By Will Brinton Organic farming is grounded in the principle and reality of a vibrant living earth, supporting healthy plant-animal-human communities. This linkage has been encapsulated in the contemporary and somewhat abstract term “ecosystem services,” essentially referring to the benefits humans obtain from natural systems, as formulated in the early work of Paul Ehrlich and
Interview by Holli Cederholm This spring, the United Nation’s body for assessing science related to climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), issued its sixth assessment report (AR6) on climate change since the group’s establishment in 1988. The report was announced to the world with a press release declaring: “Urgent climate action can
By Holli Cederholm In the past several years, farmers in Maine have struggled to cope with drought, severe precipitation events, excessive wind, temperature extremes and hail storms. Across the world, farmers are on the frontlines of volatile weather caused by climate change. From vegetable and small fruit producers to dairy farmers and forest managers, climate
By Holli Cederholm The weather instability that farmers are dealing with today is truly “unprecedented,” according to Laura Lengnick, a soil scientist and the founder of Cultivating Resilience, LLC, in Asheville, North Carolina. Farmers have always had to assess weather-associated risks, but not like this. “Never before in the history – the 10,000 year history
By Denny Gallaudet – March 2020 I have the good fortune to be the owner of a 25 acre woodland in Southern Maine. Abandoned as a pasture in the late 1930’s, it is now a flourishing and well stocked forest of the oak-pine variety. In 2016 I conducted a timber inventory and found that carbon
Connect with MOFGA’s Low Impact Forestry Project to learn about carbon sequestration in our woodlands. English photo By Mitch Lansky and Peter Hagerty Years ago the Low Impact Forestry (LIF) Project surveyed MOFGA members who owned forestland. We asked for feedback from landowners, whether they owned 1 acre or 500. The survey was not scientific, but it did reveal that
While the southern range of bumble bees is moving north, the northern range seems to be stationary. English photo By Sue Smith-Heavenrich As the planet warms, many animals – and even plant populations – are migrating to cooler areas. Some expand their ranges northward; others move upslope, to higher elevations. But not bumble bees. A
At MOFGA’s Spring Growth Conference, Eric Sideman (left) moderated a panel of young growers who are addressing climate change in their operations. From the left: Bill Errickson, Mike Bahner and Tasha Brodeur. English photo Tasha Brodeur uses cover crops extensively at Tasha’s Veggies. Here, on the right, she grew a plot of buckwheat before installing
Lush, productive farms that harbor abundant life above and below ground for as much of the year as possible are important in countering global warming. By Rhonda Houston Snow banks reemerged in Maine this winter. Pulling into oncoming traffic became enough of an adrenaline rush for any extreme sport enthusiast, and as I write this
Drawing by Toki Oshima By Peter Hagerty, Low Impact Forestry Project About 20 years ago a group of friends and I began a series of courses on a new form of logging. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association supported our effort with classrooms and a woodlot. Since then over 1,000 students have attended Low
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