the time (Dillehay et al. 2004). You may wonder then why the high adoption rate? Growers have said that they buy transgenic seed to simplify crop management, and less so for profitability (Mauro and McLaughlin 2008). A problem with simplifying management is that growers have overused Roundup on herbicide-tolerant crops and this has led to weed resistance in over 21 species (www.weedscience. org). The industry’s answer now is to make crops resistant to more than one herbicide. This can only lead to greater pesticide use. So, while the insect-tolerant corn and cotton have decreased insecticide use, herbicide use has greatly increased. Based on these reasons and the amount of herbicides used in the U.S., we support Charles

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of Agriculture 2006). While it may make sense from an economic perspective to rely on investments in areaand industry-specific infrastructure, relying on centralized, mass production of food from other places is not the best food-security strategy for Maine. Building capacity to produce and process a greater portion of the state’s food needs locally or regionally is a sensible strategy, as is developing ways to obtain food-production inputs using localized, renewable resources and using more closed-loop nutrient recycling.

Biotechnology

As biotech proponents continue to push for greater public acceptance of genetically engineered food, study results cast doubt on the premise that transgenic seeds hold the answer to feeding the world.

It is especially important to note that promises of increased yields and reduced pesticides use have generally not held up (see sidebar). Furthermore, the amount of money that has been spent on public and private research related to genetically modified organism (GMO) and crop research to date is staggering, yet the overall impact on global hunger is disproportional given this investment. In addition, growing concerns about long-term environmental and human health consequences for GMO use and the potential impacts on biodiversity have been largely swept aside, along with the precautionary principle, giving biotechnology firms the ability to market products without having proven that they are safe.

Although GMO contamination has been reported in canola, corn, and other crops, these products are still available and the burden is most often on the farmer, who has far fewer financial and legal resources than the biotech companies, to prove s/he is the victim of this uncontained technology.

In 2010, the FDA solicited public comments as it considered an application to approve genetically engineered salmon, resulting in nearly 160,000 responses from individuals and organizations voicing concerns (Center for Food Safety 2010). In the case of fish, escapes from aquaculture pens in open ocean systems, which is not a rare occurrence, pose risk to wild populations as genetically engineered fish are not bred for survival and cross-breeding could weaken the gene pool of wild populations.

There are still many unanswered questions about the impact of genetic engineering. Given the costly yet underwhelming results so far, it may be a wiser strategy to focus more on agroecological production and regenerating wild fisheries by investing more funding in the research and development of agricultural and fishery management systems that are less reliant on this technology and more compatible with the geography, scale, and ecosystem in which they are employed.

CONCLUSION

T

he Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) 2010 price index reported that commodity food prices had risen even higher than in 2008, when global price spikes greatly affected food security throughout the world (FAO 2010). The options for building Maine’s capacity to produce food for itself and others in a changing world needs to be at the forefront of policymakers’ discussions right now. This is the time to be charting the course, building infrastructure, and doing so in a way that assures our most valuable resources will be prioritized and protected over the long term. If we choose to not invest considerable thought, money, and time into this process or to delay action, we will be doing a disservice to food producers and citizens. Building capacity will require ongoing and inclusive discussion with multiple farming and fishing industry stakeholders, along with continued research, innovation, and education.

Food production has never been, and likely never will be, a zero-impact activity when it comes to surrounding ecosystems. However, there are ways in which disruption can be minimized and beneficial results maximized. A 2007 FAO report stated, “Conventional agriculture production utilises more overall energy than organic systems due to heavy reliance on energy intensive fertilisers, chemicals, and concentrated feed, which organic farmers forego” (Ziesemer 2007: 4). Pimental et al. (2008: 463) add that “the reduction of pesticide use, increased use of manure, cover crops, and crop rotations can improve energy efficiency in farming systems and enhance human health.” Based on the energy projections summarized previously in this article, it is clearly imperative that we employ proven strategies to reduce

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petroleum-based inputs in food production, from an economic and ecological perspective.

One of the other key lessons one hopes we have learned since the days of Earl Butz and his declaration that farmers should “get big or get out” is that increasing production scale can sometimes mask inefficiencies and externalities, damage the ecosystem, and create excessive waste in a concentrated area. Maine’s geography is actually quite suitable for small- and medium-scale farms, and there are many ways in which to multiply the number of these farms without degrading the state’s collective resources. This actually poses certain advantages, as “Agricultural systems with high social and human capital are able to innovate in the face of uncertainty” (Pretty and Hine 2001: 11).

With many climate and resource changes on the horizon, we believe that small- to medium-sized, diversified farms with less dependence on technology and more locally based food-production systems that can better use renewable resources will be better able to adapt to upcoming challenges.

Likewise, the marine ecology of the Gulf of Maine, on which the state is lucky to be situated, can best be used by small- and medium-scale fishing operations. Within an appropriate fishery management structure, these operations are adaptable and able to produce a tremendous diversity of marine protein in an economically sustainable manner that will contribute to both community health and a stream of high-value food for export from the state. -

REFERENCES Benbrook, Charles. 2009. Impacts of Genetically Engineered Crops on Pesticide Use in the United States: The First Thirteen Years. The Organic Center, Boulder, CO. http://www.organic-center. org/science.pest.php?action=view&report_id=159.

[Accessed May 24, 2011]

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Center for Food Safety. 2010, FDA Committee (VMAC) Split on Recommendations about Controversial Genetically Engineered Salmon.

Center for Food Safety, Washington DC. http:// www.centerforfoodsafety.org/2010/09/20/fdacommittee-vmac-split-on-recommendations-aboutcontroversial-genetically-engineered-salmon/ [Accessed December 15, 2010] Chai, Fei, Paul Anderson, Joseph Kelly, Lewis Incze, Andrew Pershing and Robert Steneck. 2009.

“The Meaning of a Changed Environment:Initial Assessment of Climate Change In Maine.” Maine’s Climate Future: An Initial Assessment, ed. George L. Jacobson, Ivan J. Fernandez, Paul A. Mayewski and Catherine V. Schmitt. University of Maine, Orono. pp. 17–22.

Cuellar, Amanda D. and Michael D. Webber. 2010.

“Wasted Food, Wasted Energy: The Embedded Energy in Food Waste in the United States.”

Environmental Science & Technology 44(16): 6464–6469.

Dillehay, Brian L., Gregory W. Roth, Dennis D. Calvin, Robert J. Kratochvil, Gretchen A. Kuldau and Jeffrey A. Hyde. 2004. “Performance of Bt Corn Hybrids, Their Near Isolines, and Leading Corn Hybrids in Pennsylvania and Maryland.”

Agrononmy Journal 96: 818–824.

Enviromental Resources Management. 2010. CDP Water Disclosure 2010 Global Report. Carbon Disclosure Project, London. https://www.cdproject. net/CDPResults/CDP-2010-Water-Disclosure-GlobalReport.pdf [Accessed November 19, 2010] Eswaran, H., R. Lal and P.F. Reich. 2001. “Land Degradation: An Overview.” Responses to Land Degradation, ed. E.M. Bridges, I.D. Hannam, L.R. Oldeman, F.W.T. Pening de Vries, S.J. Scherr and S. Sompatpanit. USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, DC. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 1996. The State of Food and Agriculture 1996. FAO, Rome. http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/w1358e/w1358e00. htm [Accessed May 24, 2011] Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 2010. World Food Situation: Food Price Indices. FAO, Rome. http://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/wfs-home/ foodpricesindex/en/ [Accessed January 9, 2011]

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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Resource, Environment and Energy Considerations

Godfray, H. Charles, John R. Beddington, Ian R. Crute, Lawrence Haddad, David Lawrence, James F. Muir, Jules Pretty, Sherman Robinson, Sandy M. Thomas and Camilla Toulmin. 2010. “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” Science 327(5967): 812–818.

McIntyre, Beverly. D., Hans R. Herren, Judi Wakhungu and Robert T. Watson (eds.). 2009. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development: Global Report—Agriculture at a Crossroads. Island Press, Washington, DC.

Hall, Kevin D., Juen Guo, Michael Dore and Carson C. Chow. 2009. “The Progressive Increase of Food Waste in America and Its Environmental Impact.”

PLoS ONE 4(11): e7940. http://www.plosone. org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal. pone.0007940 [Accessed October 5, 2010]

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 2010.

Climate Change, Water, and Risk: Current Water Demands Are Not Sustainable. NRDC, New York. http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/ watersustainability/files/WaterRisk.pdf [Accessed November 14, 2010]

Hirsch, Robert L. 2005. The Inevitable Peaking of World Oil Production. The Atlantic Council of the United States, Bulletin XVI(3). http://www.acus. org/docs/051007-Hirsch_World_Oil_Production.pdf [Accessed November 18, 2010]

Owen, Nick A., Oliver R. Inderwildi and David A. Kinga. 2010. “The Status of Conventional World Oil Reserves: Hype or Cause for Concern?” Energy Policy 38(8): 4743–4749.

Hoegh-Guldberg, O., P.J. Mumby, A.J. Hooten, R.S. Steneck, P. Greenfield, E. Gomez, C.D. Harvell, P.F. Sale, A.J. Edwards, K. Caldeira, N. Knowlton, C.M. Eakin, R. Iglesias-Prieto, N. Muthiga, R.H. Bradbury, A. Dubi and M.E. Hatziolos. 2007. “Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification.” Science 318: 1737–1742.

Jacobson, George L., Ivan J. Fernandez, Paul A. Mayewski and Catherine V. Schmitt (eds.). 2009.

Maine’s Climate Future: An Initial Assessment.

University of Maine, Orono.

Jacquet, Jennifer and Daniel Pauly. 2008. “Funding Priorities: Big Barriers to Small-Scale Fisheries.”

Conservation Biology 22(4): 832–835.

Jemison Jr., John M. and Richard H. Fox. 1994.

“Nitrate Leaching from Nitrogen Fertilized and Manured Corn Measured with Zero-tension Pan Lysimeters.” Journal of Environmental Quality 24:337–343.

Jemison Jr., John M. and S. Chris Reberg-Horton.

2010. “Assessing Bt Silage Corn in Maine.” Crop Management doi:10.1094/CM-2010-1022-01-RS. Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. 2006. A Food Policy for the State of Maine. Maine Department of Agriculture, Augusta.

Mauro, Ian J. and Stephane M. McLachlan. 2008.

“Farmer Knowledge and Risk Analysis: Postrelease Evaluation of Herbicide-Tolerant Canola in Western Canada.” Risk Analysis 28: 463–476.

Pimental, David, Sean Williams, Courtney E. Alexander, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, Caitlin Kontak and Steven E. Mulkey. 2008. “Reducing Energy Inputs in the US Food System.” Human Ecology 36: 459–471.

Pretty, Jules and Rachel Hine. 2001. Reducing Food Poverty with Sustainable Agriculture: A Summary of New Evidence. Centre for Environment and Society, University of Essex, Colchester, UK. PricewaterhouseCoopers. 2010. Biodiversity and Business Risk: A Global Risks Network Briefing.

World Economic Forum, Geneva. http://www3. weforum.org/docs/WEF_AM10_PwC_Biodiversity_ BriefingMaterial.pdf [Accessed October 18, 2010] Rosegrant, Mark. W., Ximing Cai and Sarah A.Cline 2002. Global Water Outlook to 2025: Averting an Impending Crisis. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC. http://www.ifpri. org/sites/default/files/pubs/pubs/fpr/fprwater2025. pdf [Accessed December 18, 2010] Rundle, J.B., P.B. Rundle, A. Donnellan, D.L. Turcotte, R. Scherbakov, P. Li, B.D. Malamud, L.B. Grant, G.C. Fox, D. McLeod, G. Yakovlev, J. Parker, W. Klein and K.F. Tiampo. 2005. “A Simulation-Based Approach to Forecasting the Next Great San Francisco Earthquake.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(43): 15363–15367.

Soil Association. 2010. A Rock and a Hard Place: Peak Phosphorus and the Threat to Our Food Security.

Soil Association, Bristol, U.K. http://www.soilassociation .org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=eeGPQJORrkw%3D&t abid=57 [Accessed November 22, 2010]

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Sumpter, John P. 2009. “Protecting Aquatic Organisms from Chemicals: The Harsh Realities.”

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 367(1904): 3877–3894.

Taylor, Peter. 2010. U.S. Gulf of Maine Habitat Restoration and Conservation Plan: A Needs Assessment for Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Gulf of Maine Restoration Coalition, Portland. http://www.gulfofmaine.org/ documents/USGulfofMaineHabitatRestorationand ConservationPlan-DRAFT-10-27-2010.pdf (Accessed December 8, 2010) Toth, John D. and Richard H. Fox. 1998. “Nitrate Losses from a Corn-Alfalfa Rotation: Lysimeter Measurements of Nitrate Leaching.” Journal of Environmental Quality 27: 1027–1033.

Tyedmers, Peter. H., Reg Watson and Daniel Pauly.

2005. “Fueling Global Fishing Fleets.” AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment 34( 8): 635–638.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). 2009.

Summary Report: 2007 National Resources Inventory. Natural Resources Conservation Service, Washington, DC, and Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology, Iowa State University, Ames. http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/technical/NRI/2007/2007_ NRI_Summary.pdf [Accessed November 6, 2010] U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service (USDA ERS). 2010. State Fact Sheets: California. USDA ERS, Washington, DC. http:// www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/CA.htm [Accessed December 5, 2010] U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS). 2009. 2007 Census of Agriculture. USDA, NASS, Washington, DC. http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/ [Accessed December 5, 2010] U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). 2008. “California Has More Than 99% Chance Of A Big Earthquake WIthin 30 Years, Report Shows.” ScienceDaily (April 15). http://www.sciencedaily.com/ releases/2008/04/080414203459.htm [Accessed December 5, 2010] U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). 2010. 2010 Updated Assessment of Undiscovered Oil and Gas Resources of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA). USGS Fact Sheet 2010-3102.

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Wang, Qingren, Yuncong Li and Ashok Alva. 2010.

“Growing Cover Crops to Improve Biomass Accumulation and Carbon Sequestration: A Phytotron Study.” Journal of Environmental Protection 1: 73-84.

Ziesemer, Jodi. 2007. Energy Use in Organic Food Systems. Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. http://www.fao.org/docs/eims/ upload/233069/energy-use-oa.pdf [Accessed October 14, 2010]

Amanda Beal is cofounder of the Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine’s “By Land and By Sea” project.

She is a 2011 master’s degree candidate in the agriculture, food and environment program at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy. Previously, she spent several years working in public health on various initiatives on sustainable food systems in Maine.

John M. Jemison Jr. is an extension professor at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. In addition to his work as a water-quality and soil specialist, he has been interested in sustainable food systems on a community and regional level. He recently taught an honors class entitled “Food Systems: Challenges and Opportunities.”

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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Food Safety

Food Safety

by Alfred A. Bushway Beth Calder Jason Bolton

INTRODUCTION

F

ood safety could be broadly defined as ensuring that food is produced, processed, distributed, and prepared in a fashion that will prevent consumers from harm when the food is consumed. Food safety is closely related to food law, as many of the laws and regulations governing food were enacted to address issues of food safety issues. For example, one of the major aspects of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Law addressed adulteration of food. In many instances, adulteration could be linked to increased risks of foodborne illness among consumers. Subsequently, additional federal laws have been enacted that address food safety as it pertains to for foods in interstate commerce. These laws include the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, Miller Pesticide Amendment of 1954, Food Additive Amendment of 1958, Color Additive Amendment of 1960, Food Allergy Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2006, Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs), Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulations for the seafood, meat and poultry, and fruit- and vegetablejuice processing industries, and most recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011. Foods sold in intrastate commerce are regulated by state laws. In Maine, the agencies involved would include the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources (DOA), Department of Marine Resources (DMR) and the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

Even with the current regulations, numerous foodborne illness outbreaks are reported in the U.S. each year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

(CDC) estimates that foodborne diseases cause about 76 million illnesses, 350,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths annually in the United States (Mead et al.

1999). In the past two years, products implicated in foodborne illness range from meat and poultry to fruits and vegetables, nuts and seafood. To reduce the instances of foodborne illness, particularly those resulting from microorganisms, an approach that addresses food safety from the farm to the fork is being implemented. This approach will rely on providing food-safety education for producers, processors, distributors, wholesalers, and retailers and also the consumer.

HISTORY

F

ood safety dates back to biblical times even though there was no scientific understanding of why consuming certain foods could make one ill or even cause death. Scientists first isolated bacteria as a source of illness in the 1600s, and it wasn’t until the 1800s that research conducted by Nicolas Appert and Louis Pasteur provided the first evidence that thermal processing could preserve foods by reducing the number and type of microorganisms that caused many foodborne illness cases. Nicholas Appert’s research on canning remains the food-safety standard for the canning industry. Pasteur’s research in the 1860s on pasteurization is also still used today to produce safe foods such as dairy products and fruit juices. Many of the currently existing federal and state regulations are in place to aid in providing a safe food supply for all consumers. Many of these regulations are concerned with and address controlling hazards that can be associated with food.

HAZARDS

A

hazard is defined as a condition or contaminant, in or on food, which can cause illness or injury.

Hazards can be biological, chemical, or physical in nature (Table 1).

Most cases of foodborne illness can be traced back to failure to control one or more of these hazards.

Failure to control hazards can occur at any point within the food chain from the farm or boat to the table.

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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Food Safety

Hazard Type

Examples

coding sample food batches for traceability purposes and keeping adequate records so that foods can be tracked in the event of an outbreak of foodborne illness.

Biological

Pathogenic bacteria, parasites, viruses

COMPLEXITY OF FOOD SAFETY REGULATIONS

Chemical

Shellfish toxins, food additives, pesticides, natural food toxins

Physical

Metal, glass, plastic

Table 1:

Types of Hazards

Controlling Hazards

The primary purpose of food-processing technology is to control potential hazards that may be present on or in foods. Safe food processing applies to food processors and also to individual(s) preparing food for the family. Food processors must follow methods for controlling or reducing hazards through cGMPs, sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs), GAP, and/or HACCP during food processing and distribution. Consumers should be educated on proper food handling and preparation via detailed directions on food labels. Older processing technologies such as drying, salting, pasteurization, canning, refrigeration, and freezing are still effective methods to provide a safe food supply. Consumer demand for fresh, minimally processed foods has increased, and newer technologies have been developed to safely produce these foods. High hypobaric pressure processing and irradiation are two examples of these types of processing methods.

Because food-distribution systems have expanded from a national to a global basis, traceability of foods is a growing concern for food safety. For example, a Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak occurred in 2008 and was associated with fresh salsa. In this one outbreak, approximately 1,500 individuals were infected and there were two deaths (Behravesh et al. 2011).

Contaminated tomatoes were first thought to be the causative agent, but subsequent analyses implicated hot peppers as the source of the Salmonella. This one outbreak involved 43 states, Canada, and the District of Columbia. The peppers were grown and packed in Mexico and then distributed in the U.S. Because the food-distribution system is widening and becoming more global, processors should be more vigilant with 184 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

S

everal food regulatory agencies may be involved, depending on the type of food product (meat and poultry, seafood, fruits and vegetables), where the product(s) will be sold (interstate or intrastate commerce), and whether the foods will be sold to retail or foodservice.

To illustrate this complexity, Table 2 includes the regulatory agencies (federal and state) that could potentially be involved working with a Maine company that wanted to process seafood chowder to be sold as a frozen product for both retail and foodservice.

Since this is a seafood product, it must be processed in a facility that is operating under a HACCP plan (21 CFR Part 123), whether this product is sold in intra- or interstate commerce. Thus, the FDA regulations would apply even though the Maine DOA, Quality Assurance and Regulations Division may perform the inspection of the processing facility under a Memorandum of Understanding. Prior to initiation of a HACCP plan, the processor must be operating under cGMPs and have in place SSOPs. One or more of the company’s employees will be required to have completed the seafood HAACCP certification course, which in Maine is offered by a consortium consisting of the FDA, DMR, DOA, the seafood industry, and the University of Maine Cooperative Extension. Also, as a result of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, the processing facility must also be registered with the FDA. The company can register on line at the FDA web site (www.fda.gov). (In Maine, home-based food processors are exempt from this act and do not have to register their home kitchens.)

Upon completion of these steps, the processor would establish the HACCP plan for processing the frozen seafood chowder. HACCP is a food-safety system based on identifying hazards and establishing a process control(s) to eliminate or reduce hazards to an acceptable risk level. In developing the HACCP plan, the processor would establish a flow diagram for

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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Food Safety

Table 2:

processing the seafood chowder. The flow diagram would then be used by the processor to address the seven principles of HACCP, which include conducting a hazard analysis, determining critical control points, establishing critical limits for the critical control points, establishing monitoring procedures for the critical control points, establishing corrective actions if critical limits are exceeded, establishing verification procedures that the HACCP plan is working, and establishing record-keeping and documentation procedures.

If the chowder contains shellfish, there is another step. The DMR regulates shellfish harvesting. Upon receiving shellfish, the processor must have a written guarantee that they were harvested from approved waters. The shellfish must be accompanied by harvester and/or dealer tags that provide information relating to the harvester/dealer, license/certificate number, harvest date and area, and type and quantity of shellfish. This information ensures the processor of the safety of the shellfish.

The seafood chowder would likely contain at least two of the eight most common food allergens (milk and crustacean shellfish), and the processor must comply with the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act when preparing the ingredient statement. While the label of nutrition facts is not directly related to food safety, it does provide the consumer with information on nutrients (cholesterol, trans fats, sodium, among others) that have been demonstrated to have negative health implications.

Finally, at the receiving end (restaurant or other foodservice establishment), the state and federal food codes will provide the foodservice establishment with recommendations for ensuring the safety of the product during receiving, storing, thawing, and preparation.

FUTURE OF FOOD SAFETY

T

he passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 provides the FDA with greater authority in dealing with food safety issues. Provisions in this Act give the FDA authority to initiate mandatory recalls. It increases inspection rates and would require all facilities to have a food-safety plan. Essentially, this would make some form of HACCP mandatory for all segments of the food-processing industry not just

Regulatory Agencies Involved in the Processing of Frozen Seafood Chowder

Step

Regulatory Agency

Prerequisite Programs for HACCP

• Good Manufacturing Practices (FDA) • Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (FDA) • Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002

Plant Registration

• FDA HACCP Plan

• DOA Food and Rural Resources Division of Quality Assurance and Regulations • DMR Shellfish Laws and Regulations Revised April 2011

Harvesting of shellfish

• National Shellfish Sanitation Program (NSSP). The cooperative state-FDAindustry program • Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (FDA)

Labeling

• Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FDA)

Foodservice—Intrastate

• State of Maine Food Code 2001

Foodservice—Interstate

• Federal Food Code 2009

seafood, meat, and poultry, and fruit- and vegetablejuice processing. Thus, there will be food safety challenges that must be addressed at all levels of food processing from multinational corporations to Maine’s small home-based food processors.

A major challenge facing Maine’s small food industry is the lack of infrastructure and/or capital to increase production to meet growing market demands.

Additional obstacles are faced by Maine’s meat and poultry producers, as described in the article by Henrietta Beaufait in this issue. All of Maine’s food processors are faced with challenges associated with the costs of raw ingredients, packaging, energy, and transportation. For small and home-based food processors, there is a need for co-packers who will process 10to 30-case lots of product(s). An alternative being explored in several locations in Maine would be the establishment of shared-use facilities. Food-safety information and training for processors using these facilities would be a collaborative effort involving the staff at the facilities, faculty at the University of Maine Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition and University of Maine Cooperative Extension, and

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 185

ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Food Safety

state and federal regulatory agencies. For the foodservice industry, which traditionally has a high turnover rate, the challenge is to provide continuous food safety and sanitation training for personnel. -

Beth L. Calder is food science specialist for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. She assists the food industry

REFERENCES Behravesh, Casey B., Rajal K. Mody, Jessica Jungk, Linda Gaul, John T. Redd, Sanny Chen, Shaun Cosgrove, Erin Hedican, David Sweat, Lina ChavezHauser, Sandra L. Snow, Heather Hanson, Thai-An Nguyen, Samir V. Sodha, Amy L. Boore, Elizabeth Russo, Matthew Mikoleit, Lisa Theobold, Peter Gerner-Smidt, Robert H. Hoekstra, Frederick J. Angulo, David L. Swerdlow, Robert V. Tauxe, Patricia M. Griffin and Ian T. Williams. 2011. “2008 Outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul Infections Associated with Raw Produce.” New England Journal of Medicine 364: 918–927.

with research and educational programs in areas of food safety and technology. She also works closely with regulatory agencies and agricultural organizations, such as the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association and the Maine Cheese Guild, to further assist farmers and Maine food business growth.

Jason Bolton is an assis-

Beaufait, Henrietta. 2011. “Meat and Poultry Processing.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 187–188.

tant extension professor and statewide food safety

Mead, Paul S., Laurence Slutsker, Vance Dietz, Linda F. McCaig, Joseph S. Bresse, Craig Shapiro, Patricia M. Griffin and Robert V. Tauxe. 1999. “Food-related Illness and Death in the United States.” Emerging Infectious Diseases 5: 607–625.

educator with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and is pursuing a Ph.D. in food science and human nutrition. He is co-founder and president of

Alfred A. Bushway is a

Yo Bon, LLC, whose product, Yo Bon Blueberry Bites, won

professor of food science

the Institute of Food Technologists’ product-development

at the University of Maine.

competition in 2006.

His research has focused on post-harvest quality of fruits and vegetables, and development of new food products. He has published more than 75 scientific articles, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Technologists.

186 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Meat and Poultry Processing

Figure 1: Meat Processing Facilities

Meat and Poultry Processing

By Henrietta E. Beaufait

A

griculture across the U.S. has evolved into agribusiness engaged in large corporate farming since the 1980s. In Maine, farms seemed to stay small, diverse, and relatively vital. Since 2000 there have been a growing number of farmers and part-time farmers who are interested in raising livestock and poultry on their small farms for local distribution.

Extremely large corporate feedlots are almost nonexistent in Maine because they require a landbase large enough for housing, manure storage, transportation of feed and manure for distribution, and the availability of large quantities of animals to process on a frequent basis. On the other extreme, small producers struggle to produce enough product to consistently supply larger markets. The number of farmers’ markets, both seasonal and year-round, has grown, providing viable markets for small producers.

Since 2006, there has been a growing interest by local Maine food producers to create a variety of niche meat products such as sausages, jerky, meat pies, and smoked and cured products. These entrepreneurs are looking for a consistent flow of meat product throughout the year, including beef, pork, lamb, goat, bison, and poultry, to supply markets within Maine or the relatively close urban centers of Boston and New York City. The demand has prompted a few livestock producers to finish animals not only in the traditional fall season, but also throughout the year. The number of farmers hoping to grow and market poultry in all areas of the state has increased sharply in recent years, as has consumer interest in locally grown poultry.

Start-up costs for small inspected poultry processors

have contributed to the lack of inspected state or U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) poultry processing plants in Maine. Local poultry product is therefore kept from reaching consumers within the state and large urban centers outside the state.

With the introduction of the Maine Meat and Poultry Inspection program in 2003, producers now have access to 13 inspected slaughterhouses and processing plants across the state (see map, Figure 1).

In addition to five slaughter establishments regulated

by USDA, there are seven inspected red-meat establishments and one inspected poultry establishment regulated by the Maine Meat and Poultry Inspection

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 187

ENVIRONMENT, RESOURCES AND FOOD SAFETY: Meat and Poultry Processing

program. Inspectors are required to be on-site at each establishment whenever product destined for commerce is slaughtered and processed. Inspection duties include verification that animals presented for slaughter are handled humanely, that these animals are disease free, that meat and poultry products are not adulterated, and that all product is accurately labeled upon presentation to the consumer. The Maine Department of Agriculture (DOA) Meat and Poultry Inspection program exists to protect consumer health and welfare.

The DOA’s policy is to educate constituents to gain compliance with regulations and consumer safety.

The DOA has coordinated and offered many educational opportunities, including beef quality assurance and pork quality assurance programs, training programs in hazard analysis of critical control points (HACCP) for meat and poultry processors, on-farm nutrient management and composting techniques, integrated pest management procedures, and seminars to teach good farm practices and humane handling of all farm animals, including a special visit from international humane-handling expert Temple Grandin, a professor at Colorado State University.

The DOA would like to move forward to promote livestock and poultry product sales in Maine. There is an immediate need for geographically positioned inspected poultry-processing establishments. At least one mid-Maine slaughterhouse is trying to include poultry inspection in its plans for expansion, with a target date of May 2011. This plan may be stymied due to a current lack of meat and poultry inspection staff. The DOA needs the support of the governor and legislature to increase the number of meat and poultry inspection staff to meet the needs of livestock producers and food entrepreneurs in the state. Henrietta E. Beaufait is state veterinarian in the Maine Meat and Poultry Inspection Program of the Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources Division of Quality Assurance and Regulations.

188 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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The Food System Workforce­: Present and Future

People who produce, process, transport, sell, prepare, and serve food are a key part not only of the food system but the economy overall. In Maine, by a conservative estimate they are almost 17 percent of the total workforce and range from farmers and fishermen to truckers, cooks, waitstaff, and cashiers. Some work in food-related enterprises, while others perform foodrelated tasks in other kinds of organizations, such as schools or hospitals. Some live in Maine year-round, while others are seasonal or migrant workers who come to work during the growing season. Although the food-related workforce is diverse, Valerie Carter shows in her article that the majority of workers and entrepreneurs are poorly paid; many work only part-time; few have health insurance or other benefits; and many work under hazardous conditions. In spite of this there is continued growth in employment in Maine’s food sector and in independent enterprises such as farming. We need to do a better job to improve the pay, working conditions, benefits, and supports for food workers and food entrepreneurs. One key to helping this growing workforce, as well as the general population, is education, as Molly Anderson describes in her article. She notes that education in Maine about food, fisheries, and agriculture is provided in a wide variety of venues: formal degrees at colleges and universities; Cooperative Extension; farm-toschool programs; the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA); and even educational farms.

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

Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 189

FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Maine’s Food-related Workforce

Maine’s Food-Related Workforce: Characteristics and Challenges

by Valerie J. Carter

INTRODUCTION

W

hen the U.S. was a predominantly agricultural nation, most people lived in rural areas and produced much of their own food, in economies that were largely local or regional in scope. Today, however, food in the U.S. is produced, processed, distributed, prepared, and served by a diverse and often global labor force. Supermarkets sell products grown or processed from around the world. Within the U.S. much food is grown, processed, and distributed by large multinational corporations and an “agribusiness” sector with international operations (e.g., General Mills, Conagra, and PepsiCo). Large corporations also dominate in retail food sales nationally and globally (e.g., Walmart, Kroger, Target, and Costco)1 and in the restaurant industry (e.g., McDonalds).2 In Maine, the largest supermarket corporation, Hannaford, which is also the state’s largest employer, is now owned by a Belgium-based corporation, the Delhaize Group, which acquired Hannaford in 2000.

Maine food-related workers are a similarly diverse group. Many people across several industries and in scores of occupations contribute to produce and/or harvest crops and animals for food; to process, package and distribute it; to prepare and serve food in restau-

190 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

rants and other locations; to sell it in retail stores; and in some cases, to deliver it by car or truck to your home.

Despite its diversity, the food-related workforce has some widely shared basic characteristics: pay scales tend to be low; workers have limited access to employer benefits such as health insurance, depending on where they are employed; the work can be hazardous; and they tend not to be organized into unions with collective bargaining. As a consequence, many people working in the food sector are at risk of economic insecurity, and even, for the lowest-paid and most vulnerable workers, at risk of being “food insecure” themselves.

This article provides an overview of Maine’s foodrelated workforce, focusing on (1) the primary industries and occupations constituting the food workforce in Maine; (2) characteristics of food-related industries and largest food-related occupations; (3) working conditions, workplace hazards and information on occupational injuries; and (4) the future of Maine’s food-related workforce and policy implications.

This analysis is offered with some major caveats, based on the limitations and complexities of labormarket data and other sources of information. First, most available labor-market data on Maine’s foodsector workforce includes only workers from establishments or occupations included in “covered” employment, i.e., jobs that are covered by unemployment insurance (UI). Hence these data largely exclude important sectors of food-related workers in Maine such as people in the fishing industry and in small-scale agriculture who are self-employed, and some who are working in sole proprietorships or partnerships. People who work “off the books” in various kinds of food-related work (e.g., hunting, gathering fiddleheads, or raising chickens and sharing eggs with friends and neighbors) are also not included in such official statistics. Second, labormarket data based on household surveys (e.g., the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey) cover a broader range of workers, including the selfemployed, but they are subject to sampling errors, which are sometimes substantial, raising issues of reliability. Third, labor-force data collected from employers or establishments may overstate the actual number of persons in the labor force, since multiple job holders (especially those working part-time) may

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FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Maine’s Food-related Workforce

Figure 1:

1.

Food Production

be counted more than once. Finally, many state-level occupational or industry employment numbers for specific categories are not published or available to the public, because the data may be traced to specific employers, so are kept confidential by the Maine Department of Labor.

Given these limitations and caveats, we begin with a basic picture of Maine’s food-related workforce.

MAINE’S FOOD-RELATED INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS: BASICS

Maine Food Chain System

2.

Food Processing 3.

Food Distribution, Transportation and Warehousing 4.

Food Retail Sales

5.

Food Preparation and Serving

Overview of Industry Sectors

A recent report on food workers and issues of “food justice” by the Applied Research Center suggests that food workers can be seen as a “food chain” divided into four broad sectors: production, processing, distribution, and retail and service (Liu and Apollon 2011).

This broad format is a useful starting point in portraying the structure of the food-related workforce.

The model of Maines’ food system used in this article builds on the ARC food chain concept, but has five sectors rather than four, since retail sales of food should be separated from food preparation and serving.

The decision of what constitutes “production” and what constitutes “processing” in this model is not always obvious, so the outline of the food system is meant only as an illustrative guide. The relationships of occupations to industries are not always simple. People in food occupations often work in non-food industries, such as cafeteria workers in a hospital. Similarly, many working in food industries are not in food occupations; for example, a food-manufacturing firm may employ clerical workers, custodial staff, computer technicians, and truck drivers.

The model’s division into five sectors implies that different people and different industries are performing these activities. In practice, the division of labor between these tasks is not always clear-cut. As an example, small farmers who produce food for farmers’ markets may also process the crops, transport them to local farmers’ markets or stores, and sell them directly to consumers.

Table 1 depicts the major industries in Maine’s food-related workforce, divided into five sectors in the food system, along with some typical occupations within

each sector. The NAICS codes refer to the standard industry coding system now used in labor market analysis, the North American Industry Classification System.

Food Sector 1: Production

People in the food-production sector produce foods for processing, distribution, sales, preparation, and consumption. Maine’s food producers fall into two major industries: farming, including both crop and animal production, and fishing, including both finfishing and shellfish. Table 1 shows some of the typical occupations in this sector.

Agriculture is an important Maine industry, with several major crops: potatoes, broccoli, oats, blueberries and other fruits, and other food crops. Animal production is also important, particularly dairy cattle, poultry and egg production, and aquaculture. Most Maine farms are small in scale. Only 400 out of 8,136 farms in 2007 reported sales of more than $250,000, and the average size of Maine’s farms was 166 acres (USDA NASS 2009). Most farm owners are small businesses and sole proprietors. The aging of farmers has been viewed as a critical issue for the future of Maine’s agriculture. According to an article by Kevin Miller in the Bangor Daily News on May 16, 2010, there has been a resurgence of interest in farming among young farmers in recent years. In addition, there is a growing number of people from recent immigrant communities in Maine who are joining the ranks of Maine’s farmers.

With this increased involvement in farming from young people and immigrants, food production may

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TABLE 1:

Major Industries and Selected Occupations in the Maine Food System Sector

Major Industry Sectors (NAICS Code #)a

Typical Occupations

Crop production (111) 1. Production of Food (Agriculture, Fishing, Hunting)b

Animal production (112), e.g., aquaculture (1125) Fishing, hunting, trapping (114), e.g., fishing (1141) Agriculture and forestry support activities (115)

2. Processing of

Foodc

3. Distribution, Transporting and Warehousing of Foodb

Food Manufacturing (311), e.g., fruit and vegetable preserving, seafood processing, bakeries, beverage production Wholesale Trade: Grocery and related products (4244); farm products and materials (4245) (Air, Water and Truck Transportation) (481, 483, & 484, respectively)d

Farmers and other agricultural workers Graders and sorters of agricultural products Fishermen and seafood workers Food batchmakers Butchers and meat cutters Bakers Laborers and freight, stock and material movers Truck drivers (large and small)

(Warehousing and Storage) (493)d 4. Retail Trade: Retail Sales of Foodc

Food and Beverage Stores (445), e.g., grocery stores, specialty food stores, fish and seafood markets

Cashiers Packers and packagers Stock clerks and order fillers Combined food preparation and serving workers, including fast food Chefs and head cooks First line supervisors

5. Preparation and Serving of Foodc

Food Services and Drinking Places (722), e.g., restaurants, cafeterias, “limited service” restaurants

Hosts and hostesses Waiters and waitresses Food preparation workers Bartenders Dishwashers

a Two- and three-digit codes refer to larger industry sectors; four- to sixdigit codes are used for more specific industry subsectors. b Not a major focus in this paper

c Major focus d These sectors are not specific to food, and will not be a focus in this analysis.

become more vital despite the impending retirement of many older farmers. (See sidebars by Banwell and Carrington.)

The fishing industry is another part of the foodproduction sector in Maine and is critically important for the state. Fishermen take or catch lobster, Atlantic herring, Atlantic salmon, scallops, clams, and oysters, and many other fish.

Work in the food-producing sector ranges from planting, maintaining and weeding, and harvesting food crops, to growing animals, including aquaculture, dairy cattle, and egg production; and catching fish.

192 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Work in this sector is often dangerous, with workers exposed to many hazardous conditions. One critical, but not highly visible, sector of Maine’s agricultural workforce is migrant and seasonal farmworkers, who come to Maine during harvesting season to pick crops.

Each year, between 10,000 and 12,000 migrant workers come to work in Maine (Clark 2008). Recently there has been growing concern about the wages, hours, living, and working conditions of migrant workers and about the needs of their families, such as health and education. (See Perez-Febles sidebar, and article by Ginley, this issue.)

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Increase in Younger Farmers in Maine Reveals Specific Policy Concerns

By Elizabeth Banwell Statistical and anecdotal evidence indicates that more and more young people are entering farming in Maine.

This demographic shift comes with both opportunity and challenge for these beginning farmers. While the average Maine farmer is still 56 years old, according to the 2007 Census of Agriculture, other indicators suggest that younger farmers are changing the face of Maine.

“Younger people are being encouraged to enter farming by the awakening in popular culture to benefits of producing food locally,” says Andrew Marshall, director of educational programs at Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA). “It’s energizing to see all these young people choose agriculture, and for the most part, Maine is a supportive place for them to do it.” In the past three years MOFGA’s Journeyperson apprenticeship program has grown from 100 applicants to 400. In addition to an increase in numbers, the quality of applicants is increasing.

Other signs of the renewed interest in farming include the growing number of sustainable agricultural programs in Maine, including the College of the Atlantic, Unity College, the University of Maine, and a number of community and technical college programs. Nonacademic programs serving beginning farmers include Maine Farmland Trust’s FarmLink program, which helps the next generation of farmers get access to farm land, and several programs offered by University of Maine Cooperative Extension for new farmers, including one specifically for women entering farming.

Bowdoinham farmers Nate Drummond and Gabrielle Gosselin typify a growing number of Maine farmers: they are young. They have been able to develop profitable farming ventures in a relatively short time (three and two years, respectively) by leasing land with good soil and accessing established markets for local food. In the process, they have been fortunate enough to sidestep some critical hurdles that prohibit many new farmers from entering or succeeding at farming. Drummond and

Gosselin run Six River Farm, on which they farm 11 acres, five of which are cultivated with mixed vegetables. Theirs is one of three farms leasing land from a “farm incubator program,” located on 80 acres in Bowdoinham that was once one farm. The lessees have access not only to prime and affordable farmland, but to equipment, barns, and the other costly start-up infrastructure. In addition, the farm’s location in relatively affluent southern Maine has meant that the farmers are able to sell all their produce in the Bath-Brunswick area because of strong demand for local and organic food.

According to these young farmers, the biggest challenges they face are access to affordable land with good soil; start-up and expansion capital for infrastructure; consumer demand and established markets; business management skills; mentoring from experienced farmers; and state health and safety regulations, which can tie the hands of small farmers. John Piotti, executive director of Maine Farmland Trust, explains that unlike farmers in the past, many young farmers are running smaller, more intensive operations on two to five acres of land. “Some state regulations can prohibit these businesses from becoming sustainable.”

The policy implications related to this new crop of farmers are nuanced, Drummond says. Farmland preservation must focus on preserving land with good productive capability. Attention must be paid to the development of new markets, as traditional markets, such as farmers’ markets and community-supported agriculture (CSA) become saturated, and as new farmers seek to establish themselves in parts of the state without strong existing markets. (Luckily, there is untapped opportunity at schools, hospitals, and food pantries.) Then, there is the complication of leasing land. Right now Gosselin and Drummond rent a house just under a mile from the land they farm. “I am comfortable leasing land, and there are tradeoffs. We aspire to eventually to have a home and a little land near where we lease,” says Drummond.

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Refugee Agriculture in Maine

By Amy Carrington Income opportunities that honor the skills and business experience that immigrants and refugees bring are vital for their economic integration. Many of them bring important agricultural skills and experience to Maine. Although some are excellent farmers, there are many obstacles to their transition into agriculture in the Northeast. The culture, language, environment, and market context are often dramatically different from their past experience. Despite these challenges, immigrant and refugee communities have demonstrated great potential and commitment to farming. They have the skills and ambition to be successful farmers and to enhance agricultural production in Maine and throughout the Northeast.

Through the U.S. refugee resettlement program, Catholic Charities of Maine has resettled thousand of refugees in Maine over the past two decades. Members of the refugee communities have started agricultural enterprises and are producing food for local markets. However, it has required an intense focus to develop programs and opportunities that allow these communities to become sufficiently profitable in agriculture. Many African refugees are preliterate, have limited English proficiency, and have little experience learning in a formal classroom environment. For refugees’ agricultural businesses to be successful, additional supports and interventions are needed.

The best supports are multiagency coordinated efforts that provide a continuum of services over time. Using a land- and enterprise-based approach, the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project (NASAP) leads the way for refugee farmers in Maine. NASAP leverages local,

Food Sector 2: Processing

state, and federal funding and a network of local partners to train immigrant and refugee farmers. A program of the nonprofit Cultivating Community, NASAP provides participants with access to land, translation services, and linguistically appropriate training opportunities, and facilitates referrals to Maine’s traditional agricultural service providers such as Cooperative Extension and the USDA. Maine is not alone; the number of new American farmers is growing throughout the Northeast and the country.

Nonprofit community-based organizations (CBOs) have been key stakeholders in coordinating services for immigrant farmers. Coordination with CBOs has created opportunities for traditional agricultural service providers to reach out to these underserved populations. Integrating these new American farmers into mainstream services is a key component to their long-term success. This multiagency approach is effective, and continues to gain momentum in Maine and beyond.

The U.S. may soon be facing a shortage of farmers. In the Northeast there are twice as many farmers over 65 as under 35. The USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, has estimated the need for more than 1,000 new farmers nationally each year. Although refugees and immigrants will not enter agriculture in sufficient numbers and volume to replace all those who are retiring, they are contributing toward the growing number of small farms. True progress will come, however, when refugee and immigrant farmers’ integration into the U.S. agriculture system is a given, not an exception.

People in Maine’s food-processing sector, also known as food manufacturing, process food into finished goods before it is distributed and sold to consumers, including grains, meats, raw fruits, vegetables, and dairy. In Maine, food processing or manufacturing can be found in various industry subsectors. Among the most important industries are fruit and vegetable processing (e.g., potatoes, other 194 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

frozen vegetables, and blueberries), dairy processing (e.g., fluid milk production), commercial and retail bakeries, seafood processing, and soft drink manufacturing.

Table 1 shows some typical occupations in Maine’s food-processing sector. Workers in this sector face hazardous conditions and have high rates of occupational injuries and illnesses (see section on work hazards).

They are often also poorly paid.

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MIGRANT AND SEASONAL FARMWORKERS IN MAINE

By Juan Perez-Febles Every year approximately 8,500 to 12,000 migrant and seasonal farm workers participate in the different agricultural harvests around the state. A migrant worker is one who travels long distances to participate in a particular agricultural activity. A migrant worker does not go home at the end of the work day, but is usually housed in a “labor camp” facility, provided by the employer in most cases. A migrant worker is also one who earned at least 50 percent of his or her income in the previous year in an agriculturalrelated activity. A seasonal worker goes home to his or her permanent residence at the end of the work day.

Migrant and seasonal farm workers provide a tremendous economic contribution to the state’s economy and to the different communities where they work. Maine’s agricultural employers depend on this workforce to harvest the different crops produced in the state.

Table 1:

Major Maine Harvests, by County

Crop

Counties

Apples

Androscoggin, Cumberland, Oxford, York

Broccoli

Aroostook

Blueberries

Hancock, Knox, Washington

Mixed Vegetables

Statewide, small farms

Strawberries

Cumberland, Kennebec, Waldo, York

Potatoes

Aroostook

Eggs

Androscoggin (primarily

Table 2:

Approximate Number of Temporary Harvest Workers in Maine County

Most migrant workers who come to Maine to harvest various crops belong to the eastern stream of migrant workers. This stream starts early in the year somewhere around central Florida, where they harvest tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, oranges, and watermelons during the months of January, February, and March. When the harvests are finished, these workers travel to Georgia where they participate in the peach and pecan harvests.

Later they move to North Carolina to participate in the sweet potato and tobacco harvests and sometimes work in local furniture factories. Around June and July the workers arrive in New Jersey to participate in the high-bush blueberry harvest. Finally in late July they arrive in Maine to participate in the blueberry harvest in Washington, Hancock, and Waldo counties.

Androscoggin

Once the blueberry harvest is completed many workers remain in Maine to participate in the apple harvest in the western part of the state. After the apple harvest many workers return to Washington County to work in the wreath making operations there.

Waldo

The major agricultural harvests in Maine are shown in Table 1, and the approximate number of temporary harvest workers in Table 2.

Aroostook

Worker Estimates 626 4,173

Cumberland

138

Franklin

41

Hancock

523

Kennebec

145

Knox

436

Lincoln

107

Oxford

412

Penobscot

439

Piscataquis

65

Sagadahoc

28

Somerset

503 93

Washington York State Total

1,380 258 9,368

Note: Most statistical information here comes from Larson, Alice C. 2005. Enumeration of Vegetable and Orchard Temporary Workers and Work Hours in Maine. New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health, Cooperstown, NY.

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Food Sector 3: Distribution, Transportation, and Warehousing

Once food is produced and processed, it must be transported, stored, and distributed to retail, institutional, and household consumers or buyers. The primary subsectors in this area are transportation (by truck, rail, air, or ship), warehousing and storage by wholesalers, and distribution by wholesalers. Table 1 shows typical occupations in this sector. Warehousing and transportation of food often needs refrigeration for perishable foods, which means that mechanics and technicians skilled in cooling and freezing equipment are also employed.

Since most occupations in this sector are not specifically food-related, the food labor-force data in this sector are limited and not a major focus of this analysis. It is interesting, however, that supermarket warehouses, particularly truck drivers, are one of the few areas in the food industry in Maine that are likely to be unionized.

Food Sector 4: Retail Sales of Food

The retail sales sector is the second largest in terms of food-related employment and is quite diverse. It includes traditional grocery stores and supermarkets, along with smaller convenience stores; gasoline stations with convenience stores; beer, wine, and liquor stores; stores that specialize in food, health products, and supplements; and warehouse clubs and supercenters selling groceries, which have been multiplying in the state since 2005. (See Table 2 for comparison data on warehouses and supercenters from 2000 to 2010.)

As referred to earlier, the largest employer in Maine is currently Hannaford Supermarkets, with Walmart (which now sells food through its supercenters) being second. Shaw’s Supermarkets are the tenth-largest employer (CWRI 2011).

Workers in this sector include not only those dealing directly with food, but also a large sales-related staff working as cashiers and baggers and stock clerks.

Supermarkets employ a lot of teenagers as cashiers and baggers. In 2008, 16- to 19-year-olds made up 16 percent of employment in grocery stores. Cashiers and stock clerks constitute one-half of all jobs in grocery stores nationwide, and much employment in this sector 196 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

is part-time (U.S. Department of Labor 2009a). There is some overlap between this sector and that of food preparation and serving, since food prepared onsite is increasingly common in both small and large retail food stores.

Food Sector 5: Food Preparation and Serving

The food-preparation-and-serving sector, called “food services and drinking places,” is by far the largest food-related sector in Maine. As of 2008, limitedservice restaurants (fast-food restaurants, cafeterias, and snack/nonalcoholic beverage bars) accounted for almost half (47 percent) of the establishments in this industry in the U.S., and many of these are franchised. Fullservice restaurants were about 39 percent of the industry, while drinking places (alcoholic beverages) such as bars, pubs, taverns, and nightclubs were about nine percent. Special foodservices, which includes caterers, mobile foodservice vendors (e.g., ice cream trucks), and foodservice contractors constituted about five percent of establishments in this sector in the U.S (U.S. Department of Labor 2009b).

Typical occupations in this sector include a range of serving and preparation workers, as shown in Table 1. Jobs are often part-time, and according to the US BLS (2009b), food preparation and serving employs a higher percentage of part-time workers than any other industry. Full-time employees, on the other hand, including managers and owners, tend to work long hours. The work is often hazardous and generally pays low wages although income from tips supplements hourly wages for tipped employees. The low wages in this industry have also been documented in a recent major study of restaurant workers in Maine (Restaurant Opportunities Center of Maine 2010). Restaurant jobs are an important source of employment, especially for young people, women, and new immigrants.

FOOD SECTOR EMPLOYMENT ESTIMATES

Numbers of Workers in Food-Related Industries

It would seem to be a simple question with a clear answer: how many people in Maine are employed in food-related industries? The closer one examines labor-force data on this question, however, the more

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complicated it is to come up with an accurate answer.

It is only possible to develop an estimate of total foodrelated employment in Maine’s food industries through a process of triangulation, with multiple and complementary sources of data.

The most important source of data on industry employment, despite its shortcomings, is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Table 2 shows the numbers of workers in Maine’s food-related sectors, including numbers of units or establishments, average annual employment, and total wages, for 2000 and 2010, based on data from the QCEW. It is critical to keep in mind, however, that as with most other labor force data, these statistics will give only an incomplete picture, with the largest exclusion being the selfemployed in agriculture and fishing.

The employment data in Table 2 indicate that the total number of people employed in these food-specific industries in Maine was approximately 77,300 people for 2010. However, the actual numbers are certainly larger than this, since these are only covered employment estimates.

Data in Table 2 for the food-production sector are not complete, since most farming and fishing workers are not captured in these estimates. Thus the average employment figure of 3,232 for farming and fishing cited there is a gross underestimate.

Food processing or food manufacturing shows a total average employment of almost 5,500 in 2010, down substantially from the 2000 figure of 7,200.

The ongoing decline in manufacturing overall in the state reflects, in part, the decline in Maine’s food processing.

The sector dealing with the distribution, transportation and warehousing of food is not well-documented in the numbers in Table 2, in part because food trucking is not separated from other transport industry numbers. The total employment shown, 3,353 for 2010, is probably an underestimate of the number of people employed in distributing and transporting food.

The retail food sales sector employed an average of 24,234 people in 2010, down slightly from 2000. Food and beverage stores, the largest employment category, employed roughly 17,800 people in 2010. It is interesting to note that while the total number of units and average employment in food and beverage stores have

both apparently declined from 2000 to 2010, the total wages paid in this sector have increased.3 One possible contributor to the decline in employment in food and beverage stores might be the modest increase in people working in gasoline stations with convenience stores.

Another possible reason for the decline may be the significant increase in the number of Walmart Supercenters in Maine between 2000 and 2010, particularly between 2005 and 2010.4 Unfortunately, it is impossible to get specific data for employment in warehouse clubs and supercenters since these numbers have been omitted from the QCEW data due to confidentiality issues. However, with at least 14 Walmart Supercenters existing in Maine and typical employment of at least 350 to 400 people in each supercenter, it is possible that close to 5,000 supercenter employees should be added to the total number of people employed in the retail food sales sector in the state.5 The sector involved with food preparation and serving is by far the largest food-related sector in Maine and the U.S. In 2010, this sector employed approximately 41,000 people in Maine, an increase from 37,750 employed in 2000. This number does not include sole proprietors or self-employed people, so the actual number is probably larger. There was also an increase in units or establishments in this sector, from roughly 2,650 in 2000 to more than 3,000 in 2010.

Clearly this industry appears to be thriving.

Given the limitations of these QCEW industry data, it will be important to supplement these estimates with other sources of industry data, such as nonemployer statistics, which includes self-employed workers, and U.S. Census of Agriculture data on farming in Maine.

Numbers Employed in Food-Related Occupations

Labor-force data on occupations gives another perspective on the food-related workforce. As with industry data, estimates of total occupational employment excludes some people not in covered employment, but they still provide useful data on the nature of these occupations. This section focuses on employment numbers, while wages and gender breakdowns will be discussed later.

Table 3 shows the occupations associated with Maine’s food system, including all those that employ

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TABLE 2:

Maine Employment and Wages, Food-Specific Industries, 2000 and 2010 Units

NAICS Industry Description

Average Employment

Total Wages (in $)

Code*

2000

2010

2000

2010

2000

2010

111

191

210

1,786

1,844

30,546,831

43,288,946

1. FOOD PRODUCTION Crop production Animal production

112

80

88

771

792

17,204,258

20,198,758

Fishing

1141

141

274

265

418

12,024,819

22,917,309

Support activities for crop production

1151

21

14

282

139

4,433,432

3,577,747

Support activities for animal production

1152

18

17

66

39

1,100,569

892,096

451

603

3,170

3,232

65,309,909

90,874,856

224

209

7,207

5,493

186,606,050

178,496,707

224

209

7,207

5,493

186,606,050

178,496,707

TOTAL 2. FOOD PROCESSING Food manufacturing

311

Total

3. DISTRIBUTION, TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING OF FOOD Grocery and related product wholesalers

4244

348

317

3,661

3,271

114,155,392

133,452,016

Farm product raw material merch. wholesalers

4245

5

3

38

24

779,871

893,394

Refrigerated warehousing and storage

493120

9

6

67

58

2,093,236

2,212,636

Farm product warehousing and storage

493130

1

2

ND

ND

ND

ND

363

328

3,766

3,353

117,028,499

136,558,046

445

979

812

19,147

17,802

298,512,270

356,603,154

Food, health, supplement stores

446191

20

16

151

80

1,973,082

1,224,057

Gasoline stations with convenience stores

447110

677

689

5,728

6,352

70,578,841

101,116,802

Warehouse clubs and supercenters

452910

7

20

ND

ND

ND

ND

1,683

1,537

25,026

24,234

371,064,193

458,944,013

2,658

3,001

37,750

41,007

418,550,409

613,631,034

5,379

5,678

76,919

77,319

1,158,559,060

1,478,504,656

TOTAL 4. RETAIL SALES OF FOOD Food and beverage stores

TOTAL 5. PREPARATION AND SERVING OF FOOD Food services and drinking places TOTALS, All Food-Specific Industry Sectors

722

*For three-digit NAICS industry codes, all cases are specific to food. In cases with four-, five, or six-digit industry codes, only those specific industry sub-sectors are specific to food.

ND indicates nondisclosable data Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), Statewide Employment and Wages by 6-digit Industry, 2000 to 2010; Maine Dept. of Labor, CWRI. http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/qcew.html

198 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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TABLE 3:

Employment, Wages, and Gender for Food-Related Occupations in Maine, 2010 (by rank order of estimated employment within sectors, for occupations with 100 or more workers employed)

SOC Code

Estimated Employment 2010

Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Title

1. FOOD PRODUCTION

Mean Hourly Wage

Median Hourly Wage

Percentage Female, U.S.*

750

45-2092

Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop/Nursery/Greenhouse

390

$11.42

$11.29

18.8

45-1011

First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Workers

250

$21.96

$20.50

N.A.

45-2093

Farmworkers, Farm and Ranch Animals

110

$13.74

$13.65

(24.6)

2. FOOD PROCESSING

2,600

51-3022

Meat/Poultry/Fish Cutters & Trimmers

840

$10.85

$9.75

(21.2)

51-3021

Butchers & Meat Cutters

630

$14.04

$13.56

(21.2)

51-3011

Bakers

520

$11.52

$11.03

57.0

51-3092

Food Batchmakers

360

$11.21

$10.91

55.5

51-3093

Food Cooking Machine Operators/Tenders

250

$12.19

$12.38

N.A.

3. DISTRIBUTION, TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING OF FOOD (No occupational data for this sector; most occupations and activity in this industry are not specifically food-related.)

4. RETAIL SALES OF FOOD

9,445

41-2011

Cashiers, in Food-Related Industries

4,520

$9.30

$8.88

73.7

43-5081

Stock Clerks/Order Fillers, Food-Related Industries

3,223

$11.20

$10.43

36.0

53-7064

Packers & Packagers, Hand, Grocery Stores Only

1,702

$9.84

$9.18

56.5

$8.72

$8.61

61.3

5. PREPARATION AND SERVING OF FOOD

52,690

35-3021

Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers, Including Fast Food

12,400

35-3031

Waiters and Waitresses

10,660

$10.08

$8.61

71.1

35-2021

Food Preparation Workers

5,320

$10.36

$9.94

59.2

35-2014

Cooks, Restaurant (% Female: “Cooks”)*

4,600

$11.47

$11.12

(40.5)

35-1012

First-Line Supervisors/Managers of Food Preparation and Serving Workers

3,950

$14.07

$13.41

56.6

35-3011

Bartenders

2,500

$9.87

$8.39

55.2

35-9021

Dishwashers

2,340

$8.79

$8.67

21.1

35-3022

Counter Attendants, Cafeteria/Food Concession/Coffee Shop

2,170

$8.91

$8.61

65.7

35-2012

Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria (% Female: “Cooks”)

1,910

$12.34

$12.18

(40.5)

35-2015

Cooks, Short Order (% Female: “Cooks”)

1,390

$10.80

$10.23

(40.5)

11-9051

Foodservice Managers

1,260

$24.09

$22.15

47.4

35-9011

Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants & Bartender Helpers

1,040

$9.17

$8.75

47.9

35-9031

Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant/Lounge/Coffee Shop

990

$9.47

$8.99

84.7

35-3041

Food Servers, Nonrestaurant

940

$9.29

$9.01

64.9

35-2011

Cooks, Fast Food (% Female: “Cooks”)

900

$8.56

$8.49

(40.5)

35-1011

Chefs and Head Cooks

320

$20.61

$19.64

19.0

Total employed in five other food occupations with less than 100 each TOTAL Estimated Employment, Food Occupations

290 65,775

Sources: Employment and Wages: http://www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/oes.html Gender Data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011a). * % Female estimates in ( ) are for combined or similar occupational categories.

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FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Maine’s Food-related Workforce

TABLE 4:

Selected Maine Food Occupation Employment in Non-Food Industries, Estimated, 2008

Typical Food Preparation and Serving Occupations in Non-Food Industries

Estimated Employment, in Selected Nonfood Industries

Food Preparation Workers

2,514

Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria

1,737

Waiters and Waitresses

1,129

Bartenders

970

Combined Food Prep and Serving Workers

800

Other*

2,037

TOTAL Employment

9,187

*Includes dishwashers, hosts and hostesses, restaurant cooks, etc. **Includes local government, amusement and recreation industries, employment services, etc.

Source: Maine Department of Labor, CWRI, Maine Employment Info Guide.

100 or more people. The occupations are grouped into the five sectors, with data on Maine employment estimates for 2010, mean and median hourly wages for each occupation, and the estimated percentage of female employees for each occupation, based on U.S. gender percentages.

Table 3 does not provide useful information on employment numbers in the food-production occupations, since most people in farming and fishing are not included. The number of people employed statewide in this table is not to be taken seriously, particularly given the estimated 10,000 to 12,000 migrant and seasonal farmworkers who harvest crops each year in Maine.

Data for food-processing occupations show a range of occupations, with the highest numbers for meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers (840), and butchers and meat cutters (630). The total statewide food-processing employment of 2,600 may be an underestimate also. There is no employment data in Table 3 for distribution, transportation, and warehousing of food since the major occupations in this sector are not specifically food related, and the nature of the work in the industry is more general and wide-ranging.

By far, the highest employment numbers are in the last two sectors: retail food sales and the preparation and serving of food. The employment numbers in Table 3 for food-related retail sales (9,445 for 2010) are based on 2008 estimates of three occupations in food and 200 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

beverage stores: cashiers, stock clerks and order fillers, and packers/packagers by hand (baggers). The largest category in this sector, cashiers, is also one of the largest occupations in the state of Maine. Food preparation and serving is the Goliath of the food occupations, with almost 52,700 people employed in Maine in 2010.

Like cashiers, the three largest occupations in this category (combined food preparation and serving workers, waiters and waitresses, and food preparation workers) are also among the largest occupations in the state, Adding together the numbers in Table 3, we get a total of 65, 775 people employed in food-related occupations in Maine. We should expect that this number is smaller than the total employed in food-related industries (77,319 plus a few thousand supercenter employees), since many people in food-related industries are not working in food occupations. Thus far, we can say that there are probably at least 80,000 people working in food-related industries and at least 65,800 people in food-related occupations. These numbers cannot be added together, however, since they intersect and often point to the same people, counted once in their industry context and again in their occupational context.

There is, however, another group that can be added to the employment numbers to gain a closer estimate of Maine’s food-related workforce. These are people working in food-related occupations (e.g., food preparation and serving), but in industries that are not related to food (e.g., elementary and secondary schools, universities, hospitals, or nursing homes). Since it would be a never-ending task if one tried to count all possible combinations of industries and occupations, this analysis focuses only on occupations dealing with food preparation and serving, which are found across many industries not directly related to food. Compiling the employment numbers for 12 major food-related occupations employed in 16 industries not directly related to food results in an additional 9,187 workers in the food-related workforce (Table 4).

Additional Data on Estimates of the Food-Related Workforce

Two more data sources are useful in getting a “ballpark” estimate of the size of the food workforce in Maine: nonemployer statistics and Census of Agriculture data for Maine.

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TABLE 5:

Maine Food Sector Supplemental Industry Estimates, 2008 Nonemployer Statistics

NAICS Code

NAICS Industry Title

All Establishments

1. FOOD PRODUCTION 1141

Corporations

Individual Proprietorships

Partnerships

6,787 5,923

205

5,694

24

Hunting and Trapping

210

ND

199

ND

1151

Support Activities for Crop Production

336

7

328

ND

1152

Support Activities for Animal Production

318

14

299

5

318

31

275

12

144

ND

131

ND

Food and Beverage Stores

352

46

288

18

4451

Grocery Stores

130

24

101

ND

4452

Specialty Food Stores

204

20

172

12

4453

Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores

18

ND

15

ND

834

72

728

34

94

25

56

13

205

21

169

15

498

20

475

ND

114

Fishing

2. FOOD PROCESSING 311

Food Manufacturing

3. DISTRIBUTION, TRANSPORTATION AND WAREHOUSING OF FOOD 4244

Grocery and Related Product Wholesalers

4. RETAIL SALES OF FOOD 445

5. PREPARATION AND SERVING OF FOOD 722 7221 7222 7223 7224 TOTAL

Food Services and Drinking Places Full-Service Restaurants Limited-Service Eating Places Special Foodservices Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages) ALL MAJOR FOOD SECTORS

37

6

28

ND

8,435

375

7,942

93

ND = Nondisclosed data withheld to protect confidentiality for individual businesses.

SOURCE: http://censtats.census.gov/cgi-bin/nonemployer/nonsect.pl

The U.S. Census Bureau’s nonemployer statistics provide economic data, primarily from Internal Revenue Service information, by industry sector for small businesses that have no paid employees, but do pay federal income taxes.

Table 5 shows a breakdown of nonemployer statistics for Maine for 2008. Although these data are not strictly comparable to the 2010 data used previously, they still give a general idea of how many people are involved in food-related industries who are not picked up in covered employment data. However, the numbers do not include people engaged in either crop production or animal production.

Table 5 shows that approximately 8,400 people work in Maine’s food workforce as small businesses

that have not shown up in other data. Some of these businesses are incorporated, some are individual proprietorships, and a smaller number are organized as partnerships. Out of these nonemployers, most are engaged in food production, with the large majority found in fishing.

The second source of additional estimates for Maine’s food-related workforce is the 2007 Census of Agriculture (USDA NASS 2009). Again, while these are not 2010 data, they serve to give a general idea of how many people are engaged in farming in Maine.

These data show that there were 8,136 farms in Maine in 2007. Of these, 3,540 (about 44 percent) of the principal operators have farming as their primary occupation, while 4,596 (about 56 percent) have other

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FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Maine’s Food-related Workforce

Total Estimated Size of Maine’s Food-related Workforce

TABLE 6:

Data Source

Number

Total employment in food-related industries (from Table 2), documented from QCEW data, 2010

77,319

Approximate additional minimal numbers from Walmart Supercenters, not included in QCEW data for this sector (14 supercenters, multiplied by minimum of 350 people employed)

4,900

Employment estimates for major food preparation and serving occupations in non-food industries (e.g., hospitals, nursing homes, education), from 2008 occupations by industry estimates (from Table 4)

9,187

Small business people (from Table 5, nonemployer statistics, for 2008), including fishing businesses, among others.

8,435

Farming principal operators, documented in the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture:

8,136

TOTAL

107,977

occupations as their primary occupation. About threequarters of the principal operators are male (6,093), while roughly one-quarter (2,043) are female.

We can now pull together these various numbers to estimate the number of people in the food-related workforce in Maine (Table 6). This combined estimate should be seen as a ballpark estimate, with all the caveats described earlier. In addition, since not all data come from the same year, the estimate cannot be specific for a given year. Since most of the employment data are from 2010, it is probably safest to say that this estimate is primarily for 2010, with supplemental estimates from 2007 and 2008 data.

With an estimated Maine resident employment of 641,978 in 2010, the estimated food-related workforce of 107,977 constitutes about 16.8 percent of Maine’s total workforce.

WAGES, BENEFITS, GENDER, AND ECONOMIC SECURITY

P

eople in Maine’s food system often work in lowwage jobs, with few if any benefits. The wage data in Table 3 provides information on the issue of economic security for food-sector workers. It is also important to look at the male/female breakdowns for food-related occupations, since women workers are more vulnerable to a range of workplace issues

202 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

such as lower pay, discrimination, sexual harassment, and lack of flexibility in work schedules, particularly problematic for workers with young children. It is well-documented that women workers are paid less than men within virtually all occupations and industries, and single parents who are supporting children on their own are disproportionately female. A national study on the gender wage gap found that with few exceptions, women workers earn less than men in both high-paying and low-paying occupations (Hegewisch, Williams and Henderson 2011). They also found that the 10 occupations with the lowest median weekly earnings employed twice as many women as men.

Wages

Assuming that the gender percentages in Maine’s food occupations largely reflect the U.S-based percentages in Table 3, the data in this table suggests that the lowest-paying occupations in Maine’s food sector are disproportionately female. Out of the 13 occupations with median hourly wages of less than $10 an hour, three are primarily male, seven are predominantly female, and three are roughly equal in terms of gender.

The highest-paying nonmanagerial occupation, chefs and head cooks, is only 19 percent female. However, it is clear that on the whole both men and women in food-sector jobs are working for low pay, with only a few exceptions.

One approach to analyzing wages and economicsecurity issues is to look at whether given occupations are likely to pay a “livable wage,” the wage level needed to support a worker and their family using a “basic needs” budget. Livable wages in Maine were first analyzed by the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP), and the concept was accepted by the Maine legislature in 2008 as a benchmark estimate for economic security among Maine households.

The Maine Department of Labor estimates Maine livable-wage levels for households based on family size and composition (Pease 2009). Five basic family structures are used as the basis of the estimates, and a corresponding hourly livable wage calculated for each (Table 7).

Given these benchmark wage levels for a basic needs budget (Table 7), we can see from Table 3 that wage levels for food-related occupations generally do not meet the economic needs of workers and their families.

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Maine Average Hourly Livable Wage Estimates, 2008

TABLE 7:

In the production sector, the median wage of $11.29 for crops/nurseries/greenhouses workers and laborers only provides a livable wage for a single adult, and is not enough to provide basic needs for any household with children. The median wage for the first-line supervisors/managers in the production sector ($20.50), on the other hand, does meet the livable wage requirements for all household types, although just barely for a single adult with two children. With a median hourly wage of $13.65, farm and ranch animal farmworkers would be able to support only themselves or a two-child family if there was another adult earner with equivalent wages.

In the food-processing or manufacturing sector, wages are even lower than they are for farm laborers.

One occupation, meat/poultry/fish cutters and trimmers (median wage $9.75), will not even support a single person at a livable wage level of $10.65. The highest paid occupation in this group, butchers and meat cutters ($13.56), would only be able to support a household with two children if there were a second earner with a roughly similar wage. None of these food-processing occupations pay enough to support a single-parent family with one or two children, or to support a family with two children if the other adult does not work for pay.

The wage and economic security situation for workers in the retail sales of food shows that they are even worse off as a group than the food-processing workers. The median hourly wages for the three major categories, cashiers ($8.88), stock clerks/order fillers ($10.43), and packers/packagers or baggers ($9.18) will not meet the basic needs of a single adult. In addition, since many people in retail food sales work part-time, they may be even worse off if they are not working enough hours to get by.

In the sector that involves food preparation and serving, the economic-security situation for fully threequarters of the occupations (12 out of 16) is grim, if not appalling: the median hourly wage levels for these 12 lowest-paid occupations are all less than $10 an hour, and thus do not support the basic needs of one individual worker. Only one out of 16 occupations in this sector, foodservice managers, earns an adequate hourly median wage to meet the basic needs of all the household types.

Household Type

Livable Wage (hourly)

Single Adult

$10.65

Single adult, one preschool child

$16.94

Single adult, two children (1 preschool, 1 school age)

$20.00

Two adults, 1 earner; 2 children

$17.00*

Two adults, 2 earners, 2 children

$13.07**

*Assumes that the household has insurance through Cub-Care **Average wage levels needed by EACH adult earner Source: Pease (2009)

Benefits

A second major issue for any workforce is the availability of benefits, such as health insurance, pensions, paid sick leave, and paid vacation time. The available data on the provision of health care insurance and other benefits do not provide enough detail to provide exact numbers for Maine’s food-sector workers.

It is safe to conclude, however, that the majority of food-sector workers are unlikely to have adequate and affordable health insurance benefits provided by their employer, given what is known about the provision of these benefits and the nature of the food-related industry sectors and occupations in Maine.

The available data on employer-provided health care insurance in Maine by larger industry groupings found that that only 35.7 percent of establishments in agriculture, fishing, forestry, and construction offered health insurance. Among retail and other services, 50.7 percent of private sector establishments offered health insurance (US DHHS 2009).

Although not as specific as the food sectors studied here, this is still indicative of the situation in the food industry.

According to a press release from U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics on access to employer-provided health care and other benefits, several categories of workers are less likely to have employer-provided health and other benefits: those in non-unionized jobs; those with lower wages; part-time workers; and employees in smaller work places (available on www.bls.gov).

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Unionization in Maine’s Food System There is a low degree of unionization among food-related workers, which has direct implications for wages, access to health and benefits, and working conditions. Although there is no systematic data available on actual percentages of unionization by specific industries in Maine, it is useful to look at what we know about each of these five food sectors in Maine. Based on communications with union staff members in Maine from the Maine AFL-CIO, the Eastern Maine Labor Council, and various individual unions, here is a brief overview of each sector, with notable examples from each where there is any unionization at all.

Several characteristics of the five food sectors in Maine are related to the small likelihood of having employer-offered health care or other benefits: 1. Few food-sector workers are unionized in Maine. (See sidebar for details on unionization in Maine). In particular, there is virtually no unionization among supermarket or supercenter workers, or workers in farming/agriculture, fishing, or private sector restaurants. This has far-reaching implications for pay, benefits, and working conditions.

Food Production. Agriculture and fishing industries are not unionized in Maine.

2. Many food-sector workers work in small establishments.

Food Processing Manufacturing. This sector is partially unionized:

3. Food-sector workers tend to be in low-paying occupations and jobs.

• Coca Cola bottling in Bangor: represented by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1445; about 30 workers • Hostess (formerly Nissen) bakery in South Portland: truck drivers outside are represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; bakery workers inside are represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union • Garelick dairy (formerly Grants): truck drivers are represented by the Teamsters Food Distribution, Transportation and Warehousing. Partially unionized: • Hannaford Warehouse, in South Portland: represented by UFCW Local 1445; about 300 workers • Shaw’s warehouse in Wells, Maine: represented by UFCW Local 791; about 300 workers • Kellogg Warehouse in Auburn, Maine: represented by the Teamsters; about 40 workers.

Food Retail Sales. This sector is not unionized in Maine, apart from affiliated warehouses Food Preparation and Serving. There is little unionization in this sector.

• UFCW states that there are no unionized restaurants in Maine.

Only small numbers of institutional food workers, such as cafeteria workers (e.g., in public schools or universities); represented by a number of different unions.

204 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

4. Many workers in food-related occupations work part-time.

For all these reasons, it is likely that many workers in food-related businesses in Maine do not have employer-provided health care or other benefits.

In a few cases, large employers of food-related workers may offer types of health insurance that provide only limited coverage or come with high premiums and/or deductibles.

In another recent study of restaurant workers in southern Maine, researchers found that the vast majority surveyed (89.6 percent) did not have employer-provided health insurance (Restaurant Opportunities Center of Maine 2010). A similar percentage of workers, 89 percent, reported that they did not have paid sick days, and 71 percent said that they had been forced to work while they were sick. In addition, 39 percent of the workers in this study did not have any health insurance at all. These findings were largely replicated in similar studies of restaurant workers in other states, so Maine is not unusual in this regard (Restaurant Opportunities Centers United 2010).

Thus the evidence suggests that many of Maine’s food sector workers are at risk, either without health insurance at all or with inadequate benefits or unaffordable prices.

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WORKING CONDITIONS: WORKPLACE HAZARDS AND OCCUPATIONAL INJURIES

W

hile the five food-related sectors vary widely in their types of work and general working conditions, each of them poses challenges to workers beyond low pay and few benefits.

In the food-production sector, both agriculture and fishing involve dangerous work, with much physical labor that is often done outdoors and for long hours. Farmworkers involved in animal care must typically work seven days a week, and the work can often be dangerous. Agriculture involves heavy machinery, which can be hazardous and can result in fatal accidents, and exposure to pesticides. Commercial ocean fishing is also risky due to the dangers of being on the ocean. Fishermen work in boats with complicated and hazardous machinery; every year workers in this industry are seriously injured or lost at sea. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2011b), the farming, fishing and forestry sector had the highest rate of fatal injuries of any industry in the U.S., with an incidence rate of 27.2 cases per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers. Maine data on nonfatal occupational injuries also indicates that this sector had a higher rate of occupational injuries than average, with an incidence rate of 6.4 cases per 100 full-time workers. By comparison, the average rate for all industries combined was 5.6 cases (US BLS 2011c).

The food-processing or manufacturing sector also involves dangerous work and has a high rate of occupational injuries. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2009c) states that “food manufacturing has one of the highest incidences of injury and illness among all industries; seafood product preparation and packaging and dairy product manufacturing have the highest incidence rates of injury and illness among all food manufacturing industries.” For Maine, in 2009 foodmanufacturing workers had an incidence rate of 7.3 per 100 full-time equivalent workers for nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses, which is substantially higher than the average of 5.6 for all industries.

Food distribution, transportation, and warehousing is also associated with a hazardous workplace.

This industry sector had the second highest rate of fatal occupational injuries and illnesses nationwide, with

an incidence rate of 13.3 cases per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers. The state data for nonfatal occupational injuries and illnesses for 2009 for transportation and warehousing shows that Maine’s workers had a high incidence rate of 8.3 cases per 100 full-time equivalent workers. Grocery wholesalers had a lower incidence rate of 6.8 for that year. Both were higher than the incidence rate for all occupations.

The retail food sales sector also presents workplace hazards to workers although retail trade generally has a low rate of workplace injuries resulting in fatalities (2.2 cases per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers).

Particularly in grocery stores, however, nonfatal occupational injuries happen at a fairly high rate. In Maine, the nonfatal injury incidence rate was 9.4, which is the highest for all of the major food sectors in the state.

The most common occupational injuries reported were strains and sprains. Workers in this industry are also at a high risk of having repetitive strain or trauma, which is considered an occupational illness rather than an injury (Clarke 2003).

The profound and destructive consequences of having thousands of food sector workers in low-paying jobs without benefits, often working in hazardous and/or stressful working conditions, cannot be overstated.

The food-preparation and serving sector is associated with a number of workplace hazards although it does not have a high rate of fatal injuries. The most common occupational injuries include sprains and strains, cuts and lacerations, bruises and contusions, and heat burns, from hot food and cooking or baking equipment. The incidence rate of nonfatal occupational injuries for this sector in Maine was lower than the average rate of 5.6 for all industries. Full-service restaurants had an incidence rate of 4.2 per 100 full-time equivalent employees, while limited-service eating places had a rate of 2.8.

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The recent study of Maine’s restaurant workers (Restaurant Opportunities Center of Maine 2010) also documents the range of workplace hazards facing people in this industry, particularly for those working in the kitchen. Among the workers surveyed for this study, 58.3 percent reported that they had been burned and 62 percent that they had been cut while on the job.

Restaurant workers also face slippery floors which may result in falls; contact with toxic chemicals; and injuries from lifting heavy objects such as trays of food.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

M

aine’s food system has a large, growing, and diverse workforce, spread out across numerous industries and dozens of occupations. This is a critical sector of Maine’s economy for both employment and business revenues, and this sector offers employment opportunities for many Maine workers.

There are many challenges involving specific industries, too detailed to include in this overview. These range from the problems of overfishing in the fishing industry, to health and safety problems among migrant workers, to economic challenges resulting from global competition, global trade agreements, and other economic pressures in agriculture and food manufacturing. The challenges and conditions facing workers in these sectors may vary, but taken as a whole, three major themes emerge.

First is the widespread issue of low pay and few benefits. The profound and destructive consequences of having thousands of food sector workers in low-paying jobs without benefits, often working in hazardous and/ or stressful working conditions, cannot be overstated.

Second, employees in all of the sectors in this industry face workplace hazards. Some sectors are particularly dangerous, leading to worker fatalities. A third issue is the lack of an organized voice among workers, in dealing with workplace and employment issues. These issues raise a number of potential policy suggestions for the food-sector workforce.

1. Collective bargaining should be encouraged for Maine’s food workforce. Policymakers should make it easier for all workers to unionize, rather than creating additional

206 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

obstacles to unions and collective bargaining.

Being represented by a union is one of the best strategies for increasing wages and benefits and addressing working conditions. Paid sick days, for example, will protect both workers and consumers, but this is unlikely in the absence of unionization.

2. Occupational injuries and illnesses among food-sector workers can be decreased through a variety of means, such as appropriate workplace restructuring or job redesign, adequate safety training and safety equipment, and more frequent breaks to help prevent fatigue.

Workplace health and safety regulations should be strengthened and enforced to protect workers on the job.

3. Benefits such as affordable and adequate health insurance should be available to all workers, including part-time workers, and not simply as part of one’s employment. Those who are self-employed (most farmers and fishermen) or who run small businesses should have expanded access to affordable coverage.

The recent legislative reforms in health care in the U.S. may result in greater coverage for proprietors and employees in small businesses, which are at the core of the food system.

4. Other policies to address wage levels should be developed and passed into law, such as increasing the minimum wage, working towards developing livable wages, and increasing wages for tipped employees.

5. Violations in employment laws that govern labor standards, collective bargaining, discrimination, and other areas should be strictly enforced by state and federal agencies.

As stated in the study of Maine’s restaurant workers mentioned earlier, state policies should encourage “high road” employment among the state’s food-related workforce (Restaurant Opportunities Center of Maine 2010). In addition to benefiting workers themselves, the state’s population will also benefit from having safer and healthier workers,

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FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Maine’s Food-related Workforce

healthier food for consumers, and a thriving Maine economy. -

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank several people for their assistance and guidance with this article. For questions and help with locating and understanding labor force data: Merrill Huhtala, Betty Dawson, and Dana Evans, at the Maine Department of Labor. For information on labor unions and union representation in Maine: Matt Schlobohm, Sarah Bigney, and Tracy Allen, Maine AFL-CIO; William Murphy and Gary McGrane, Bureau of Labor Education, University of Maine; Jack McKay, Eastern Maine Labor Council; MaryAnn Turowski, MSEA-SEIU Local #1989; Mark Govoni and Dennis Norton, UFCW Local #1445; John Jordan and James Anderschat, Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers And Grain Millers International Union, Local #334; Ken Eaton and Alan Churchill, Teamsters Union Local #340, Jerry Ashlock, American Federation of Teachers; David Lowell, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers; Ross Ferrell, Maine Education Association; and Martin Chartrand and Laura Binger, Food AND Medicine. For assistance in obtaining health insurance data: Andrew Coburn and Lisa Morris, Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine. I am, of course, solely responsible for the content here and for the compilation and interpretation of labor force data; any errors or miscalculations are my responsibility alone.

ENDNOTES 1. Food Retail World; http://www.foodretailworld.com/ LeadingRetailers.htm 2. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ fortune500/2011/full_list/index.html 3. The decline in the number of units for food and beverage stores can be partly explained by two factors. First, since these numbers include local, state, and federal government, the statistics reflect the closure of several commissaries that were included in this category (Betty Dawson, personal communication, 2011). Dawson also states that the smaller number of units in 2010 is due in part to corrections in the data and coding in later years.

4. For example, between 2005 and 2009, new Walmart Supercenters with grocery departments opened in Bangor, Brewer, Brunswick, Ellsworth, Sanford, and Scarborough.

5. Walmart employs 7,433 people in Maine, according to their web site. With three Sam’s Clubs and a large distribution center in Lewiston, Walmart alone probably employs a few thousand people in Maine dealing with food; these figures are not included in the numbers shown in Table Two.

REFERENCES Center for Workforce Research and Information (CWRI).

2011. Top 50 Employers in Maine by Employment.

CWRI, Maine Department of Labor, Augusta. http:// www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/publications/pdf/ MaineTop50Employers.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2011] Clark, Jeff. 2008. “Invisible Mainers.” Downeast Magazine (August). http://www.downeast.com/ Down-East-Magazine/August-2008/InvisibleMainers [Accessed June 19, 2011] Clarke, Cynthia M. 2003. Workplace Injuries and Illnesses in Grocery Stores. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC. http://www.bls.gov/opub/cwc/ sh20031216ar01p1.htm [Accessed June 19, 2011] Hegewisch, Ariane, Claudia Williams and Amber Henderson. 2011. The Gender Wage Gap by Occupation. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Washington, DC. http://www.iwpr.org/publications/ pubs/the-gender-wage-gap-by-occupation-updatedapril-2011/ [Accessed June 19, 2011] Liu, Yvonne Yen and Dominque Apollon. 2011. The Color of Food. Applied Research Center, New York. http://arc.org/downloads/food_justice_021611_F.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2011] Pease, Ruth. 2009. Maine Livable Wage in 2008.

Center for Workforce Research and Information, Maine Department of Labor, Augusta. http:// www.maine.gov/labor/cwri/publications/pdf/ LivableWageReport2008.pdf [Accessed June 19, 2011]

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 207

FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Maine’s Food-related Workforce

Restaurant Opportunities Center of Maine. 2010.

Behind the Kitchen Door: Low Road Jobs, High Road Opportunities in Maine’s Growing Restaurant Industry. http://www.rocunited.org/files/MAINE_ FINAL_edit0119.pdf Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. 2010.

Serving While Sick: High Risks and Low Benefits for the Nation’s Restaurant Workforce, and Their Impact on the Consumer. Restaurant Opportunities Centers United. New York. http://www.rocunited. org/files/roc_servingwhilesick_v06%20%281%29. pdf [Accessed June 20, 2011] U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA NASS). 2009. 2007 Census of Agriculture. USDA NASS, Washington, DC. http://www.agcensus.usda.gov/Publications/2007/ Online_Highlights/County_Profiles/Maine/cp99023. pdf [Accessed June 19, 2011]

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistic (US BLS). 2011c. “Table 6: Incidence Rates of Nonfatal Occupational Injuries and Illnesses by Industry and Case Types, 2009.”

State Data for Nonfatal of Occupational Injury and Illness Cases. http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/osh/os/ pr096me.pdf [Accessed June 20, 2011] U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS). 2009. Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, Table V.A.2 Percent of private-Sector Establishments that Offer Health Insurance

by Industry Groupings. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, US DHHS, Rockville, MD. http://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_stats/summ_ tables/insr/state/series_5/2009/tva2.htm [Accessed June 19, 2011]

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (US BLS). 2009a.

Career Guide to Industries, 2010-11 Edition, Grocery Stores. BLS, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC. http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs024. htm [Accessed June 19, 2011]

Valerie Carter is a

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (US BLS). 2009b. Career Guide to Industries, 2010-11 Edition, Food Services and Drinking Places. BLS, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC. http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/ cgs023.htm [Accessed June 19, 2011].

of Maine’s Bureau of Labor

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (US BLS). 2009c.

Career Guide to Industries, 2010-11 Edition, Food Manufacturing. BLS, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC. http://www.bls.gov/oco/cg/cgs011. htm [Accessed June 19, 2011].

and labor market analysis.

research associate, sociologist, instructor, and labor educator at the University Education. She specializes in the sociology of work, labor studies, women and work,

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (US BLS). 2011a. Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey. Table 11. Employed Persons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity. BLS, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC. http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11. pdf[Accessed June 19, 2011] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (US BLS). 2011b.

“Number and Rate of Fatal Occupational Injuries,

by Industry Sector, 2009.” Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) - Current and Revised Data. BLS, U.S. Department of Labor, Washington, DC. http://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/cfch0008.pdf [Accessed June 20, 2011]

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POLITICS OF FOOD AND IMIGRATION: COMMENTARY

C O M M E N T A R Y When the Politics of Food and Politics of Immigration Collide— Who Wins?

By Barbara Ginley

L

ike many, my weekly purchasing decisions are influenced by where the food comes from, how it was grown, and in whose pockets my money will end up.

To me, keeping Maine’s farms financially viable is a way to directly support the wages that are paid to some of the state’s hardest workers, migrant farm workers. It is a slight reframing of the familiar mantra of “buy local,” but, personally, it is an important distinction.

The U.S. enjoys one of the world’s most plentiful, safe, and inexpensive food supplies, in part because of the contributions of migrant farm workers. The majority of Maine’s migrant workers are Hispanic (64 percent), with AfricanCaribbean (22 percent), and American Indian/Native American (10 percent) being the next largest groups (Maine Migrant Health Program’s UDS Data, 2010). They are present in all of Maine’s harvest areas, planting, harvesting, processing, and packing some of the state’s major crops: broccoli, blueberries, apples, potatoes, and Christmas trees/wreaths.

Many of the state’s growers are dependent on this workforce and the expertise these workers bring as farmers to Maine’s orchards, nurseries, fields, and barrens.

What are we willing to do to support Maine’s migrant farm workers? To acknowledge all the benefits we gain from this majority immigrant workforce is an important first step. But this step needs to be followed by thoughtful policy discussion and development that takes into consideration the root causes of migration and the true cost and obvious benefits to society of immigrant participation in our labor force. We also need to address myths and inaccuracies about immigrants living and working in our communities. For example, the majority of farm workers served by the Maine Migrant Health Program (MMHP) are living below the poverty level and are NOT receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, Medicaid, or Medicare. Yes, their wages support their families who are back “home,” but they also spend their money locally on food, gas, hard goods, auto repairs, and rent to local landlords, along with state and federal taxes.

The national immigration “problem” is not just about who passed over a border without certain documents. It is interwoven with U.S. trade, agricultural, and environmental policies. It is all too easy to say immigration is the issue when such things as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have radically altered the policy landscape and countless lives south of the border. Just as one example, the cost of tortillas, a staple in the Mexican diet, increased more than 500 percent in the first five years of NAFTA’s implementation. If we were honest, we might acknowledge that if our children were hungry, we might be tempted to go to another country, even without proper documents, in order to feed them.

The issues presented by immigration need to be addressed in a humane and

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rational way, without succumbing to rhetoric or strident calls for harsh policies. So, the next time you join a discussion about immigration reform, take a step back and ask yourself, “What fruits and vegetables did I eat today, where did they come from, and whose hands planted or picked that food? Why are they here? And to whom am I beholden?” -

Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 209

FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture

Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture

by Molly Anderson

E

ducation about food, fisheries, and agriculture in Maine is provided through a wide variety of venues.

Although we may think of education primarily as a service provided to K-12 students, young people, and adults by schools, colleges, and universities, education about food and agriculture comes to everyone through multiple sources: friends and family; participation in community activities; shopping for food at supermarkets, farm stands, or farmers’ markets; advertising that assails us everywhere; and media.

The need for widespread education about a good diet, a healthy lifestyle, and how eating local foods supports Maine’s economy has been recognized by many, including a working group that drafted legislation for a Maine food policy and food policy council in 2006. This revised policy expanded many of the concepts in a 1984 Legislative Resolve, which had established a food policy for Maine. The Maine Department of Education in its “Vision Statements for Maine Agricultural Education” also clearly recognized the need for agricultural literacy, professional development for K-12 teachers and career support in agriculture (maine.gov/education/aged/vision.html).

The desire to articulate goals for agricultural education at K-12 may have been in reaction to its de-emphasis over the last few decades. Most Maine children came from farming or fishing backgrounds as recently as the middle of the 20th century and all girls took “home economics” in high school until the last decades of the 20th century. The decline of farm numbers and growth of towns and cities, however, meant that many children had little or no direct

210 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

exposure to agriculture or fishing by the end of the century. As women moved into the paid workforce, the perceived need to train them to be “homemakers” and to teach them cooking skills declined.

A positive development in K-12 education related to agricultural literacy is the emergence of several good programs to enhance education about food and agriculture in public and private schools. Farm-to-school (F2S) programs have taken off rapidly in Maine, thanks to efforts of many champions. F2S benefits from the support of Focus on Agriculture in Rural Maine Schools (FARMS) and the National Farm to School Network, with its state and regional coordinators. F2S programs include a Maine Harvest Lunch, which has expanded since more than 200 schools participated in the first event in 2007. The Maine Department of Agriculture and Department of Education provide support to F2S groups, and a statewide email listserv and networking meetings have been organized by Western Mountains Alliance, Healthy Acadia, and the Eat Local Foods Coalition.

Maine is one of 10 states chosen to launch the new FoodCorps Program, which will support young volunteers to build and tend school gardens, facilitate sourcing and purchasing of local produce for local schools, and conduct hands-on education. Volunteers will be sponsored by community organizations and Cooperative Extension.

Another exciting new initiative for youth is the proposed environmental and agricultural magnet high school at Good Will-Hinckley for students who need an alternative learning environment, partnering with Kennebec Valley Community College so that students can earn credit toward an associate’s degree.

Many of Maine’s colleges and universities offer educational options in agriculture and food-related topics (Table 1). The largest of these is the state landgrant university, the University of Maine, with undergraduate and graduate (M.S. and Ph.D.) degrees ranging from food science and human nutrition to marine bio-resources. In addition, master’s degrees in human ecology, hospitality and tourism management, and hospitality management are offered by College of the Atlantic, Husson University, and Thomas College, respectively. Undergraduate four-year degrees are also offered by these institutions. The University of New

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FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture

TABLE 1: Food System-related Degrees in Maine Colleges and Universities

School

Program Area (degree) Animal and Veterinary Science (BS); Animal Science (MS) Botany and Plant Pathology (MS); Plant, Soil and Environmental Studies (MS); Plant Science (PhD) Environmental Horticulture (certificate: environmental horticulture; BS: concentrations—horticultural business, landscape design, sustainable horticulture; MS: horticulture)

University of Maine, Orono

Food Science and Human Nutrition (BS: concentrations—food science, food science and human nutrition, human nutrition and dietetics, food management; MS: food science and human nutrition; PhD: food and nutrition sciences) Marine Bio-Resources (MS, PhD) (interdisciplinary program: Animal and Veterinary Sciences, School of Marine Sciences, Food Science and Human Nutrition, for training in aquaculture and marine-related industries) Marine Sciences (BS: aquaculture concentration) Sustainable Agriculture (BS, MS) (interdisciplinary program: Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences; Biological Sciences; School of Economics)

University of Maine-Augusta

Veterinary Technology (AS) (Bangor campus only)

College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor

Human Ecology (BA, MPhil)

Husson University, Bangor

Hospitality and Tourism Management (concentration) (BS, MBA)

Thomas College, Waterville

Hospitality Management (BS, MBA)

Unity College, Unity

Agriculture, Food and Sustainability (to be changed to: Sustainable Food Systems, beginning fall 2012) (BS) Landscape Horticulture (AS)

University of New England, Biddeford

Aquaculture and Aquarium Science (BS)

Central Maine Community College (CMCC), Auburn

Culinary Arts (1-year certificate program)

Eastern Maine Community College (EMCC), Bangor

Food Service Specialist (1-year certificate program) Culinary Arts (AAS) Restaurant and Food Management (AAS) Culinary Arts (AAS)

Southern Maine Community College (SMCC), South Portland

Dietetic Technology (AS) Horticulture (AAS) Lodging and Restaurant Management (AAS)

Washington County Community College (WCCC), Calais

Culinary and Baking (1-year certificate program)

York County Community College, Wells

Culinary Arts (AAS)

Degree abbreviations: AS = Associate in Science; AAS = Associate in Applied Science; BS = Bachelor of Science; BA = Bachelor of Arts; MS = Master of Science; MPhil = Master of Philosophy; MBA = Master of Business Administration; PhD = Doctor of Philosophy.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 211

FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture

Education for Future Food Systems at College of the Atlantic

by Molly Anderson I teach and coordinate a program in sustainable food systems at College of the Atlantic (COA) in Bar Harbor, Maine. I came to COA because of the unique profile of its educational system: classes are highly interdisciplinary, glocal (moving from local to global perspectives and back again), and focused on the integration of theory and practice. Students construct their own curricula in human ecology, or the interaction of humans with our natural environment and how social relations affect that interaction. They are passionately interested in sustainability: what it means, how to create more sustainable lives and businesses, and how to overcome barriers that prevent people from living in harmony with each other and our environment today. The student body is unusually diverse for Maine: about 13 percent are international students.

These international students provide invaluable perspectives on the realities of life in other parts of the world, and the needs for future food systems.

The sustainable food systems program builds on established classes and partnerships to expand food-related education beyond food production on COA’s two organic farms to preparing students for professions across the food system spectrum: from food production to waste disposal, analysis to advocacy, and science to arts and humanities. A sustainable business program initiated in 2009 complements food-system courses, internships, and other field experiences. The program teaches students how to become social entrepreneurs who can use socially and

environmentally responsible strategies to create positive changes in the world, while achieving financial success.

COA’s foodservices is co-directed by a COA graduate and offers affordable, delicious meals with preferential purchasing from producers of local, organic fruits and vegetables, antibiotic- and hormone-free, grass-fed beef and lamb, and fair-trade coffee. Just as students learn by doing in the classroom, farm, and field, the entire campus community learns by eating in the campus dining room.

After 25 years spent in research and education directed to reforming food systems, I believe that the kinds of skills and knowledge imparted in programs such as the ones at COA are vital for our future. The U.S. needs to learn how to grow food without damaging water quality and eroding soil; provision ourselves without relying on petroleum; close the nutrient loop so that all “waste” becomes a resource; multiply the number of farmers; create rural economies that rely once more on strong food businesses for jobs and wealth; and revive the culture of agriculture so that multiple generations can live in rural areas with ample intellectual and social stimulation. To have healthy lives in the state of the future, every person needs to become food literate: understanding the contributions of agriculture to environmental quality and community vitality; understanding how to grow food, prepare it, and eat to be healthy; and learning how to create and support policies that will lead to a state where every person eats well.

England offers a B.S. in aquaculture and aquarium science, and Unity College offers a B.S. in agriculture, food and sustainability. Associate’s degrees (two-year) in agricultural or food topics are offered by the University of Maine-Augusta, Unity College, Eastern Maine Community College, Southern Maine Community College, Washington County Community College, and York County Community College. Additionally, one-year certificate programs are offered by two of the community colleges. The primary emphases of these programs are on agricultural production, animal and veterinary science, aquaculture, culinary arts and restaurant management.

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Compared with other states, the number and diversity of agricultural, fisheries, and food-related degree programs is high, and Maine is one of the few states that has several undergraduate and graduate degree programs in marine science in addition to agricultural sciences. In keeping with the state’s reliance on income from tourism, hospitality management is well represented in degree options. Sustainability in food systems (the diversity of activities from production of inputs to food consumption and waste disposal) is addressed in the University of Maine’s B.S. and M.S. in sustainable agriculture; Unity College’s B.S. in agriculture, food and sustainability; and College of the

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FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture

From Farm to Fork: The Maine Food System and University of Maine Cooperative Extension

By John Rebar Maine’s food system is changing—much as it is across the region and country. There is a growing demand for locally produced food. Citizens want to support local farmers, fishermen and the economy. They also want to grow their own food. However, who supports the farmers, fishermen, food processors, and home gardeners to produce highquality food that meets this demand? The University of Maine (UMaine) Cooperative Extension is deeply rooted in many aspects of the food system and uses education as the primary tool to influence the production, processing, and eating of high-quality and nutritious meals. It has used applied research and outreach to help Maine citizens for more than 97 years.

UMaine Extension is helping Maine agriculture and aquaculture to be competitive and helping home gardeners and others produce their own food. Extension faculty and staff provide expertise in a wide array of areas that can affect Mainers’ lives and influence the food we grow, process and eat. The food system is complex, with many components.

UMaine Extension is committed to supporting sustainable agriculture and aquaculture that protects human, land, water, and air resources and generates a profit for farm families. From infant nutrition to seniors’ intake of fruits and vegetables, Extension is helping Maine people make informed decisions about food. Extension also works with limited-income families to teach the value of a nutritionally sound diet that stretches the food dollar. From farm to fork, UMaine Extension is a key partner in Maine’s food system.

Technical Expertise: Faculty and staff provide researchbased information to farmers on the production of crops and livestock in all the major commodity areas. Specialists in potatoes, dairy, wild blueberries, ornamental horticulture, vegetables, tree fruits, poultry, livestock, and more are all relied upon for information on new varieties, new production techniques, pre-emergent through post-harvest management, harvesting, storage, pricing, and marketing.

Extension also provides technical support to homeowners, gardeners, and others on how to maximize production, minimize costs, and protect the environment.

Pest Management: All agricultural production is at risk from pests. UMaine Extension promotes integrated pest management (IPM), which means the scientific use of pest-control measures. IPM has reduced the amount of pesticides used in Maine while saving crops and livestock, thereby reducing costs by millions of dollars and protecting the environment. Organic farming and gardening is supported through production and pest-management education. Education in this area has expanded to schools, hospitals, and public buildings to reduce the risks associated with pesticide use.

Food Safety: UMaine Extension provides educational support to farmers, food processors, and consumers on how to protect the food supply and feed our families safely.

Food can be contaminated at every phase of production and processing. Through proper sanitation and management, foodborne illnesses can be prevented and the credibility of the food system maintained.

Food Security: Maine has far too many people who do not have enough food to eat. UMaine Extension is helping to feed hungry people through education. For example, Harvest for Hunger teaches home gardeners how to produce food and asks that participants contribute some of their harvest to those who don’t have access to fresh produce. In 2010, more than 200,000 pounds of fresh produce were donated to food pantries, shelters, and other locations that serve those in need.

Farm to School: Youth need to understand where their food comes from. Through collaborative partnerships, UMaine Extension is working with many groups to bring locally grown food into schools and help students understand that food doesn’t just come from a large grocery store.

Preserving the Harvest: Whether canning, freezing, or drying, food preservation is an area of growing interest in Maine. UMaine Extension is the primary in-state resource for research-based recommendations on how to preserve the harvest to retain high quality and be safe. Food preservation workshops are held regularly across the state.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 213

FOOD SYSTEM WORKFORCE: PRESENT AND FUTURE: Education on Food, Fisheries and Agriculture

Atlantic’s unique B.A. and M.Phil. in human ecology (see sidebar).

Although they do not have degree programs in agriculture or food-related topics, several of Maine’s private colleges have hosted events, started organic gardens, and offered courses in food and sustainability.

For example, Bowdoin College has an organic garden and organizes a “Meet What You Eat” initiative through its environmental studies program. Bates College has achieved recognition for its dining service that purchases local and organic produce and grass-fed beef. Bates is a member of the Green Restaurant Association and diverts more than half of its solid waste from the local landfill through a comprehensive management system.

Maine’s oldest organization devoted to public (non-degree) education and outreach about food is the University of Maine (UMaine) Cooperative Extension.

UMaine Extension provides information and technical expertise to food producers, processors, and the general public in areas ranging from commodity crop production, aquaculture, and pest management to food preserving, food safety, and food security (see sidebar).

It is perhaps in its stellar nongovernmental organizations and numerous educational farms and their educational initiatives related to food production and healthy eating that Maine stands out the most from other states. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) is a leading light, one of the first such organizations and largely responsible for the revitalization of small farming in Maine.

In addition to an extensive array of year-round workshops in agricultural topics, it organizes the annual Common Ground Country Fair that brings together Maine’s agricultural community. MOFGA also offers a journeyman program that helps wannabe farmers bridge the gap between apprenticeships and independent farming.

Many other organizations that address food, agriculture and aspects of sustainability have sprouted up.

The Newforest Institute in Brooks teaches permaculture techniques and design of facilities for sustainable living.

Several other organizations focus on food access, food justice, and building a local food economy (e.g., Food for Maine’s Future, Cultivating Community, Healthy Acadia, and the Real Food Institute of Midcoast Maine) 214 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

or improving conditions for the lowest-paid workers in the food system (e.g., Mano a Mano in Milbridge). To provide better education and technical support in addressing issues related to fisheries, Penobscot East and Cobscook Bay Resource Center offer talks, exhibits, conferences and other events. In addition, UMaine Cooperative Extension offers many workshops, often in conjunction with other groups or organizations, to bring current research findings to the public.

Maine’s educational farms include Aldermere Farm (Maine Coast Heritage Foundation); the Page Farm and Home Museum (University of Maine, Orono); Chewonki Foundation; the Morris Farm Trust; Washburn-Norlands Living History Center; and Wolfe’s Neck Farm. Each of these farms offers programming—ranging from hosting visitors to conferences and summer camps—to educate children, youth, or their adjacent communities about agriculture and food. The Eat Local Foods Coalition was started almost 10 years ago to network and support organizations working on food and farming issues and to create a stronger “voice” for these concerns in Maine.

Maine has diverse opportunities for people interested in learning more about the food system, from K-12 programs to doctoral degrees to public workshops for farmers. The state is well-positioned to support burgeoning interest in local foods and to enhance agriculture and fisheries’ positive impacts on the state economy. Molly Anderson holds the Partridge Chair in Food and Sustainable Agriculture Systems at College of the Atlantic, Bar Harbor.

She joined COA in 2010 after previous work as an independent consultant, with Oxfam America, and on the faculty of Tufts University where she initiated the Agriculture, Food and Environment graduate degree program.

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Investing in Maine’s Food System

Every system needs resources to build, maintain, and expand.

As the U.S. food system became more industrialized and global in scope, billions of dollars were spent on infrastructure, irrigation, and concentrated feedlots. “Get big or get out” meant places such as Maine, with its preponderance of small farms and food producers, were left by the wayside. Now, as the mood turns to a more local and regional approach, we need to rebuild and retool our food system. Fortunately, there is an abundance of social capital to make this happen and more and more financial capital. Authors in this section discuss some of these efforts. Ron Phillips provides an overview of the various ways Maine’s food-production and processing enterprises are financed and the critical components needed to secure this financing. Virginia Manuel, Jane Caulfield, Betsy Biemann, Linzee Weld, and Leah Cook give examples of innovative Maine projects and businesses and the ways they are being financed. On the investment and funding side, there are federal and state programs, with more attention being paid to community versus corporate food suppliers; foundations nationally and in Maine are organizing in food-system affinity groups and working together to support local food; innovative loan programs at Community Development Financial Institutions and economic development organizations are sharpening their work in this sector; more traditional businesses, banks and credit unions are reassessing and ramping up their programs and expertise; and entrepreneurial and university-led research, science and technology are garnering resources and investing in experimentation and innovation. Even informal networks of individuals are gathering regularly to provide small loans to area growers and harvesters.

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

Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 215

INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: Financing Maine’s Food Enterprises

Financing Maine’s Food Enterprises

by Ron Phillips

T

his is the right time to invest in Maine’s agriculture and fisheries enterprises and infrastructure, and to boost the quantity of foodstuffs produced and consumed in this state. The national “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” campaign of the USDA is gripping the nation. Consumer interest in purchasing local foods is increasing, not just for access to healthy foods, but also to support local farmers and state economies.

Various outlets to quality foods, whether through community-supported agriculture (CSAs) and community-supported fishery (CSFs) networks or farmers’ markets, are evidence of a growing market.

Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan in a blog on the USDA’s web site focused attention on the more than 100 “food hubs” throughout the nation—cooperative partnerships among smaller farmers, distributors, and buyers—providing new market opportunities for rural food producers.

Throughout the state, retail chains, institutions, and restaurants are featuring local foods both to boost their “bottom line” and to give Mainers the quality they deserve for healthy and safe food.

Among the drivers of access to healthy foods is increased obesity, a problem facing many Mainers.

The resurgence of interest in local foods is also driven by studies related to long-term health issues. For example, a recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that the lack of access to quality, healthy foods leads to early childhood obesity and premature deaths at later ages, particularly among children and families with low incomes.

216 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

There is work ahead in redeveloping Maine’s food systems. Financing the development of a local and regional food-production, -processing and -retail system—and all that constitutes the Maine food industry’s infrastructure—presents an opportunity for private and public investing, including philanthropic sources of support. More social investors, more governmental entities, and more nonprofit organizations are pursuing ways to develop Maine’s food systems.

This article covers a number of opportunities, issues, and challenges related to financing Maine’s emerging food-production and -processing sector, including the critical components of a business plan, management, and capital. It concludes with recommendations for both private and public support of this sector.

FINANCING BUSINESS ENTERPRISES

A

s the list in Table 1 shows, many institutions and investors are poised to assist in the capitalization of projects. The articles by Manuel and Biemann, this issue, give expanded examples of two other funders and the types of projects they have supported.

Providing funds in any form to any enterprise, including food production, processing, and distribution, carries risks that must be confronted and managed for successful outcomes. Raising the necessary and appropriate capital for these enterprises— whether from friends, family, government, private investors, foundations, donations, or combinations of sources—is challenging. Food hubs or larger-scale ventures aimed at regional, national, or export markets demand intensive due diligence. Current capital resources may not be sufficient. Banks certainly appear flush with funds for conventional, secured debt, as the Maine Bankers Association would insist, but the ability of an enterprise to borrow funds under more rigorous scrutiny may be less evident. Federal or state guarantees for loans ranging from 75 percent to 90 percent may be available, but these are largely underwritten with some degree of collateral back-up or personal guarantees.

While vital to ignite entrepreneurship, access to more risk-oriented developmental capital, equity

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INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: Financing Maine’s Food Enterprises

TABLE 1: Select Financing Resources for Agriculture and Other Business Enterprises

Targeted Loan Programs Organization

Program

Androscoggin Valley Council of Government

Dedicated to supporting the agriculture sector with assistance for start-ups, expansions and modernizations in Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford Counties.

Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI)

Provides flexible financing to micro, small and medium business enterprises from less than $50,000 - $500,000 and higher to farm and value-added enterprises.

The Carrot Project

With CEI, offers the Maine Farm Business Loan Fund for small and mid-sized farms that use sustainable practices and serve local and regional markets.

Farm Credit of Maine

Offers loans, appraisals, insurance, financial, tax and other services.

Farm Service Agency (FSA)

Provides links to Federal and Maine-specific loan programs.

Finance Authority of Maine (FAME)

Offers the Agricultural Marketing Loan Fund, the Nutrient Management Loan Program, the Potato Marketing Improvement Fund for agricultural businesses, as well as a linked investment program for agriculture.

Four Directions Development Corporation (FDDC)

Offers commercial (fixed-rate, low-interest) loans to members of the four Maine tribes with a vested interest of 51 percent or more in a business.

MaineStream Finance

Provides credit, financial services and other services to underserved populations in Penobscot, Piscataquis and Knox counties.

Maine Center for Women, Work and Community

Offers business and financial planning training and a microloan program.

Maine Farmland Trust (MFT)

Pools donor funds to help buy farmland in its Buy/Protect/Sell program.

Maine Organic Farmers and Growers Association (MOFGA)

Offers loans from $5,000 - $20,000 for working capital or farm equipment, available to MOFGA-certified or transitioning organic farmers; and current participants and graduates of MOFGA’s Journeyperson Program.

Northern Maine Development Commission (NMDC)

Works with businesses, local banks, state and federal agencies, and other funding sources to assist businesses in Aroostook County with their financial needs.

No Small Potatoes Investment Club

An informal network of private investors who are “seeding” diverse projects; offers personal/direct small loans ($3,000-$15,000) to farmers/producers.

Sunrise County Economic Council (SCEC)

Offers businesses, entrepreneurs, commercial fishermen and marine-related industries access to capital through locally-operated revolving loan funds.

Somerset Economic Development Corporation

Offers a revolving loan fund to assist small businesses with cash requirements.

Washington-Hancock Community Agency/ Down East Business Alliance (WHCA/DBA)

Supports agriculture and food system projects and offers small business loans.

Grant Resources Source

Program

Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources

Offers a variety of support programs, including the Agricultural Development Grant, which funds market research, promotion and new technology projects for groups of businesses; the Agricultural Water Source Development Cost Share Program, offering up to 75% of funds for irrigation ponds and wells for farmers; and the Farms for the Future Program, offering business planning assistance and grants for farmers up to $25,000.

Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE)

Includes information on sustainable agriculture grants, project reports and publications as well as information for consumers and educators.

Farm Credit AgEnhancement Grants

Grants for organizations promoting agriculture, not for individual farms.

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capital, or “patient capital” as it is sometimes referred to, or even grants, is limited. A recent grant program managed by the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) to provide much-needed grant capital to select, valueadded food processors was oversubscribed for the funding available. Efforts among the Slow Money network to induce more donations and investment funds directly to private, for-profit enterprises or through other charitable entities will probably be limited given the constraints of IRS regulations concerning designated giving.

In any event, the amount of capital necessary to boost the food sector likely far outstrips private charitable capacity. At a recent forum convened by the Maine’s Community Foundation, a presenter from the Annie E. Casey Foundation noted that foundation lending in community investing that includes food projects is minimal (Valesquez 2011). Regarding venture capital, few food enterprises offer the kind of return on investment (ROI) to attract conventional venture capital sources.

MAINE FOOD SYSTEM ECONOMICS

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lready employing some 8,774 full- and parttime workers, the $2.3 billion Maine agriculture industry in 2008 included approximately 7,100 farms and 2,391 food manufacturers (Harker 2008). Maine agriculture and natural-resource industries overall grow further when satisfying the appetites of Maine’s $3 billion annual tourist industry, according an article

by Daniel Stynes (2008). The Maine Department of Tourism calculates that tourism is by far Maine’s biggest economic sector. In 2009, Maine’s 34 million tourists supported more than 170,000 full-time jobs, $535 million in tax revenues, and $10 billion in goods and services. When combined with the state’s iconic lobster industry of over 5,300 fishermen and its groundfishing fleet, Maine’s food sector offers a ripe opportunity for investment.

The U.S. food-marketing system links producers to consumers via a robust food-manufacturing, -wholesaling, and -retailing system comprised of food stores, co-ops, and foodservice institutions. It is a complex system that is not easy to replicate, replace, or indeed, compete against. Investment in the sector is 218 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

rightly tentative, and state and federal policy intended to promote models of alternative food systems (e.g., the food hubs) are now making slow inroads in the number and variety of grocery outlets for local Maine products. While making strides, overall in-state food production, processing, and distribution is minimal, with 80 percent of the state’s “caloric” consumption dependent on imports (Maine Department of Agriculture 2006).

Nationally, data from a USDA Economic Research Service news brief on the food marketing system in the U.S. (www.ers.usda.gov) show that a wave of consumer demand for local foodstuffs extends to new forms of retailing. Major recent developments in the U.S. food system include the increasing presence of nontraditional grocery retailers such as supercenters and drugstores and competitive responses by traditional grocers such as supermarket chains. These developments have contributed to sharp increases in concentration in the grocery retail sector, changing conventional relationships among retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. In such a competitive domestic food market, food companies are attempting to differentiate themselves from the competition by reporting voluntary activities that demonstrate social responsibility and by more tailored advertising campaigns and product offerings.

Food- and beverage-manufacturing plants transform raw materials into intermediate foodstuffs or edible products. In 2005, these plants accounted for 13 percent of the value of shipments from all U.S. manufacturing plants. Because intermediate inputs (primarily agricultural materials) account for a relatively large share of food and beverage manufacturers’ costs, value added in food and beverage manufacturing represents a slightly smaller share (12.7 percent) of value added in all manufacturing.

Nationally, meat processing is the largest single component of food and beverage manufacturing; other important components include beverages, dairy, other food products, grains and oilseeds, and fruits and vegetables.

Each of these sectors represents market opportunity for Maine enterprises. The promise of food-production enterprises is evident in the number and diversity of projects in the news over the past few years. In one instance, after only one year in business, an organic Maine dairy feed mill has had the effect of depressing

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competitors’ prices out of Quebec (the next nearest source). In another, the Somerset Grist Mill strives to revitalize grain growing and its local Main Street as it uses a historic 19th-century downtown structure in central Maine. The Crown O’ Maine marketing cooperative is aggregating product to supply Maine’s organicmarket retail network. And yet another business is developing a state-of-the-art, humane-certified, redmeat-processing facility on a scale to handle the burgeoning livestock industries throughout the state.

How far does Maine have to go to supplant imported food supplies? While certainly dairy products supply virtually all of Maine consumption, the percentages fall rapidly with beef and poultry with only 5.8 and 11.1 percent, respectively. Can Mainers significantly replace imported agricultural products? Closing this gap will require not only entrepreneurship and business-development support, but also access to appropriate forms of financing beyond debt capital: equity and even grant support.

ACCESSING CAPITAL: THE CONTINUUM OF RISK AND DUE DILIGENCE

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he new and emerging food entrepreneurs with their bold goals face capital challenges. The road to business success is replete with casualties, many for the lack of timely capital or missing the right market moment.

Yet, others failed because management didn’t have the breadth or depth to put in place the right people at the right time. The issues, then, remain how to connect a business to appropriate financial resources and how to communicate the vision and experience of the entrepreneur to the individuals, investors, financial intermediaries, government agencies, and banks that are trying to respond to this new-found entrepreneurial spirit.

Business starts and expansions are financed along a continuum of the risk spectrum, from the venture capital-like or equity and patient capital part of the spectrum to the more traditional bank financing and guarantee programs that are essentially “collaterally driven” and less risky. Financing any new or expanding project is a time-consuming process.

Venture capital can take six months, and then not even end up doing the deal. Banks can turn around a loan relatively rapidly, given their hunt for collateral

and repayment capability. As a result, there is considerable variation in the time it takes to conduct due diligence, which is simply the careful study of all aspects of a potential investment to assess risk (Metrick 2007), as each business poses a unique set of challenges to underwriting.

Most lenders have standard requirements that include demonstration of sufficient cash-flow to service a loan, secondary sources of repayment such as collateral, and tertiary sources of repayment such as a personal and/or other guarantees of “friends, family, or principals” to mitigate the initial risk of the loan.

Indeed, many businesses start by using credit cards of family and friends for initial financing, a practice that the Kauffmann Foundation has argued is indicative of the entrepreneurial gamble and casualties of the U.S. financing system (www.kauffman.org).

Assuming a positive initial screen, the lender then begins a due-diligence process that includes testing and analyzing the assumptions in the business plan, financial viability, and management capabilities. In addition to credit considerations, the loan officer may also consider the social benefit generated by the loan.

How will it affect the entrepreneur(s), employees, the community, and the state?

BUSINESS PLAN, CAPITAL, MANAGEMENT

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f asked to rank how one should assess a business, what would the sequence be? As most lenders and investors will tell you, capital is a necessary but insufficient ingredient to the success of a new or expanding business. Many start with the business plan. A fundamental consideration is the business feasibility of a venture—social or otherwise. The business plan is the platform from which all else flows.

Is the business idea credible? The business plan is not just a vague collection of words, projections, and pictures depicting the operation. Rather, it is a test of the entrepreneur’s ability to capture the essence of the project, the vision of his/her team, and create a level of comfort that there is leadership to chart a course headed toward success. This is the most important ingredient in success, and the business plan is designed to launch this conversation. After this, it might truly be a matter of luck, that is, hitting the

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market’s sweet spot, being in the right place at the right time.

Then follows the question, is there sufficient and appropriate capital to finance the enterprise? And finally comes management. One can have a great idea and all the money in the world, but if management can’t be persuasive on his/her ability to execute the plan, all else is meaningless.

Business Plan: A Realistic Vision

In addition to a completed loan application, covering the basic information about the entrepreneur, the cash requirements, and potential uses of funds, lenders typically review a comprehensive business plan.

Some of the best business plans are written by people with little financial experience, but a wealth of practical insight and ability to express their vision. The typical plan consists of descriptive material of the business and back-up documents (MasterCard 2002). All plans place considerable focus on management’s personal financial situation and the members of the team. The assumptions made throughout the plan are noted, including factors such as how pricing ties together with gross revenues and competition. There is considerable attention to the gross margin of the business, including the costs associated with production such as labor, keeping the lights on, and the owner’s salary or “draw.”

A good example of a comprehensive business plan is the one submitted to Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI),

by Village Farm in Freedom, Maine (www.villagefarmfreedom.com). The farm entrepreneurs presented a model business plan. Its introduction articulates their vision well: Village Farm is the dream and reality of two people, committed to the greater good of the environment and the community. For us, Polly Shyka and Prentice Grassi, growing food with respect for the limitations of the soils and waters, and with community involvement are the means to living those commitments. We are proud to be farmers, and we aspire to be good neighbors and stewards. We enjoy interacting creatively, educationally and carefully with our customers.

The supporting documents include the typical financial statements, budget, and projections. After reading 220 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

the plan, a thorough picture of the entrepreneurs’ goals, products, distribution, marketing, risks, and budget is evident.

Adequate Capital: No Margin, No Mission

When reviewing a business venture’s plan that clearly has a vibrant social mission (such as producing jobs and enhancing environmental stewardship), an oft-repeated expression in considering an investment is “no margin, no mission!” While the social vision of the mission may be paramount and attractive, the critical question is, “Is there margin?”—meaning, a healthy enough percentage of revenues to cover costs so that there is sufficient money left to pay indirect expenses (often the owner’s draw), debt repayments, and other overhead not directly associated with the actual product and selling.

This question can and should be applied to every enterprise. Private, socially motivated capital from individuals and foundations has helped catalyze a new focus on growing Maine’s food sector. Resources appear to abound, giving credence to the view that there’s always money available if there’s a good deal. A lender or investor who understands the issues unique to agriculture or other aspects of the food system can be helpful in shaping the ingredients of a plan to attract investment.

To get at the margin issue or potential profitability of the company, the central question for any enterprise is, “What’s the business model?” The precise definition of a business model is the plan implemented by a company to generate revenue and make a profit from operations. The model includes the components and functions of the business, as well as the revenues it generates and the expenses it incurs. This is a revenue model, one not reliant on grants or subsidy. In agriculture—of vital interest to the health and welfare of a community—subsidy is used by federal and state governments (to the extent politically and financially feasible) to balance purely private, market-generated income to provide certain “price stabilization” compensation to farmers, particularly on key commodities such as milk. Not every farmer benefits, but it continues to be of utmost importance to deal with the values lost or gained if the common good of farm viability is not preserved.

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Within these uncertain conditions, the business model of MOO Milk (Maine’s Own Organic Milk Company) illustrates the challenge of access to timely equity or equity-like capital to develop essentially a New England market for a quality, local, organic dairy product. While milk is a product familiar to everyone, producing the product and maintaining farmer viability is difficult. A report of the Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine noted that between 2000 and 2009 Maine lost 238 dairy farms (Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry 2009). By 2009 there were 315 farms with 32,000 cows producing 69 million gallons of milk annually. The report noted the dairy industry generates more than $570 million dollars annually for the state’s economy, with 700,000 acres of land “important to the state’s number one industry—tourism.”

In an effort to restore a market and preserve farm viability, Bill Eldridge connected his multinational food-business experience with the potential in the organic market to revitalize the industry, particularly among farmers in the northern part of the state. While challenged by transportation cost to distant markets, the issue for MOO Milk is to establish a consistent and growing market for the product in sufficient volume to meet expenses and pay farmers. The vision of dairy farmers and many others to develop the MOO Milk brand is a classic case of a social entrepreneurial startup consisting of experienced dairy farmers aligned with social investors and an individual with a background in multinational food business (see sidebar).

MOO Milk is a prime example of many of the issues faced by a private enterprise, from efficiencies in production to the all-important establishment of a brand and marketing to support sales.

Management: The Entrepreneur as Maine’s Best Asset

Generally speaking, the flow of capital will ultimately depend on how convincing the management team is in demonstrating its expertise. There are many ways to characterize management’s contribution to the success of any enterprise. This does not mean that every business leader has all the answers and is infallible. In the real estate business, the common refrain to evaluate one’s investment value is location, location, location. In an

MOO MILK MOO Milk’s story began in 2009 when some northern Maine dairy farmers lost their contracts to sell to Hood. They came together with private investors to launch Maine’s Own Organic Milk Company, L3C (low profit, limited liability company). MOO Milk’s progress to date in meeting its goals is encouraging from the perspective of establishing strong “brand” recognition for the product, not just in Maine but in Massachusetts, whose consumer market will enable the company to achieve significant volume and sales. The challenge for MOO Milk, as with many start-ups, is access to cash when needed to adapt to market issues, problems in production, and investment in market strategies to differentiate the company from its competitors.

MOO Milk’s business model rests on capturing the rise in consumer interest in local and organic dairy products and on distinguishing itself as a Maine-branded product while being competitive on price. Like many start-up businesses, seed and equity capital is essential to getting the operation up and running. In MOO Milk’s case, the sole capital investment came from private sources committed to the social impact of the venture with no public capital and bank financing MOO Milk L3C combines social investing with business viability— low profit for investors, but gainful return for dairy farmers. With potential profits flowing to farmers, there are limited returns. An L3C is run like a regular business. Unlike a for-profit business, however, an L3C’s main focus is on achieving socially beneficial aims, with profit-making as a secondary goal.

entrepreneurial start-up or expansion, the apt expression is management, management, management.

One of Maine’s greatest assets is the number, depth, and capabilities of its entrepreneurs who have developed well-known companies such as Tom’s of Maine; Moss, Inc; Cuddledown; and Delorme Mapping. A good example of a company in the food sector with persuasive management is Looks Gourmet in Whiting (see sidebar). This seafood-products company was able to attract venture capital from Maine sources, and then, as the company grew, to bring in even more venture capital from a West Coast firm that specializes in the natural-food-products industry. Solid entrepreneurial vision and management made this happen.

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LOOKS GOURMET FOOD COMPANY Looks Gourmet is a case where a Maine-born and raised entrepreneur, Mike Cote, saw great potential in a natural product, blended with the character and tradition of Maine’s fishing heritage. As an executive with Pepperidge Farm and Odwalla, Inc., Cote gained invaluable experience in the food industry, leading to his acquisition of a failing 100-year-old small business in the Washington County town of Whiting, a rural town of 2,200 located in Maine’s poorest county. This entrepreneur’s vision was to harness the brand power of the products, which include all-natural shellfish products (clams, mussels, lobster) chowders, bisques, clam juice, canned fish, seafood sauces, and a wide variety of other products under the Bar Harbor brand and to optimize their value in the marketplace. In the premium-shelf stable seafood and soup sector, the Bar Harbor brand has now risen to become the fastestgrowing brand in the U.S. in both grocery and natural retail segments. Additionally, Bar Harbor clam juice has gained a solid threshold in the clam juice segment to become the number 2 clam juice in total U.S grocery among a field of more than 20 competitors.

When Looks Gourmet initially approached CEI’s venture subsidiaries for financing, it showed a sales growth of 208 percent between 2003 and 2006. It had been selected by Inc.

Magazine as being among the top 35 percent of the fastestgrowing small firms in the U.S. Since then Look’s Gourmet has continued its aggressive growth and has been named

by Inc 5000 as one of the fastest-growing private companies in America, having achieved 23 percent compounded annual growth since its inception in April 2003.

In Washington County, new business and job opportunities are challenging, so when a venture emerges with promise of growth, employment, and economic opportunity, mission investors want to look favorably on financing, in this case the type of equity capital and technical support to help the company realize its potential. The headline in the Ellsworth American says it all; it reads, “Gourmet Canning Company Expands Facility and Increases Sales Using Lean Principles: Seven New Jobs Added: Entrepreneurial Spirit Takes Hold” (Ellsworth American 2007).

With help from CEI’s equity commitment and technical assistance funds, Cote began the process of reshaping the company’s product formulation, brand, labeling, go-to market strategy, and business plan and goals to achieve a greater economic potential that had been dormant. They have now doubled employment to 21 in a geographic region offering few options for jobs.

Looks Gourmet’s ingredients for success included not just the natural products of clam chowder, lobster bisque, clams, and lobster, which are largely locally produced and sourced in Maine, but the intangible value of an entrepreneur matched with appropriately scaled and responsive capital.

ROLE OF FINANCIAL INTERMEDIARY

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he dynamics of the market, its demand for local food products, combined with the ingenious and persistent marketing strategies of the entrepreneur to “buy local” will ultimately determine the future of Maine’s food production sector. Support for entrepreneurs comes from a variety of places, one of which is the nonprofit sector, and particularly those that provide financing and technical support, often described as a financial intermediary. Many of these with varying

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attributes and capacity are listed on the web site of FAME (see Table 1).

Many of these financial intermediaries are CDFIs, including their historic predecessors, the Community Development Corporations (CDCs), which came out of the civil-rights movement in the 1960s. These community-based intermediaries are now favored entities among grantors and social investors to manage and deploy funds for affordable housing, real estate, community facilities (such as child care), or commercial small-business ventures. At both the national and local level, there are some 2,000 CDC/CDFIs at varying stages of development, with professional lending, investing, technical and administrative staff on the ground making socially motivated investments.

Intermediaries can perform many functions, from marketing and outreach to encouraging food producers at all levels, to the technical support, due diligence, and

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management of capital needed to nurture the industry.

Intermediaries can also play a role in policy at all levels— private, public, state, or federal—bringing important issues and policy advocacy to bear: land preservation such as Maine Farmland Trust; healthy ways of producing food, such as the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardiners Association (MOFGA) certification program; and even the marketing of products and working with trade associations, such as the Independent Grocers Association and Maine Food Producers Alliance. Local, state, and federal policies frequently focus on financial intermediaries to drive more capital and support to the sector.

Intermediaries vary widely in purpose and capacity, but they are all mission driven, and typically structured as charitable organizations with goals to ameliorate distress and otherwise help people and communities to achieve greater self-reliance. Maine has its share of nonprofit, governmental or private intermediaries engaged in some sort of financing activity, whether in small business, affordable housing, specialneeds housing, or single-project-focused activities, and regional or state community-development projects.

(Some examples are listed in Table 1.)

Not Just Money: Know-How and Technical Support

With differing capacities and skills, part of the infrastructure of food-sector development is the capability of intermediaries to work with the sector.

This function is typically defined as technical assistance. There exists a statewide network of business counselors overseen by organizations such as the University of Southern Maine’s Small Business Development Center and the Women’s Business Centers at CEI. Business counselors work throughout the state providing support to perhaps 4,000 to 5,000 fledgling entrepreneurs annually.

To illustrate, only a handful of projects that come to CEI receive loans or equity investments. Annually, CEI reviews 400 business plans and finances perhaps 20 percent of these businesses through direct lending and investing and leveraging about $30 to $40 million in project financing. But most businesses need more than money. They need direction and support in basic business operations, putting together a business plan,

developing financial packages, and devising a market strategy for their product.

As a manager of others’ capital, intermediaries such as CEI are mindful of the risks and attempt to manage these risks with analysis and judgment on overall business feasibility. And as a financial intermediary, CEI and others are expected to follow a discipline of project review, balance risk with social impact such as job creation, and carry out its charitable, taxexempt mission, which means a broader public benefit must be ascertained for each project.

THE PAST REVISITED

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griculture was cited in the seminal Brookings Institute (2006) study, Charting Maine’s Future, as one of the primary sectors within which to develop sound policy and resources. But one can go back to 1977 and the Commission on Maine’s Future Final Report to encounter a conversation about the importance of Maine’s natural resources generally, and specifically, its agriculture. One statement from the report’s recommendation on agriculture is worth quoting: “It be the policy goal of the State of Maine to preserve and reclaim agricultural land and to encourage the production, marketing and diversification of agricultural products” (Commission on Maine’s Future 1977).

The primary concern at that time was not only the disappearance of the family farm to nonfarm development, but also loss of topsoil due to the farming practices of the day. During that period, “back to the land” young organic farmers were beginning their long journey to take their place in the mainstream of Maine agriculture. MOFGA was born, and individuals and groups throughout Maine came together under the banner of the Maine Consortium for Food SelfReliance (including CEI, formed in 1977) in an attempt to implement the recommendation of the commission and foster the growth of local markets and institutional buying.

The issues remain much the same today—food safety, access to food, and the energy costs to transport food—but the odds seem so much greater to succeed measurably this time. Business-minded entrepreneurs and activists are re-envisioning the nature of our food system, its supply and safety, the health of children and

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families, the stewardship of land, and a land (and sea) ethic that binds people and places to their environment and community support.

Back then there was also the question of access to capital. That issue was brought to the national stage with the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 to spur more bank lending to revitalize rural and urban communities in need of capital and to invest in communities and neighborhoods outside the mainstream. In this period in Maine, little capital was mobilized compared to today, and Maine ranked in the lower quintile, if not 50th, in bank deposits per capita.

For any development to take place, there had to be a more proactive move by the private and public sectors to spur investment.

Private-Public Development Model

It’s worth looking back at what the state did in the late 1970s and early 1980s to spur growth in fisheries as an example of what might be done in other sectors of Maine’s food system. Propelling investment was a strategic intervention in federal public policy, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976, which gave the U.S. regulatory control over the fishing resource 200 miles from its borders—a way of managing the resource to the benefit of U.S. fishermen. Key to taking advantage of the regulatory environment was Maine’s need to develop processing and freezer capacity to create valueadded products. At that time, an estimated 85 percent of Maine-caught groundfish was sent out of state for processing. In so doing, the value per pound was determined by southern New England pricing, to Maine’s disadvantage—the infamous “Boston blue sheet”—that would set Maine’s fish prices at an artificially lower price than fish caught by its southern neighbors. Maine lost value and jobs because it lacked infrastructure to take advantage of the regulatory framework. As a result, investment, both private and public, steered in the direction of freezer and processing capacity.

Maine’s fisheries sector investment strategy was based on four conditions in the marketplace:

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1. A potential market value that lay to the south of Maine for products branded as such for market differentiation and consumer delight.

2. The federal regulatory change under the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act that created a more positive environment for investment.

3. Access to flexible, patient, or equity-like, capital to bear the brunt of the risks involved in such an investment.

4. And last but not least, knowledgeable entrepreneurs to take charge of the enterprise and set the course and vision for the industry— in a word, management, the key ingredient of any endeavor.

Municipalities joined in, with coordinated state and grassroots development to support local fisheries. In Portland and along the coast, fishery communities banded together to create more infrastructure capacity in processing, freezing, and even the wholesaling of products through the innovation of Portland’s Fish Exchange, a nonprofit market exchange modeled on successful European techniques. In 1981, the city of Portland took 19.5 acres for the site of the Portland Fish Pier to develop docks and berthing and to provide attractive, long-term lease opportunities for the private fishing sector to thrive. Also, since 2006, the state’s citizenry has voted on three occasions to pass a bond that would, in effect, “save the working waterfront” for marine uses.

For fisheries, the state, local communities, and industry came together in support of public financing to develop a sorely needed infrastructure from which the private sector—fishermen, processers, and retailers—could profitably invest and create new value. Could there now be a similar effort for Maine’s agriculture?

Following the fisheries model, one can imagine public funding that would create a half-dozen facilities for food hubs around the state to serve as an exchange between vendors and producers. In that model, the public invested in the basics of infrastructure—much like a highway—with deep subsidy to cover the high capital costs associated with entry into a particular private enterprise.

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POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

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hat are the key state/federal policies to effect change? Will an institutional-buying bill help secure market advantage? What is the role of independent retailers in advancing Maine agriculture and fisheries products? Should activists and practitioners come together to more effectively promote scalable investment strategies? Can the Maine legislature step up with state and federal dollars, along with various financing agencies, to consider a strategy to boost the chances of meeting the 2020 goal of 80 percent caloric intake of Maine-produced food by the state’s population? Often it’s not money that can solve the problem.

But when money is in short supply for infrastructure or patient capital, the solution indeed becomes formidable. For example, despite Governor John Baldacci’s efforts to convene a commission to address the potential of the lobster industry in the marketplace, funding for its primary recommendation—to launch a highlevel marketing venture—has been difficult to advance (Moseley Group 2009).

A private-sector working group on sustainable agriculture and fisheries would certainly be of added benefit to spur public policy in the right direction. It would be an action group, self-funded with foundation support, to facilitate coordinated investment, programmatic, and policy initiatives.

Here are a few specific recommendations for both the private and public sectors to consider: • Capitalize state small-business-financing programs operated and managed by FAME and other nonprofit lending, investing, and technical assistance initiatives. These funds can be complemented by federal and private donations and investment from individuals and foundations.

• Consider a multimillion dollar state bond matched with federal and local municipality funds to develop the infrastructure facilities for farmland preservation, food storage, processing and sales. This model could follow closely other governmentally supported initiatives such as the Department of Agriculture’s

Potato Market Improvement Fund, which targeted loans to upgrade potato storages, with the result that Maine is now a leader in potato quality improvement; and the department’s Agricultural Marketing Loan Fund, which has helped small producers build effective vegetable storage and processing facilities; and the Portland fish pier where public investment covers the basic costs of building and certain capital equipment, while private vendors lease space for their particular market activity.

• Support various state agriculture initiatives such as one establishing a task force that would study the job-creating potential and challenges confronting the agricultural sector and the opportunities to enhance the development of traditional, niche, and new, innovative agriculture enterprises; and one in support of the farmto-school program which aims to spur more purchases of local foods by school systems. (See article by Amy Winston, this issue.)

• Develop an interagency agreement for funding that can also bring federal funds, state agencies, and private agencies into the mix to coordinate public funds and map out strategies in support of development initiatives in the food sector, including health and safety, food supply, and state-sponsored buying requirements for institutions.

• Reinvest in Maine’s Farms for the Future program (operated by the Maine Department of Agriculture), which began in 2003 and has used $2,000,000 in public bond financing to support the development of new enterprises among farmers and value-added grants for various enterprises building on the voter-approved bond last year that included $1,000,000 for agricultural-processing enterprises.

• Conduct policy research on how private donors, philanthropic organizations, and investors can deploy funds for the benefit of private companies and self-employed persons to launch or expand businesses in the food sector.

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Michael Pollan (2008), noted writer on U.S. food policy and systems, argued in a New York Times Magazine article for a public policy that promotes a wholesome U.S. agriculture system as a matter of national health and security. He further states that lowincome families should be able to double the purchasing power of their food-stamp (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP]) debit cards when shopping at farmers’ markets. Pollan’s roadmap to building a reliable food system should be required reading for all. The good news is there are many people within government and the private sector working on solutions, policies, and practices. Given the tremendous upheavals in the nation and the world today, it is time to treat food as a national-security priority and to lead the way in rebuilding a robust Maine food system. -

MasterCard. 2002. Working for Small Business. The Plan – A Step-By-Step Business Plan Workbook.

MasterCard, Purchase, NY. http://www.mastercard. com/us/business/en/pdf/MasterCard_BusPlan_ Sept21.pdf [Accessed May 7, 2011] Metrick, Andrew. 2007. Venture Capital and the Finance of Innovation. John Wiley& Sons. Hoboken, NJ. Moseley Group. 2009. Maine Lobster Industry Strategic Plan. Prepared on behalf of the Governor’s Task Force on the Economic Sustainability of Maine’s Lobster Industry. Maine Department of Marine Resources, Augusta.

Pollan, Michael. 2008. Farmer in Chief. New York Times Magazine (October 12). http://michaelpollan.com/ articles-archive/farmer-in-chief [Accessed May 7, 2011] Stynes, Daniel J. 1997. Economic Impacts of Tourism.

Michigan State University, Ann Arbor. https://www. msu.edu/course/prr/840/econimpact/pdf/ecimpvol1. pdf [Accessed May 21, 2011]

REFERENCES Biemann, Betsy. 2011. “New Foods for Thought: Maine Food Producers Add Value through Innovation.”

Maine Policy Review 20(1): 229.

Brookings Institute. 2006 Charting Maine’s Future.

Brookings Institute, Washington, DC. Commission on Maine’s Future. 1977. Commission on Maine’s Future: Final Report. The Commission, Augusta.

Ellsworth American. 2007. “Gourmet Canning Company Expands Facility and Increases Sales Using Lean Principles: Seven New Jobs Added: Entrepreneurial Spirit Takes Hold.” Ellsworth American (February 6–12).

Governor’s Task Force on the Sustainability of the Dairy Industry in Maine. 2009. 2009 Dairy Task Force Final Report. Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources, Augusta.

Harker, John. 2008. The Agricultural Creative Economy: Needs, Opportunities and Market Analysis. Maine Department of Agriculture, Augusta.

Valesquez, Christa. 2011. Annie E. Casey Foundation Presentation before a Maine Community Foundation Forum. University of Southern Maine, Portland.

Winston, Amy. 2011. “Farm to School.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 233–235.

Ron Phillips is founder and CEO of Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) in Wiscasset, a statewide and nationally known Community Development and Financial Institution.

Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. 2006. A Food Policy for the State of Maine. Maine Department of Agriculture, Augusta.

Manuel, Virginia. 2011. “Local and Regional Food Systems: A USDA Priority.” Maine Policy Review 20(1): 227.

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INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: Local and Regional Food Systems

Local and Regional Food Systems: A USDA Priority

By Virginia Manuel

M

ore and more consumers are looking to buy local and nutritional foods, and the USDA is supporting these efforts. The development of local and regional food systems is a critical component of its FY 2010–FY 2015 Strategic Plan. Locally, USDA Rural Development is leading the way to a healthier Maine— one that helps connect local farmers and communities to consumers who demand fresh produce grown on local Maine farms. This is the future of agriculture: a local chain of supply and demand that brings farmers face to face with consumers. People want to know their food has been grown from local soil, created local jobs, and kept hard-earned dollars in their own communities.

In response to a call from President Obama to reinvigorate local food systems, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative on September 15, 2009.

Through this important new initiative, the USDA is ensuring that its current programs are used effectively and new policies are developed in support of local and regional food systems.

USDA Rural Development is no stranger to investing in local and regional foods systems, having contributed more than $5.4 million over the past five fiscal years to rural Maine communities. USDA has nine different programs in the form of loans, grants, and guarantees to help rural communities, businesses, and agricultural producers to support local agriculture.

Here are recent examples of projects funded by USDA Rural Development.

The Aroostook Band of Micmac Indians received a Rural Business Enterprise grant in the amount of $492,363, which it is using to construct two buildings and two greenhouses to create a farmers’ market and nursery on U.S. Route 1 between Presque Isle and Caribou. The farmers’ market will be open to all local farmers who want to sell their produce. The public will be able to rent space to sell goods. The facility will be open year round, and will have space for cold storage.

The Maine Alternative Agriculture Association received a $199,000 Rural Business Enterprise grant to renovate the Starks Grange Hall to include a new kitchen and cold storage. The association will contract with local farmers to provide farm products that will be collected, processed, and distributed from the new facility. The farm products will be “beyond organic” by emphasizing sound soil management and being pesticide free.

The Progress Center, a nonprofit organization in Norway, received a Community Facilities grant of $84,000 through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The center will use the funds to renovate space for use as a community kitchen, allowing it to serve up to 200 meals a day, three days a week for town residents in need, using nutritious and locally grown food from the local farmers’ collaborative.

Dexter Regional Development Corporation received a Community Facilities grant of $40,000 to create a year-round farmers’ market in Dexter. The Dexter Community Farm Project is an initiative in the town of Dexter to support local farmers and provide people in the area with fresh local produce. The project will also feature a kitchen that will have a variety of uses such as hosting workshops for farmers and the community.

Exeter Agri-Energy received Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) loan and grant funds of $2.16 million. Stonyvale Farms is benefiting from the funds, which will finance Maine’s first large-scale methane anaerobic digester. This important project will help to save energy costs, increase the sustainability of the business, and save 24 agriculture-related jobs in Maine’s dairy industry. -.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 227

INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: Micmac Farms

Micmac Farms: From Community Garden to Four-Season Farm and Retail Outlet

By Jane Caulfield

S

ince time immemorial, the Micmac people have lived in the area that is now known as Quebec, Atlantic Canada, and Maine. As in all cultures, traditions change over time, but the tribe works to preserve the ancient wisdom that keeps us in balance within ourselves and in our relationships with all living things.

Starting a community garden was a way for the Aroostook Band of Micmacs to achieve balance. Over many years tribal members were experiencing health problems that rarely occurred in our ancestors, which reflected unhealthy dietary practices and a lack of physical exercise, according to the tribe’s Indian Health Service physi­cian. Aroostook is also one of the poorest regions in Maine, and nearly 80 percent of tribal families are below poverty. However, the tribe owns several hundred acres of prime farmland in Aroostook County, which is the most intensive agricultural region in Maine.

The tribe responded to the income and health disparities by using its rich land resource and in 2009 planted a large garden to provide healthy, affordable food for the tribe and the Aroostook County community.

The 18-acre farm is located on U.S. Route 1 between Presque Isle and Caribou, Maine. The tribe planted eight acres in fruit and landscape trees, along with strawberries, raspberries and high-bush blueberries. There are about 10 acres of row and cover crops, and the tribe is also propagating seedlings for a fiveacre Christmas tree plantation. Last summer, tribal members received vouchers through the Bureau of Indian Affairs to purchase fresh vegetables from the farm, and the farm opened a roadside stand to sell fresh produce to the public.

228 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

With that success, the tribe decided to grow the garden into a natural-resource-based economic-development project to create jobs and generate income for its members. The idea came at an opportune time because USDA Rural Development was responding to a groundswell of public support for building local food systems through its Local and Regional Food Systems initiative. USDA Rural Development awarded the tribe a Rural Business Enterprise Grant of $492,363 in September 2009 to construct two 4,400-square-foot buildings and to place two 2,880-square-foot greenhouses on the site. One building will house a brook trout hatchery and cold storage; the other will have a general store and kitchen for preparing and preserving food. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife provided technical assistance in the hatchery design and construction, an important part of the project because it will restore a traditional and healthy food back into the community’s diet.

The tribe also received a USDA Agricultural Marketing Service Farmers Market Promotions Program grant for training to produce, manage, and market agricultural products and to establish an electronic benefits-transfer program that will help distribute fresh produce to recipients of food-assistance programs.

The total project, including matching funds from the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, is more than $800,000.

Micmac Farms is evolving from a community garden into a four-season agricultural business. This project will serve the 1,200 members of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs, along with local residents and visitors. The general store will sell fresh produce and fish from the farm, provide kiosk spaces for local farmers and artisans, and sell native-made crafts. The store will also offer a simple, healthy menu of salads, soups, and chowders, which will add significant value to the farm’s fish and produce. Partnerships with other local farms will augment the offerings. A web site will allow people to order products for local delivery or shipping throughout the U.S. Construction is nearly complete, and the general store will have its grand opening this summer. This is a project rich in potential. The tribe envisions it as an expression of its ties with the Earth and the community—and as an example of true Micmac hospitality. -

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INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: New Foods For Thought

New Foods For Thought: Maine Food Producers Add Value through Innovation

by Betsy Biemann

M

ost people think of Maine vegetables growing in our fields and gardens. That’s not the way Tollef Olson, founder of Portland-based Ocean Approved sees it. His company produces table-ready kelp for upscale restaurants and home kitchens across the U.S. He sold more than 6,000 pounds of it last year—all grown in the Gulf of Maine.

Ocean Approved is one of a number of Maine businesses reinventing the way agricultural and marine food producers get product to the nation’s tables. Innovation has long been known to contribute more than half of all economic growth. Innovators such as Olson are building on Maine’s heritage and know-how, adding value to the state’s natural resources, expanding into existing and new markets, and putting Maine on the map nationally and globally for food and beverages.

The Maine Technology Institute (MTI) provides seed funding and assistance that helps Maine entrepreneurs to develop, test, and bring new products to market, and its support has helped boost Ocean Approved’s progress.

Another example, Gladstone’s Under The Sun, located in Hancock, near the blueberry fields of Downeast Maine, processes wild blueberries using an infusion method that results in all-natural, low sugar, moist and dried wild blueberries. By drying wild Maine blueberries without the use of high fructose corn syrup or cane sugar, Gladstone’s healthier food products have a longer shelf life and appeal to markets where low sugar, non-genetically modified products are

in demand. The pilot processing plant used more than 75,000 pounds of locally grown and frozen wild blueberries in 2010, and the company is now looking to expand so they can meet current sales demand.

Apple Acre Farms in South Hiram has integrated new product development into its mission, resulting in several value-added foods, such as its 100 percent apple cider syrup. Made from Maine apples that are not showcase specimens, the syrup is a tasty and versatile kitchen ingredient that takes some of the four million Maine apples normally composted at year-end and turns them into a high-value food product.

Another of the state’s value-added ventures, Maine Distilleries, sprung up from the need to add value to, and find new outlets for, Maine potatoes. Both its Cold River vodka and gin products are made from potatoes grown by Green Thumb Farms in Fryeburg, which wanted to find a new markets for potatoes. The vodka venture has provided a tremendous outlet for cull potatoes. And as a ground-to-glass operation, Maine Distilleries handles every process with Maine resources, from planting the potato to distillation to bottling.

Maine needs more than individually successful companies to have a vibrant economy. It needs to develop clusters of allied businesses to drive regional business growth and economic development. These clusters can share knowledge, a skilled workforce, product-development and process-improvement capacity, and supplychain efficiencies. To support Maine’s clusters, MTI’s Cluster Initiative Program targets high-potential clusters and supports collaborative industry-led initiatives that tackle obstacles and pursue joint opportunities to accelerate business growth and multiply economic impact.

Maine’s value-added food cluster represents food manufacturers, distributors, retailers and packaging providers. As of 2008, this cluster comprised about 200 companies and about 6,000 jobs. In 2009, MTI funded the Maine Manufacturing Extension Partnership to collaborate with the Maine Grocers Association, Maine Tomorrow, and the Maine Food Producers Alliance to help these companies to thrive and to promote the state’s value-added food producers. With MTI’s help, this initiative is helping food producers add value to Maine’s natural agricultural and marine resources and connect with each other and with the intellectual and financial assets they need to grow. -

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 229

INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: On Slow Money

On Slow Money

By Linzee Weld

S

low Money is a call to people to invest in local farms and food businesses. A growing number of households support local farms by shopping at farmers’ markets; buying community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares; joining buying clubs; and choosing local food at the grocery store. People can now go one step further and invest in local food ventures. Know your farmer…invest in your farmer!

Slow Money emerged from the Slow Food and social-venture-investing movements. Woody Tasch’s book, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money, appeared in 2008 when the collapse of the financial markets was rocking people’s confidence in traditional investments. As banks closed, stocks plunged, and interest rates fell, Tasch encouraged investing in local food businesses to build a more sustainable future.

Tasch has formed Slow Money, a nonprofit organization, which has convened two national conferences bringing together farmers, food entrepreneurs, investors, foundations, public, nonprofit and private lenders, and food activists (see www.slowmoney.org). Slow Money is creating its own investment fund, the Soil Trust, and is partnering with existing financial institutions, such as RSF Social Finance and the Calvert Funds, to create other local food investment vehicles.

The Slow Money idea has gone viral; chapters are springing up around the country. From the Pacific Northwest to Austin, Texas, to Maine, there are more than 30 regional groups empowering people to gain the knowledge to invest directly in local food businesses.

Former MOFGA board chair and farmer Bonnie Rukin has taken the lead in coordinating Slow Money Maine (SMM). The group convenes bimonthly gatherings that provide farmers, food entrepreneurs and funders the opportunity to showcase their businesses and activities. These open meetings are bringing new people to the table, joining the rich panoply of organizations in Maine devoted to advancing Maine’s farm,

230 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

fisheries, and food sectors, including MOFGA, Maine Farmland Trust, Coastal Enterprises, Inc., county, state, and federal funders, foundations, and many more.

Slow Money Maine is a network that provides a platform for people to connect in ways that are strengthening individual businesses and leading to new start-up ventures. SMM forums lead to offline brainstorming about financing, distribution, marketing, and production. In the short year and a half since its first meeting in Farmington, the SMM network has inspired more than $655,000 in loans, grants, and equity investments in Maine’s food and farm sectors.

In addition to fostering creative connections, the SMM network is generating new initiatives and ideas: • SMM has worked with lawyers to clear the pathway for funders to donate to 501(c)(3) economic development agencies to assist food businesses in economically disadvantaged areas of the state.

• SMM activists have formed a micro-loan fund, No Small Potatoes Investment Club, which recently made its first round of loans to six farms and food businesses from York to Aroostook counties.

A consensus has emerged that it is a priority to invest resources in businesses that help Maine farmers control their costs (livestock feed grain, for example) or access new markets through aggregation, processing, storage and distribution. These businesses—vegetable and meat processors, grain mills, online marketing efforts, food-buying clubs, multi-farm CSAs, food hubs—boost farm sales and help to develop Maine’s capacity to feed itself and the region. -

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INVESTING IN MAINE’S FOOD SYSTEM: Crown O’ Maine Organic Cooperative

Crown O’Maine Organic Cooperative

By Leah Cook

C

rown O’ Maine is a distribution company sourcing and selling Maine foods, whether farmed, raised, produced, or caught. It began on our family farm in Aroostook County as a response to the geographic challenges of marketing organic produce and grew in a grassroots, necessity-driven way over the last 15 years.

From selling organic potatoes from our family’s van, we’ve grown to the point where our two trucks pick up from 140 producers and deliver $1 million worth of product to 150 different customers.

There are lots of local food distributors who consider themselves small, and the definition of “local” can be fuzzy. Our company has grown step by step so that $1 million in sales comes from an average order size of $300. Our products are grown and produced across the state, in places as far apart as Fort Kent, Grand Isle, Portland, Thomaston, Unity, Guilford, and Whitefield. Our customers are restaurants, retail stores, buying clubs, and schools. We, the owners, still pack orders every week. When our trucks pick up, they load mixed loads and a wide variety of sizes: four pallets of potatoes, roughly four tons, or three cases of sunflower oil, or 25 bags of onions at a time.

We, like many other businesses in the sustainable food world, have grown slowly for many years, cultivating demand alongside the supply. In recent years, we’ve seen and experienced the explosion of interest in local foods, and in these past few years of recession, we’ve also seen that interest continue to grow. Food, and the kind of food we’re in, is a values-driven business.

There are many factors contributing to our success, and a few critical ones. First and foremost is the nature

and culture of Mainers. Mainers have an active interest in their neighbors and have been breakaways within the nation for awareness and engagement in sustainable food systems. Maine has a working heritage and practicality that saves it from some dilution of local food movements by trends and buzzwords.

Another contributing factor to our growth has been the resources available for small businesses and farmers that have been key in the incubation of successful ventures. After two strong growth curves and accompanying plateaus of slow steady growth, we received grant money and loan money from the Maine Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Loan Fund (AMLF) and Finance Authority of Maine (FAME) that went towards the purchase of our first refrigerated commercial truck. Without outside funding, we would not have been able to afford the truck that allowed us to expand and reach our current level of growth.

From our perspective at the intersection of producer and consumer, we see several key things that could help this movement/industry. They are • Sympathetic educated policymakers.

• Continued definition of what sustainable food and agriculture systems look like in Maine.

• Continued financing for infrastructure needs.

In the end, there is no substitute for hard work, and the creation of a local sustainable food system will depend on all of us working hard in our respective spheres, from farmers to policymakers, to craft it into reality. -

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 231

Regional and Local Approaches

The absence of a statewide food plan or food policy has not hindered the formation of numerous organizations and strategies to build Maine’s food system. Most of these “from the ground up” actors and actions are local, regional, or statewide and include many efforts already discussed in this issue. In this section, we include a sampling of some additional models that are building momentum, transforming lives, and altering the future of Maine’s food system. These include farm-to-school and farm-to-institution efforts, the emergence of food hubs in various regions, the establishment of the Maine Network of Community Food Councils, new online tools and web sites to connect producers and consumers, and some “good news” stories about community revitalization through food endeavors.

No doubt there are many more efforts underway. Since the beginning of time, people have come together to break bread, celebrate the harvest, and share in nature’s bounty. This spirit is alive and well in Maine.

232 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Farm to School

Farm to School

by Amy Winston

F

arm-to-school programs connect K-12 schools to local farmers and (in Maine) to fishermen to improve the quality of school meals by incorporating fresh, whole local foods. Successful programs expand market opportunities for local food producers and fisherman and educate students about good nutrition and the role of local foods in sustaining rural communities. Many programs extend beyond local foods in the cafeteria to include wastemanagement programs, such as composting, and other educational experiences, such as planting school gardens, cooking demonstrations, and farm tours.

Farm-to-school programs simultaneously address contemporary social, economic, environmental, and public health issues related to sustainable agriculture and economic development, public health, and education. They enjoy broad-based support. This movement cuts across demographic, economic, and political differences, and is easily tailored to varied community, classroom, and cafeteria settings. It is a nonpartisan, proven, responsible, sustainable form of economic development, and promotes healthier eating habits in students.

There are more than 2,000 operational farm-toschool programs in 48 states serving nearly 10,000 schools in more than 2,200 districts (www.farmtoschool.org). The University of North Carolina (for the National Farm to School Network [NFSN] and W.K. Kellogg Foundation) and Tufts University (for Harvard Pilgrim Health Care) evaluated two Maine programs— Lincoln County and Unity’s RSU3—as national and regional models. The NFSN Northeast Regional Lead Agency, housed at Coastal Enterprises, Inc., provides technical assistance to programs in seven states (New England and New York) and directly connects Maine to peer programs and other farm-to-school models to identify mutual gaps and obstacles, develop cross-state trust and collaboration, and work together to strengthen the food system.

Farm-to-school programs are profitable for farmers and improve the viability of school foodservice programs

Farm-to-school through increased participation programs simulin school meals (Joshi, Azuma and Feenstra 2008). In an address taneously address to the National Press Club on February 23, 2010, U.S. contemporary Agriculture Secretary Vilsack identified farm-to-school programs social, economic, as a key component of nutrition education and an effective way environmental, and “to increase the amount of produce available to school cafetepublic health issues rias and help to support local farmers by establishing regular, related to sustaininstitutional buyers.” He called on education leaders and states able agriculture and to embrace farm-to-school programs to connect consumers and economic developfarmers. In testimony William Dietz, of the U.S. Centers for ment, public health, Disease Control, identified “Farm to School Programs as an and education. effective mechanism to improve the quality of school meals, enhance effectiveness of nutrition education, and provide opportunities for eco-literacy training of students through handson experiences in the outdoors. Farm to school programs support local farmers and economies, and make schools leaders of socially responsible and innovative food policy” (Dietz 2011, emphasis added).

Today, Maine schools serve nearly 30 million meals annually, with food costing $1.14 per meal. Food expenditures in Maine public school represent a $44 million market with significant potential and value-adding opportunities for Maine food producers.1 A five percent increase in local purchases by K-12 schools alone—not counting private schools, colleges, and universities, not to mention hospitals, assisted living, or correctional facilities—generates $2.2 million in additional income annually for Maine’s food economy. A 20 percent increase in local purchasing sends an $8.8 million ripple in additional income through the economy, creating jobs and further economic opportunities for Maine farmers, fishermen, and food businesses.

To illustrate this potential, in December 2010, I interviewed five Maine foodservice directors from

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 233

REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Farm to School

TABLE 1: 2010–2011 School Food Expenditures: Rural, Suburban, Urban

District Unity RSU3

Total Budget

Food Budget

Amount Local

Percentage Local

$904,336

$450,000

$66,000

40.00%

SAD6

$1,773,728

$680,000

$25,000

3.67%

Auburn

$1,002,500

$483,000

$175,000*

3.60%

?

$1,140,000

$40,000

3.35%

Portland Bangor

$1,300,000

Total:

$4,980,564**

*Includes bread and milk

$395,000

$900

0.23%

$3,148,000

$306,900

9.76%

**Missing data (incomplete)

three urban, one suburban, and one rural district serving 6,383 students in 41 schools with combined food budgets of $3,148,000. These districts spend an average 10 percent of their respective budgets on food.

Of $3.1 million spent on food in 2010, $306,900, nearly 20 percent, already goes to 26 local suppliers (including Oakhurst, LePage, Sysco, and NorthCenter); 18 of those were actually direct purchases that supported Maine family-owned businesses without a middleman (see Table 1).

With 8,000 farms and more than 1.35 million acres of land in farms, Maine has the potential to supply much more of the food that is served in school meals. It makes good economic sense to link institutional purchasing to the viability of family and smallscale farms and preservation of working landscapes.

Current (outdated) purchasing practices (intentionally or not) unnecessarily discriminate against small-scale food producers, processors, and distributors. It has become clear, because of several factors including fuel costs, food safety, and carbon impact, that bigger is no longer better in terms of mass movement, procurement, and processing of school foods. Maine can both save money and promote local industry through responsible, enabling legislation.

To succeed, foodservice directors must balance cost, nutrition, and student participation—and be motivated (Izumi, Alaimo and Hamm 2010; Sacheck et al. 2010). For example, in Lincoln County, technical assistance for economic development and community support increased staff commitment and capacity to purchase and serve local products on a regular basis (Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention 2010). According to one superintendent, a wellness policy with farm234 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

Number of Suppliers

to-school language was critical for his district. Now Lincoln County 13 serves as a successful economic model. Gorham’s Maine Harvest 3 Lunch, Healthy Acadia’s Hancock 5 County Farm to School program, 4 and the Western Mountains’ Eat 1 Smart Eat Local campaign catalyzed 26 initial interest around the state.

Requests for technical assistance from parents, teachers, school nutrition directors, administrators, farmers, and fishermen are ongoing.

Along with being a sound form of economic development, farm-to-school programs also have important health benefits. With a captive audience of 56 million students, the nation’s 126,000 “schools are in a unique position to influence and promote healthy dietary behaviors and to help ensure appropriate nutrient intake” (Dietz 2011). Peer-reviewed research shows that school-based nutrition education cultivates healthy eating habits in supportive environments (O’Toole et al. 2007; Gonzalez, Jones and Frongillo 2009). Farmto-school programs increase students’ consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Experiential learning and the use of locally grown produce in school meals through farm-to-school and school garden programs provide lifelong lessons in health and nutrition. There is extensive health data available with respect to the benefits of farm-to-school programs (including obesity prevention, minimizing the risk of foodborne illness by decreasing food miles and storage times, among others). Farm-to-school programs have broad support from the health care sector in Maine.

In 2008, the Maine Farm to School Work Group (MF2SWG) was established to bring together community organizers and other stakeholders to increase the number of farm-to-school programs in Maine. In 2009, a legislative resolve (L.D. 1140) requested that MF2SWG research and recommend ways to strengthen farm-to-school in Maine. In 2010, MF2SWG submitted its report to the legislature with recommendations and actionable suggestions for state support. The next step in this process, L.D. 1446, An Act to Establish a Maine Farm and Fish to School Program, proposed a state Farm and Fish to School Program (the nation’s first),

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Farm to School

with financial incentives for schools and food producers to develop sustainable local-procurement strategies, convert kitchens to scratch cooking, and integrate foodbased education into school curricula. The legislation proposed technical assistance and training through interagency collaboration and coordination with stakeholders to help schools and farms to build capacity to supply and source local foods within existing school budgets by buying in season, providing knowledge about how to work with local products, and processing and storing readily used products year-round. L.D. 1446 also directed schools to adopt farm-to-school language in federally mandated school-wellness policies to support, promote, and facilitate local purchasing.

The guidelines concerning local purchasing contained in L.D. 1446 alarmed some school nutrition directors justifiably concerned about tight budgets.

Department of Education testimony incorrectly portrayed these targeted procurement percentages as unfunded mandates. Yet, existing purchases from large distributors sourcing Maine products count toward those benchmarks and, more importantly, qualify for the 33 percent match. In 2011, due to updated federal child nutrition standards, Maine schools will receive an additional $1.7 million ($.06 per meal) in reimbursement. Schools should spend these funds locally.

Careful research informed this legislative effort.

Thirty-three states have passed farm-to-school legislation to create effective new statewide programs to get locally grown produce to schools and help them get the equipment needed to prepare fresh foods, to encourage preferential local purchasing, to allocate grant money for implementing farm-to-school projects, to establish databases with participating schools and producers to facilitate and track procurement, and to offer incentives through income tax credits for farmers. Fourteen of those established state-supported programs, and 10 funded farm-to-school programs directly (NFSN 2010; Winterfield, Shinkle and Morandi 2011).

Despite solid data and more than two years of collaborative statewide research, instead of a fullfledged Farm and Fish to School Program as set forth in L.D. 1446, Maine is taking a step back to replicate a temporary pilot similar to that in Oregon, which produced a multiplier of $1.86; beyond the direct impact of buying local food, every dollar schools spent

on local food generated an additional $.86 of economic activity in income and spending by affected food businesses and their employees (Kane et al. 2011).

A third party rather than the state will fund the allocation (additional reimbursement) to two districts, one rural and one urban, to justify the return on a relatively short-term (five to 10 years) investment in farm to school that promises to deliver outcomes that stakeholders in public health, economic development, education, and agriculture will welcome. -

ENDNOTE 1. Data on expenditures on food in Maine schools come from http://www.maine.gov/education/sfs/ data_tab.html.

REFERENCES Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention.

2010. Evaluation of Four Farm to School Programs (Internal report)., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Dietz, William H. 2011. Benefits of Farm-to-School Projects, Healthy Eating and Physical Activity for School Children. Testimony before the U.S. Senate, Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry, May 15, 2009 (Rev. April 19, 2011). http://www.hhs. gov/asl/testify/2009/05/t20090515a.html [Accessed May 18, 2011] Gonzalez, Wendy, Sonya J. Jones and Edward A. Frongillo. 2009. “Restricting Snacks in U.S. Elementary Schools Is Associated with Higher Frequency of Fruit and Vegetable Consumption.”

The Journal of Nutrition 139(1): 142–144.

Izumi, Betty T., Katherine Alaimo and Michael W. Hamm. 2010. “Farm-to-School Programs: Perspectives of School Food Service Professionals.” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 42(2): 83–91.

Joshi, Anupama, A.M. Azuma and Gail Feenstra. 2008.

“Do Farm-to-School Programs Make a Difference?

Findings and Future Research Needs.” Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition 3(2/3): 229–246.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 235

REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Farm to School

Amy Winston directs the Farm to Institution initiative at the Stacy A. Sobell and Nell Tessman. 2011. The Impact of Seven Cents: Examining the Effects of a $.07 per Meal Investment on Local Economic Development, Lunch Participation Rates, and Student Preferences for Fruits and Vegetables in Two Oregon School Districts. Ecotrust, Portland, OR.

Northeast Regional Lead Agency, Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI) for the National Farm to School Network. She has been active in farm-to-school legislation and statewide organizing, local food business development, and increasing access to local foods.

National Farm to School Network (NFSN). 2010. State Farm to School Legislation. NFSN, Los Angeles. http://www.farmtoschool.org/files/publications_177. pdf [Accessed May 18, 2011] O’Toole, Terrence P., Susan Anderson, Clare Miller and Joanne Guthrie. 2007. “Nutrition Services and Foods and Beverages Available at School: Results from the School Health Policies and Programs Study 2006.” Journal of School Health 77(8): 500–521.

Sacheck, Jennifer M., Christina D. Economos, Timothy Griffin and Parke E. Wilde. 2010. Dishing out Healthy School Meals: How Efforts to Balance Meals and Budgets are Bearing Fruit. Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare Foundation, Wellesley, MA. https://www.harvardpilgrim.org/pls/portal/docs/ PAGE/MEMBERS/FOUNDATION/HEALTHYMEALS. PDF [Accessed May 18, 2011] Winterfield, Amy, Douglas Shinkle and Larry Morandi.

2011. Reversing the Trend in Childhood Obesity: Policies to Promote Healthy Kids and Communities.

National Conference of State Legislatures, Washington, DC. http://www.rwjf.org/files/research /20110425reversingthetrendinchildhoodobesity.pdf [Accessed May 12, 2011]

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Kitchen Gardens

Kitchen Gardens: From the White House to Your House

by Jean English Douglas Fox

T

he establishment of a “kitchen garden” at the White House by Michelle Obama has helped to raise the visibility and value of growing one’s own food, if only on a small scale. Having a garden used to be commonplace in Maine, both for fresh consumption in season and to have produce to save and can for later. The time is right to reconsider and support the value of kitchen gardens, from both a nutritional and economic point of view.

Mainers spend about $3 billion on food and food services. About 96 percent of this is from food produced out of state (Maine Department of Agriculture 2006).

Dependency on food imports has implications for Maine’s economy and its economic resilience. Although much has been written on the benefits of local farm production, little information is available on the value of home (and community) gardens.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) almost 420 pounds per capita of selected, commercially produced, fresh and processing vegetables and melons were consumed in 2009 (www.ers.usda.gov).

With good soil and close planting, a gardener might get a conservative yield of about one pound per square foot using a raised-bed technique. Therefore, in a 400-squarefoot garden, just 20 x 20 feet, one person can grow enough vegetables for him- or herself.

Extending the growing season can increase that yield and provide an alternative to dependency on the summer growing season. For example, Unity College students used yield figures from the campus’ unheated hoop house to estimate how much of a person’s vegetable needs could be supplied by this 24- by 26-foot space over the course of a winter. Students used the USDA

recommendation of 2.5 cups of vegetables per day per person. This “Maine winter garden,” planted in late summer, supplied more than enough vegetables for one person for 380 days.

Farming and gardening are fairly dependent on fossil fuel inputs. Energy sustainability depends on a harvest of more energy than is put into its production.

Students compared energy inputs and outputs for spinach production. Pimentel and Pimentel (1996) report 0.23:1 calorie output to input for commercial spinach production. In this study, fossil fuel use was minimized. By using hand tilling and a common organic fertilizer, the students achieved a 1.3:1 output to input ratio.

Home gardening keeps food and energy dollars in state. If one-tenth of the 500,000 households in Maine were to grow a 400-square-foot garden, saving $600 per year, this would represent $30 million. Anecdotal observations suggest that home cultivation also encourages direct purchases to farmers, especially during the shoulder seasons around the main growing season.

Capacity for home and community gardening adds to the state’s economic resilience, the ability to cushion the effects of downturns. Home gardens were once the rule rather than the exception. Knowledge of how to grow, preserve, and prepare vegetables was handed down from one generation to the next. Much of this knowledge has been lost, and the supporting infrastructure, from dairy farm manures to well-equipped farm and garden centers, has also been eroding. On the other hand, the availability of local seed has grown, as has interest in home food production. Today, according to the Garden Writers Association Foundation, 40 percent of U.S. households grow vegetables and fruits. Even small home gardens can provide experience that Mainers can use to expand production in hard times, benefitting themselves both nutritionally and economically. -

REFERENCES Maine Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Resources. 2006. A Food Policy for the State of Maine. Maine Department of Agriculture, Augusta.

Pimentel David and Marci Pimentel. 1996. Food, Energy and Society. Colorado University Press, Niwot, CO.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 237

REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Renaissance of a Food-Based Economy in Skowhegan

The Renaissance of a Food-Based Economy in Skowhegan

by Amber Lambke

I

n 2007, community members in Skowhegan, Maine, aimed to address the growing “locavore” movement and demand for locally grown grains for bread baking by starting a conference that would bring together grain growers, bread bakers, millers, and wood-firedoven builders annually for discussions on the topic of reviving regional grain economies. Now in its fifth year, the conference has grown from 75 participants in 2007 to 225 participants in 2010; an Artisan Bread Fair attracted 3,000 people last year to the Skowhegan State Fair Grounds, home of the nation’s longest running agricultural fair. The conference has also spawned the renovation of a former county jail in Skowhegan to become a gristmill, the start-up of baking businesses and hand building of ovens across the nation, and the expansion of the Kneading Conference to include an event in Mt. Vernon, Virginia, in September 2011.

Local organizers are linking educational, health, and entrepreneurial activities in a broad network of publicprivate partnership to advance regional food systems and better health.

Facing the vacancy of a historic 14,000-squarefoot Victorian jailhouse in their downtown and the lack of gristmills that once serviced a robust grain economy in central Maine, friends and cofounders of the Kneading Conference, Amber Lambke and Michael Scholz, joined together to buy the building and formed the Somerset Grist Mill. After three years of research and development, the project is poised to complete a

238 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

first phase of renovations by the summer of 2011 and to start milling grain grown in Maine. The milling operation anchors this expanding food hub that is fast becoming a vibrant marketplace for buyers and sellers of local food.

In 2009, Skowhegan’s year-round weekly farmers’ market moved to the Somerset Grist Mill. It offers face-to-face retail sales and a family-friendly, social, and educational gathering place. Plans to house a yearround retail and wholesale marketplace are currently underway, which will make local food available to an expanded core of customers from institutions, restaurants, manufacturers, retail grocers, schools, and members of both the business and the low-income communities. The commercial kitchen and coldstorage facilities onsite further broaden the prospects for product lines made from local foods for valueadded food distribution. The gristmill will soon be the home of the Kneading Conference mobile wood-fired oven, which will be used for community suppers and baking workshops when not on the road going to schools for bread baking with children.

The transformation of the former jail into a gathering place and hub of entrepreneurial activity has already become a point of pride for local citizens living in one of Maine’s poorest counties. In Skowhegan, poverty (16.2 percent), childhood obesity (93.6 percent), and hunger are prevalent; 51 percent of the town’s population qualifies for federal nutrition-assistance programs. The Somerset Grist Mill and Skowhegan farmers’ market are collaborating with local physicians and foundations to encourage Skowhegan’s low-income population to buy fresh local foods.

Through support from the Wholesome Wave Foundation, users of federal nutrition-assistance programs are offered “double dollars” on their food purchases at the farmers’ market, and local physicians are offering “veggie prescriptions,” $10 prescriptions to pregnant mothers for fresh fruits and vegetables from the farmers’ market. Weekly 5K fun runs in the summer that begin and end at the gristmill further contribute to promoting healthy lifestyles and bringing the community together.

Driven by grassroots efforts and innovative public and private collaboration, the renaissance of a foodbased economy is underway in Skowhegan. -

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Unity Food Hub

Unity Food Hub: Creating New Opportunities for Local Farms

by Michael Gold

I

n recent years, the number of new farms has exploded in the region around Unity, Maine. The majority of these new farms serve direct markets; that is, they don’t sell to a broker or commodity-scale buyer that sources product from multiple farms. Instead, they sell direct to local wholesale or retail customers, limiting the number of transactions between the producer and the end user. This has been a successful strategy for many farms across the state.

But as more and more small farms take root and hope to grow, some of the market venues that have aided direct marketing—such as farmers’ markets and natural food stores—are reaching points of saturation.

This is particularly true in poorer, less-populated regions such as Unity, where local opportunities for farming are beginning to exceed the local demand for farm products, even as local demand grows. As a result, many Unity area farmers are welcoming a new strategy for marketing their products—the creation of a so called food hub.

A food hub is defined by the USDA as “a centrally located facility with a business management structure facilitating the aggregation, storage, processing, distribution, and/or marketing of locally/regionally produced food products” (www.ams.usda.gov).

Food hubs can be formed in different ways to serve different needs. At their core, they are all about increasing opportunities for local farmers. In the Skowhegan area, a food hub is being organized principally around the production and milling of grain. In the Unity area, the focus is on aggregating local vegetable production, so that more of what is grown in this

area might serve larger wholesale markets, yet in ways that retain maximum value for participating farmers.

Maine Farmland Trust is taking the lead to develop this food hub, as it is committed to keep farming viable in a myriad of ways, including developing appropriate community-scale infrastructure.

The Trust is currently undertaking a comprehensive business-planning process for a new facility that might employ any or all of the following functions: dry storage, cold storage, limited processing (principally for select institutional markets), and the possible creation of new retails venues, including a multi-farm community-supported agriculture (CSA) and/or a catering operation serving communities beyond the Unity area.

One of the many advantages of this food hub is that it will create more efficient ways of complying with increasingly stringent regulations on how crops need to be handled after harvest.

At the same time that the food hub is intended to create new opportunities for local farmers to market outside the immediate area, it is also being designed to better serve the local population. The facility will likely also sell product directly, creating a supplemental marketing option to the local weekly farmers’ market.

If Maine is to see the number of small farms continue to grow, one of the keys is to create new ways to get farm products into the hands of consumers efficiently and conveniently. Many strategies warrant active pursuit—including food hubs. -

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 239

REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Franklin County Agriculture

Franklin County: Agriculture as a “Sleeping Giant”

by Tanya Swain

S

ome day skiers who visit Saddleback Mountain may be able to enjoy a pizza with flour from grain grown along the Sandy River, tomatoes and peppers from Franklin County greenhouses, cheese from one of the area’s creameries, and sausage produced from pigs raised in the foothills. That’s the dream of the Franklin County Ag Task Force, an ad hoc group of more than 25 farmers, municipal officials, business leaders, planners, and economic developers formed in April 2008. Facilitated by the Western Mountains Alliance (www.westernmountainsalliance.org), a community-development organization, the Franklin County Ag Task Force envisions a future for its region that includes a strong local agriculture sector with profitable farms of all sizes. The group is working towards this goal one project at a time.

Franklin County sits within Maine’s centralwestern region, bordering Canada on the north and Oxford and Somerset counties to the west and east.

Within the community’s living memory are stories of successful corn shops and poultry operations. Farther back, ranchers had weekly cattle drives to Boston markets and herds of sheep grazed treeless hillsides in the Rangeley region. Many of the farmsteads that supported agriculture in the county still exist, and today new ones are being developed. Between 2002 and 2007, the county enjoyed a 41 percent increase in the value of farm products produced according to the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture.

240 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

While many activities both in and outside the county are contributing to these changes, the Ag Task Force is helping to focus attention on the significance of agriculture to the economy, health and quality of life.

In 2009, the group released The Changing Face of Agriculture in Franklin County (found on their web site), which included stories on a dozen farms and recommendations for supporting the sector. The report identified familiar issues—limited storage, processing and distribution capacity—as barriers to a more vibrant local agriculture sector.

Over the last year, the Ag Task Force has supported the redevelopment of the West Farmington Grange to increase storage and commercial kitchen space in the county. The grange hopes to eventually serve as a distribution center for small farms and currently houses a weekly farmers’ market and pick-up site for the Western Maine Market, one of the first online farmers’ markets operating in the state. To address the challenges of an aging workforce, the Ag Task Force assisted the Foster Technology Center at the Mt. Blue Regional School District to pilot an agriculture tech program in 2010 that provides students with internship opportunities at area farms and training in relevant science and business courses.

Following the 2008 meeting that prompted the Task Force’s formation, long-time farmer and planning board member Herbert “Bussie” York wrote in a guest newspaper column: “I see agriculture as a sleeping giant.

A giant who could—with planning—be one of the primary forces driving the county’s economic future.”

While York and other farmers in the area recognize the importance to the sector of community and business support, the Ag Task Force owes its success in part to the caliber, creativity, and leadership of the farmers themselves. York started the Sandy River Corn MAiZE two years ago and has attracted more than 10,000 visitors to the area. Other task-force members include the owners of King & I Angus, who employ state-of-theart breeding technology to produce top-quality products and Marble Family Farms, which has greenhouse greens available in the community at least nine months of the year. -

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Maine’s Connected Food System

Maine’s Connected Food System: On the Web and Online

by Barbara Ives Sam Merrill

A

re you a farmer or fisherman looking to sell your products? A consumer looking for a nearby farmers’ market? A group of friends hoping to purchase a CSA share or start a buying club? A foodie, a chef, a home gardener, a sheep breeder? Whatever your interest there’s a web site for you. The online, interactive Maine food movement is sophisticated, easy to find, and easy to use. There are blogs, Facebook pages, Google groups, and tweets galore. State agencies, nonprofits, trade associations, schools, groups, and individuals are using these tools and launching new media to connect Maine’s food system. Here are a few of note.

The Eat Local Foods Coalition of Maine has been developing two maps to help increase access and availability of local foods. The Maine Food Map allows you to search for food in your area or add your local food business to the map. The Maine Food, Farming and Fishing Resource Map is a place for food producers to connect with vendors, service providers, and other resources. Both are interactive and allow users to add new resources. The coalition’s web site also has a number of user-formed groups, and discussion forums include topics such as food policy, food consumption, and local foods access.

The Maine Department of Agriculture’s (DOA) “Get Real. Get Maine!” web site allows users to find

food and farms, farmers’ markets, and agriculture fairs.

The DOA is also working with Maine Ag Trader, which has two new web sites that support direct sales, Maine Food Trader and Maine Ag Trader, sponsored by the New England Environmental Finance Center at the Muskie School of Public Service. Consumers find food on Maine Food Trader, and producers find things they need to run their businesses on Maine Ag Trader.

Membership is free, and there are four types of listings: available, wanted, donations, and events. Members can give feedback about the success of their listing, which will enable further studies of statewide patterns of food access. The sites are searchable by items, category, and county, and users can expand the area beyond Maine through Shared Harvest Network, which links to other states’ online traders.

A consumer buying club is a group of friends and neighbors who pool the household food demands of several families to allow wholesale purchase of local food at below retail prices. Buying clubs or collective ordering is not a new idea, but they have grown with the introduction of sophisticated online ordering capabilities. A number of buying-club software packages are available, along with free online ordering templates.

Crown O’ Maine delivers to 38 buying clubs around the state and includes information on its web site on how to start and run a buying club.

Farm Fresh for ME is a new initiative of the Heart of Maine Resource Conservation & Development, which is currently piloting an online marketplace where farmers and consumers can meet to buy and sell local farm products. The ultimate vision of Farm Fresh for ME is to increase the market for small family farms in their communities while supplying food to Maine consumers at an affordable price.

All of these efforts are designed to provide farmers and fishermen with more income and profit while helping families find local, fresh, and nutritious food.

Direct sales, via the web or face-to-face, are a proven way for producers to increase income without consumers taking on added cost. An interconnected food system is the ultimate goal, and the online Maine food universe is making that happen faster and more efficiently. -

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 241

REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Seafood Pies with a Social Purpose

Seafood Pies with a Social Purpose

By Jeff Johnson

C

obscook Bay Company, LLC (CBC), is a new seafood-processing company in Trescott, Maine.

The unique company makes four types of individualserving, all-natural, frozen seafood pies (lobster, crab, scallop, shrimp) under its “Maine Fresh” brand.

Production began in November 2010. All four frozen seafood pies were created by Sam Hayward, awardwinning chef and owner of Portland’s celebrated Fore Street restaurant. All seafood is sustainably harvested and locally sourced from Maine waters. What’s more, CBC’s mission is to support economic development in Washington County, the poorest county in Maine, and to support community-based education with a 25 percent donation from net profits to the Cobscook Community Learning Center. The Cobscook Community Learning Center is an educational initiative creating social change through transformative educational opportunities at the local and global levels.

Currently, Maine Fresh seafood pies can be found in the frozen seafood case in all Hannaford and Whole Foods, NA supermarkets, and also in a few independent grocers via regional/niche distributors.

The company is dedicated to restoring healthy communities through production of delicious, healthy, regionally sourced, value-added food. Maine Fresh seafood pies are made with high-quality, sustainably harvested Maine seafood, fresh herbs, locally grown vegetables (when available), and topped with an allbutter, whole-wheat flaky crust. Within minutes, or at the touch of a button, consumers can enjoy a savory Maine Fresh seafood pie without leaving home.

242 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

After several years of developing the right recipes and operational planning, Maine Fresh now employs 10 people, each of whom would not have had a job if it weren’t for this venture. According to owner of Cobscook Bay Company, John Phinney, and CEO Jeff Johnson, “We are very excited about Maine Fresh’s success so far. It’s wonderful to be engaged in the practice of value-added seafood processing which results in the creation of good jobs, stable prices for seafood, and a stronger economy for Downeast Maine. We appreciate Hannaford’s commitment to high-quality, locally made products, and for embracing our unique social mission to create jobs in Washington County while supporting the Cobscook Community Learning Center.

We are very pleased with the positive feedback and initial sales through Hannaford stores.”

Hannaford spokesperson Matt Paul agrees, “We are proud to work with Maine Fresh and applaud their efforts. This partnership gives our customers another opportunity to buy delicious, local and wholesome products at a great value while giving back to Maine communities. We strive to make a difference in the areas we serve and we’re glad to see that Maine Fresh is committed to doing the same, one pie at a time.” -

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Community Food Councils

Paths towards Food SelfReliance: Community Food Councils

by Ken Morse

A

cross the country, people are experimenting with new frameworks for rebuilding more self-reliant food systems. Ever since industrial food systems took over after World War II, some have understood the problems of such systems and have begun working on alternatives. Recent alternatives in Maine include community-supported agriculture (CSA), community gardens, shared-use kitchens, year-round greenhouses, gardening, scratch cooking, putting food by, and the farm-to-school movement. Meanwhile, fossil fuel dependence, and the rampant negative impacts of the dominant food system on our health, the economy, and the environment have been extensively documented and widely understood.

A growing number of people believe the answer is to expand local and regional food self-reliance. One such new approach is called “food policy councils.” These initiatives vary from place to place; some call themselves “community food councils,” intentionally omitting the word “policy” because their scope goes well beyond policy. This framework brings together people from diverse sectors to discuss rebuilding food systems closer to home. The range and diversity of stakeholders from all sectors, including production, processing, storage, distribution, consumption, and waste management, creates robust capacities and synergies to assess, plan, and implement road maps towards food self reliance.

Other sectors engaged in the process include health and community development organizations. We can’t solve problems in our health system without solving the problems with our food system. Bringing food systems home also brings food dollars home, strengthening local economies, creating jobs, and alleviating the economic woes so closely linked with public health.

In the Oxford Hills area of western Maine, building on 40 years of robust local food activism, we have created “Community Food Matters” as our local community food council. The Oxford Hills area includes about 25,000 people, and we eat about $75 million worth of food every year. If we can implement 80 percent food self-reliance (the goal adopted for Maine by the legislature in 2006), we can bring $60 million into our local economy. To do this, we want to understand how that $75 million gets into our mouths and what we need to do take control of this food supply. We are beginning to map the current system, so we can identify projects that will leverage greater local control. For example, we are studying institutional procurement because we see readiness to shift buying patterns as soon as we can match supply and infrastructure to the demand. Our goal is to create a 20-year road map to guide the path towards food selfreliance for our area.

Our planning process is intentionally not academic and tidy. We realize that to reach such an ambitious goal, we need to engage expanding circles of citizens. Action mobilizes people better than planning, so we are trying to blend action and planning into effective evolutionary dialectics. We are also working closely with St Mary’s Nutrition Center and their Local Food for Lewiston project to create a network of activists involved in community food councils from across Maine. Our statewide group has met twice, and we determining ways to support each other as so many Maine communities embark on parallel food council projects. In May 2011, some of us attended a meeting to launch a national “Food Policy Council Network.”

We like to joke that we can work more effectively by doing R & D (Ripoff and Duplicate) with fellow collaborators. This will allow us all to move much more quickly down common paths towards food self reliance. -

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 243

244 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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Our Authors

Jean English is an adjunct instructor of sustainable horticulture at Unity College; edits The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, MOFGA’s quarterly publication; and writes a

gardening column for local Maine papers.

Elizabeth Banwell is the

Douglas Fox is a professor at Unity College, where he

director of program develop-

directs the Center for Sustainability and Global Change.

ment and strategic initiatives at the Maine Association

Barbara Ginley is executive director of the Maine Migrant

of Nonprofits (MANP). In

Health Program, a statewide primary care program for

partnership with The Broad

migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their family

Reach Fund, MANP has

members.

been running a three-year leadership and network-

Michael Gold coordinates the Farm Viability Program at

development program for emerging leaders in Maine’s local

Maine Farmland Trust. He has operated his own organic

food movement. She is also on the steering committee for

vegetable farm and worked on several other farms and

Slow Money Maine.

has also worked for Johnny’s Selected Seeds, MOFGA Certification Services, and Crown O’ Maine Organic

Betsy Bieman was appointed by Governor John Baldacci to

Cooperative.

serve as president of the Maine Technology Institute in 2005.

Previously, she was an associate director at The Rockefeller

Barbara Ives has been

Foundation in New York City, joining their staff in 1996 after

at the New England

working in the field of international development for 10

Environmental Finance

years, principally in Africa and Latin America.

Center since 2007. She is the project assistant to

Amy Carrington is program coordinator for the New

the center, and has been

American Sustainable Agriculture Program (NASAP),

program manager for the

founded under the umbrella of Coastal Enterprises, Inc. (CEI)

Maine Food Trader and Ag

and which became part of Cultivating Community in 2009.

Trader sites. Before coming to the EFC, Barbara was in education for 13 years, teaching

Jane Caulfield is economic development director for the

at different times from kindergarten through high school

Aroostook Band of Micmacs.

and adult education.

Leah Cook co-owns and operates Crown O’ Maine Organic

Jeff Johnson is CEO of the Cobscook Bay Company. Former

Cooperative with her sister Marada. Together with their

owner and founder of Pemberton’s Gourmet Foods, he has

amazing crew of strong characters, they work hard to get

broad-based marketing management experience with national

good food to good people.

consumer brands such as Unilever, Nabisco, Lipton, Eskimo Pie, Schering-Plough, Polaroid, and Converse footwear.

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Volume 20, Number 1 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · 245

Amber Lambke is a founder

Juan A. Perez-Febles is the state monitor advocate with the

of the Kneading Conference,

Bureau of Employment Services in the Maine Department

and executive director of

of Labor.

the Maine Grain Alliance, the nonprofit organization

John Rebar is executive

responsible for the Kneading

director of the University

Conference, the Maine

of Maine Cooperative

Artisan Bread Fair, and

Extension, a statewide

educational baking work-

resource to Maine people

shops for school children.

located in 16 county offices, on the UMaine campus and

Virginia Manuel has been

in other locations across

state director of USDA Rural Development in Maine

the state. He has been with UMaine Extension for 27 years and director since 2007.

since 2009. She has more than 25 years experience

Linzee Weld is on the steering committee of Slow Money

in business and economic

Maine and is the president of No Small Potatoes Investment

development, international

Club, LLC.

trade and community economic development in both government and the private sector.

Tanya Swain serves as executive director of the Western Mountains Alliance

Sam Merrill is an asso-

(WMA). A community and

ciate research professor

economic development

at the Muskie School of

organization located in

Public Service, University

Farmington, WMA started

of Southern Maine, and

one of the state’s first online

director of the New England

farmers markets in 2009 and

Environmental Finance

facilitates the Franklin County Agriculture Task Force.

Center, housed at the Muskie School. His research interests include fiscal and policy connections between land conservation and development in New England, and developing tools for financial adaptation to sea-level rise.

Ken Morse is the partnership director of Healthy Oxford Hills, a Healthy Maine Partnership, a founder of Community Food Matters, and the Maine lead for the National Farm to School Network.

246 · MAINE POLICY REVIEW · Winter/Spring 2011

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REGIONAL AND LOCAL APPROACHES: Farm to School

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